Sony Makes It Hard To Develop For the PS3 On Purpose

adeelarshad82 writes "CNet reports on a bizarre comment from Sony's Computer Entertainment CEO in response to complaints from developers on how hard it is to develop games for the Playstation 3. 'We don't provide the "easy to program for" console that (developers) want, because "easy to program for" means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?' Given that games heavily drive console sales, and the fact that the PS3 is already 8 million units behind the Xbox 360, I think making a developer's job harder is the last thing Sony needs."

Comments

Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Ballmer was absolutely correct in emphasizing the one thing that really matters for any platform.

Developers, Developers, Developers

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[telchine]

I think this is quite a valid strategy. It's liek Visual Basic, it turns application development into a drag and drop excercise. Anyone can do it, even people who don't really understand programming! However that results in Visual Basic getting a bad reputation because anything that's written by bad programmers is going to end up a bit shoddy. Sony don't want their console associated with shoddy games. They'd prefer that only decent programmers create games for their system.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[BadAnalogyGuy]

That really isn't what Hirai said, though. If I'm interpreting his comment correctly, he is saying that he wants to see a progression in quality over the 10 year lifespan of the PS3. The first games will take little advantage of the HW, but as time goes on and developers become more acquainted with the platform they create games that take more advantage of those HW features.

It sounds like a post-release justification for a massive blunder.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[svendsen]

Now that's a strategy they dont teach you in business school. You want the hurdle to be high so your compliment products can't be developed as quickly or cheaply (money) which your product depends on for sales?

If sony didn't want their console associated with shoddy games then they certainly failed, just go to gamespot, IGN, etc and see how many crappy games are on the platform (like all consoles have).

Sony messed up and are trying to cover their asses with a lame ass statement.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Computershack]

The first games will take little advantage of the HW, but as time goes on and developers become more acquainted with the platform they create games that take more advantage of those HW features.

That's if they've not got sick of fighting the console and decided to put their development money elsewhere. Developing games costs a lot of money and there's not going to be many software houses happy about having to needlessly waste money on R&D just because Sony decide to make it deliberately hard in order to artificially prolong the life of a console.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

Yeah but then you go to nintendo.com and you read the exact-opposite (quoted from memory): "We made the Nintendo 64 too difficult to develop games, and therefore they made the Gamecube easy to program." The Wii is probably extremely-easy, since it's essentially a Cube with some improved specs. Wii's at the top of the pile as the best-selling unit.

Previous #1 console: Were they easy to program relative to their competitors?

PS2 - no.
PS1 - yes.
SNES - no.
NES - yes.
Atari VCS - no.

I guess there's no real pattern there; it's rather random.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tixxit]

They did this same strategy with the PS2 and its emotion engine or whatever. I remember after about a year, hearing about how these first gen games still hadn't even used a good hunk of the PS2's power. Well, if you look at some of the games that came out over the next few years, I'd say they were right! And he is right, you are not really going to see a vast improvement in the games on the Xbox over the next years. Developers are already trying to max out the hardware. The PS3 may be tricky, but there is still huge room for improvement in games (and its not like they look bad already).

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[frieko]

Great. Or:

1. Make development easy
2. Deny publication rights for games that suck
3. ???
4. Profit!

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Mascot]

"Real programmers" love Visual Basic. It enables them to fulfil their customers' requests a lot quicker. Rather than spending a week in C they can spend a few hours in VB. This means happier customers, and more revenue.

The only ones that think Visual Basic has a bad reputation are kids in bedrooms that think there's some inherent value in using the lowest level language available, rather than the right tool for the job. VB isn't by any means the right tool for all jobs, but it is the right one for quite a few.

As for the actual topic, I agree with the others that feel this was just a very poorly phrased way of saying the architecture makes it complicated, but that it will pay off in the end. Having said that, the Sony person seems to equate "powerful hardware" with "difficult to develop for". That seems ridiculous.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

It's true that end-of-life games are more-advanced, but that doesn't do much good if you're in a distant 3rd place. Some of the best Atari 7800 ProSystem games were made in the 1990, 5 years after release, but who cares? By that point it was a distant 3rd place behind the Master System and NES. The A7800 was a flop because it was too hard to program for. Same with the Jaguar of the early 90s. Same with the Sega Saturn of the mid-90s.

Too hard to program for == failure to impress gamers == flop.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Tamran]

Ballmer was absolutely correct in emphasizing the one thing that really matters for any platform.

Developers, Developers, Developers

Now ... it's advertisers, advertisers, advertisers.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[0xygen]

PS1 and PS2 had the same development learning curve.

