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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.'"
The debate currently centers on whether it's very difficult or extremely difficult to program for the PS3.
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
Games have gotten much more complicated over the years. Not long ago, anybody could make a game that was on par with the best. Then, It became too hard to make your own game, the best you could do was make mods to existing games. Now, games are so complicated that only people who want to spend tons of time can even learn how to make the mods. Now with the PS3, games will be so complicated, that not even the developers will be able to make them.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The guy was an ARTIST fired for for saying less than flattering things not only about an early development box, but the product he was working on. His opinion about how hard it is to program counts for nothing, he's not doing it, everything was heresay. His primarily complaint was that his game was not taking advantage of the PS3 because they were putting schedule before quality. Anecdotally he referred to other companies that may be doing the same. Nor do I give any attention at all to someones COMPETITOR who claims it is "a nightmare".
I wouldn't give him much air time, I'd rather hear from developers actually working with it. Those who have detailed architectural drawings, APIs etc. Even (especially) if they have to go to great lengths to achieve anonymity. Those guys would know what potential may or may not exist. This article does not give us information on that, the closest we come is a chief architect at a game haus who says he likes it. He's probably closer to development than the others, but still not reliable (since he's on record) and unless title inflation has gone mad, not someone directly doing the work.
A non-story.
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.
Now, all I have to ask is -- how the FUCK is that even possible? The PS3's specs beat the Xbox360's in every possible way!
A lot of the theoretical power in the PS3 comes from multiplying the power of each processor times the number of processors. Actually being able to make use of parallel processing power is notoriously hard. Usually one step of a computation depends on another. Programming for concurrency is in general a nightmare. Games will be buggier and much harder to develop if they want to make full use of the parallel cores. Sorry, no free lunch here.
Comparing the specs of the system is not straightforward. You can't just do something like a 0-60 mph benchmark like you would for a car. I don't think you are up for it, but if you want to get an inkling of the tradeoffs involved, here's a link: Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PS3 - A Hardware Discussion
I feel sorry for the developers who have to make their games portable for both systems. I suspect we will get a lot of lowest-common-denominator games. It will be interesting to see if Sony can make a game that shows off the PS3 in a way that the 360 can't match.