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Conflicting Reports of PS3 Programming Difficulty
xenongamer writes "It appears there isn't any type of concensus regarding the programming difficulty of Sony and IBM's upcoming Cell processor. From the article: 'Although few doubt the relative power of the Cell microprocessor, many have expressed concern over the chip's asymmetric design, which makes programming for it a potential disaster ... One such man was 3D artist Josh Robinson, who was fired from his position at Sony just weeks after making a public, negative comment about PlayStation 3 development on his Internet blog.'"
I've written a huge amount of PS2 code for various games sitting on the shelves right now. I will do my best not to sound too harsh.
Reading your comments I get the feeling what it must be like for a Formula 1 driver listening to someone complain about taking a racing car out for a spin and complaining that it 'hard to drive' and then listing a bunch of silly reasons like no air condition or stereo like he has in his car at home.
The PS2 and PS3 and two of the most amazing and joy to work with graphic systems ever. Unfortunately the people most likely to talk about the two systems are inversely proportionals to their qualifications to do so.
Through some crazy reasoning the fact that Microsoft decided to try to build a console around the legacy x86 hardware design seems to have given the green light to every clown who knows a little DirectX to pass himself off as an expert on console hardware and development. And to run his mouth off on the Net about how the 'crazy' PS2/3 is 'stupid' because it isn't anything like his pc he is used to.
The PS2 and PS3 are machines designed for experienced console engineers to efficiently pipe compact media data from disc to screen for as cheaply as possible. The 8000 or so Sony titles sitting out on the shelves is the only thing that counts.
I have nothing but pity for people stuck in front of their archaic x86 pcs when I have access to something amazingly cool and powerful as the PS2/3.