In the early PS1 days, a lot of people used the Sony provided libraries from the SDK.

As time went by, studios learned to master the hardware and use the limited resource more efficiently.

Same thing happened with PS2.

If they didn't want this to happen with PS3, I suspect they would have chosen a more conventional architecture and learned from what would have been the "mistakes" of two generations of consoles.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dogtanian]

I don't see anything inherently wrong with using a visual programming environment if it's the right tool for the job and you aren't using it as a crutch for your lack of skill.

However, Visual BASIC, the specific language? Ugh.

I used to program in old-school BASIC, but haven't used it for years... now, used to languages with C-derived syntax, VB seems horribly clunky and not easy to use, as basically used to be (supposedly).

Basically, I'm guessing VB was originally designed for people who were familiar with BASIC because back then it was "easier" than hard languages like C (and probably wasn't being used for such major projects that its inappropriateness wasn't such a problem).

I'd guess that it then retained BASIC style syntax over the years because it's what they were used to, even if it was clunky and now no easier to learn from scratch than C-syntaxed OO languages like C# if you weren't "locked in" to the BASIC way of doing things.

Fortunately, VB finally seems to be dying with the advent of .Net. Perhaps given the third choice of C# (rather than just C++) for Windows development and faced with having to change much of their Classic VB code for the not-really-compatible VB.Net, they realised that VB's dated approach was more hassle than it was worth, even for a dyed-in-the-wool user?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Sparks23]

Except the PS2 was like this as well. (Albeit to a lesser degree.) Until later in the life-cycle, no one had really fully figured out what you could fully do with the hardware.

Speaking as someone who actually did work a bit on coding for the PS2 at a past job, my understanding is not that they /deliberately/ made the console difficult, but that they poured technology into the console without regard for saying 'this piece must be used in this way.' As such, people figured out their own paths (and innovated what was done on the platform).

In some ways, it's a valid strategy. PS2 games unquestionably got more advanced as people explored what they could do with the console's capabilities. (Granted, this understanding comes from other developers at the PS2 training seminar I went to, not officially from Sony themselves.)

Since different companies came up with different techniques (probably including some Sony didn't expect), there was some real variety in the games as well. But the PS2 was also the dominant console, hands down, and so developers were targeting that as their primary platform; they had the freedom to get into exploring the edges of the hardware and figuring out what they could do with future projects.

I suspect the same philosophy applies here. Not so much 'let's make it hard,' but 'let's put lots of power in this thing, and not provide guidance on any particular best way to use it all.' There's a sort of hacker beauty to 'there's no One Right Way, find your own.'

The issue this time around, of course, is that the Xbox 360 is 'good enough' for most gamers; even if the PS3 is more advanced, the 360 is a perfectly workable gaming platform and quite popular. Most major games need to release on both platforms, and so developers are generally not trying to innovate on the PS3 but just trying to take the same game and shoehorn it more or less equally onto both. And so the PS3's untapped potential becomes less a cool puzzle to figure out ('hey, look what I realized we can do!') and more of a higher bar to entry.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dogtanian]

The A7800 was a flop because it was too hard to program for. Same with the Jaguar of the early 90s.

That was possibly one reason, but the other would have been that Atari couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag.

The XE Games System wasn't exactly a shit-hot success either (*), despite being 100% compatible with the long-established 400/800 computers and their successors, which had years of development experience behind them. Even the older 5200 console was basically just 400/800-based-hardware (albeit with some stupid memory-map changes that rendered games not directly compatible).

(*) Though I think that was intended mainly for us Europeans who had a somewhat different market to the US and Japan. Even then Atari later released the 7800 here anyway- to no success whatsoever.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[perlchild]

I was thinking he meant they'd get the freedom to set the pace of development by gradually releasing better SDK and tools. But only to developers who released games on the ones they already have.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[xch13fx]

I said this in the resident evil post here.

So that means that they are not using the complexity of the cell processor for anything more then a 360 emulator

I hope someday I can be a playstation fan again. and the ps3 invents whole new genres like they did with the original two.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[RCL]

There's a lot more about programming than just "satisfying customers". Comparing VisualBasic "rapid programming" to "real" software products is like comparing tunes created for TV commercials and "real" music.

If you do programming for money only, then you will never advance above a certain, "good enough" level. That is a valid strategy, though. Not everyone wants to dedicate his/her entire life to a single activity.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[plasticsquirrel]

To go one step further, this is the way things naturally worked out for the PS1 as well. By the end of the 90's, early PS1 games almost looked like they were developed for a different console altogether. Compare Battle Arena Toshinden to Tekken 3, or Twisted Metal to Vigilante 8, for instance. Developers became so good at milking all the power they could out of a 33MHz CPU and 2MB of RAM.

The results of developers becoming better and better and programming these systems are truly impressive. Of course, the only thing that kills these systems off is the next one in line. I'm sure we would have even more amazing Square RPG's today, for instance, if we were limited to the 32-bit PS1, and developers had to rely more on gameplay and innovation.

Sony is just going with the usual plan of not babying the developers too much. It will help their console mature in age too, just like it did with the last two.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[xch13fx]

real programmers use alice and you all know it.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm impressed by the games that are coming out on the PS3 though. Metal Gear and Killzone are easily the best looking games on any console.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Blakey Rat]

Yeah, but... who cares? Three points:

1. If you can make me a better game from day 1, I'd love to see it on day 1. Why should I have to wait out 3-4 years of (relatively) crappy graphics before I can actually experience of what my hardware can offer?

2. It also means that game developers are wasting time they could be spending adding features or improving their game on figuring out all the quirks of the hardware, documenting them for other developers, etc.

3. Games on the Xbox 360 improve graphically anyway. I mean, it'd be a really tough case to say that, for example, Soul Calibur 4 doesn't look better than Dead or Alive 4 that was a launch title.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tepples]

Deny publication rights for games that suck

Console makers already try to do this. They just use discriminatory heuristics to determine "suck". For example:

• A game is likely to suck if it is the developers' first paid title, their previous titles having been freeware.
• A game is likely to suck if its developers work from home.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[feepness]

Wii's at the top of the pile as the best-selling unit.

It's also got the lowest number of well rated games by a longshot. quality != quantity.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[MrMista_B]

It's not a problem of trying to 'max out the hardware', if the hardware was deliberately designed to /prevent/ developers from being able to use it to it's full potential.

In effect, what Sony is admitting, is that they deliberately sabotauged their system, so that it would 'last longer' in the market, for some bizzare reason.

If I were a shareholder, I'd be pretty pissed off at that, and be asking a lot of hard questions.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[DavidTC]

The real question that Sony should ask themselves is if people are going to buy a 9 year-old console to play a cool game?

Or will they move over to MS's X-Box 720 or whatever and play the exact same game, along with a bunch of other games that came out at the same time as the 720 because, duh, it's easy to program for.

I mean, duh, the XBox itself is a counterexample of this. MS essentially walked into the marketplace because programming for the XBox was easy if the game had a Windows version. Ease of programming=more games and better games.

And Nintendo isn't giving a shit about 'utilizing hardware to the max', has essentially given up on building faster boxes, and has decided to build fun ones. (They have a point. Consoles really are fast enough to do essentially anything you want. Hell, my computer is fast enough to real-time near perfect 3D rendering.)

I have a feeling that Sony is trying to pull off a NES, where some of the best games for that came out years later, but has forgotten that a) There were very little competitors at the time, and b) A lot of that was the entire industry maturing.

(Before anyone think I'm being unfair, or if I'm just wrong about something, be aware I haven't had a console since the NES.)

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[kevmatic]

Well, name one system that wasn't like that. Compare Launch titles for any console with the ones that came out late in its life.

On the SNES, compare Super Mario World to Yoshi's Island or, say, Chrono Trigger or even Tales of Phantasia.
On the PS1, Compare FF7 to FF9. HUGE difference.
On the N64, Goldeneye to Perfect Dark and such. (Granted, the Expansion pack helped, but I'm pointing out the real obvious ones).
On the PS2, compare Red Faction to FF12.

Even though they use higher level languages now, there's still plenty of room for improvement over the life of any console or system.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hob42]

Maybe there is a pattern, though? NES->SNES was consumer momentum... PS1->PS2 the same... but notice the switches between vendors is from a no platform to a yes platform.

Just a thought.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[LearnToSpell]

Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no... You don't see a pattern there?!

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[DavidTC]

That's exactly what I said.

This method may result in better PS3 games in four or five years, whereas providing a 'crutch' to programmers might result in the process taking seven years.

However, for the first couple of years, it's going to result in high entry costs and worse looking games, and Sony has apparently forgotten it has competitors.

While they're doing this, MS is going to keep churning out easy-to-program-if-you-have-a-PC-port boxes, and Nintendo is going to keep churning out the same console they've had for eight years that everyone knows how to program for by now, along with a fun new input device.

The point is to not have some ideal game in a decade, because, in a decade, no one's going to be buying PS3s.

And, to top it off, I assert there's a point where graphics aren't really the things selling the game, and the entire console's industry focus on them exclusively has been harming them. As evidenced by the Wii's explosion, and DDR and Rock Star before them, there's an entire untapped market out there that doesn't want to sit pushing buttons, and doesn't give a flying fuck about real-time shaders and quad framebuffers.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[johanatan]

That may have been true before .NET. But nowadays why would anyone choose VB over C#? [Because they like to type??]

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Threni]

Why, was the Atari 2600 designed with developers in mind? Perhaps Windows was, and that's why the DLL system was designed from the start to avoid problems with people upgrading components which other apps depended on? If a system is popular, people will develop for it regardless of how easy developers find it. The PS3 is making a lot of money for Sony. It was developed years ago - now they just have to make and sell them. Even if that's a problem (like it has been for Nintendo, who keeps running out of boxes to sell) it's not the worst problem you can have.

The most important thing for a platform is avoiding getting involved with Jeff Minter, as he appear to be cursed and will put an end to anything he touches.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Mascot]

There's a lot more about programming than just "satisfying customers".

If you do it as a hobby, of course. If you do it for a living, no, not really. That doesn't mean there's no room for creativity, but in the end you have to produce something the customer wants to pay for, and in a reasonable amount of time.

Making something in C does not make it magically a higher quality product than if you make it in VB or some other high level language.

Comparing VisualBasic "rapid programming" to "real" software products is like comparing tunes created for TV commercials and "real" music.

You're mixing the development environment with the finished product now, and I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

Jingles for TV commercials versus album tracks are completely different things. Because of their intended use, not because of the instruments used in creating them. I'm just not seeing a way to relate this to VB versus "some other language".

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[imboboage0]

MS essentially walked into the marketplace because programming for the XBox was easy if the game had a Windows version. Ease of programming=more games and better games.

Ouch. Yes, I'd say you are correct and I agree with you. Unfortunately, this has also resulted in games being programmed for the Xbox then ported to Windows. This leaves you with clunky interfaces and bugs that are nearly unbelieveable. One good example of this is GTA4. Designed with the Xbox in mind, it's been hell for anyone trying to run it under Windows.

This isn't to say that there isn't hope. I'm just hoping developers will start paying some attention and realize that a console UI isn't fit for computers and the amount of bugs is just unacceptable.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[FithisUX]

The only hard thing, is the lack of expandability in terms of RAM.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

It was always my understanding (and practice) that you wrote the program in C, and the GUI in VB. It's fantastic for that single purpose. Sometimes, it's easier to write a simple little script into the widget itself. Trying to use that widget script to write an entire program? Madness.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Pharmboy]

It would seem that they also believe that the singular reason a game is "good" is related to the programmer's understanding of the hardware. This just isn't true. Plenty of games have nice graphics and a horrid storyline, or are pretty to look at but clunky to play. If programmers spent less time figuring out the hardware, perhaps they could spend more time working on plot, playability, and flow. Or you can be Sony and make excuses after the fact.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[mabhatter654]

more musicians are funded as "studio players" that work 9-5 than as rock stars by a wide margin.

In the same way more programmers are out there paid to write "TPS report 2009" than are paid to write games or operating systems by an even wider margin. The customer is an internal middle manager that's going to decree what the product does, who uses it, and how much it costs.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. It's a good argument. Just one thing though, it worked with the PS2 because PS2 was the #1 console that time. It's hard to fathom the same will work when you are dead last.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[MikeBabcock]

Last I checked, the PS2 worked the same way and didn't suffer in any way because of it.

Stop with the FUD already.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[The End Of Days]

That's true, but making money > losing money, and Nintendo is on the winning side of that equation.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[pizzach]

If I remember, the PS2 was hard to program for too...

from http://playstation2-linux.com/

The Playstation 2 is notorious for being hard to program for due to the complexity of the hardware involved in the console. Thus, there are relatively few people in the gaming industry that know how to utilize the full potential of the system.

It never ceases to surprise me how many people don't know that about the PS2 or ignore it.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[MikeBabcock]

Its a good question with an answer already: PS2 the most played console of 2008.

Please note the PS2 still sold 410 thousand consoles in December of 2008. That's after already saturating the market with 43.6 million total sales.

At $100, you can't beat buying a PS2 as a gaming platform. In five years' time, Sony hopes the PS3 will be in the same position.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[CastrTroy]

VB isn't dying with .Net. There's VB.Net, and it's still going strong. In a lot of cases it gets new features before C# does. VB.Net is still a very good languages. You may not like the syntax. but it's just syntax, and some people like it.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[DarkOx]

1. If you can make me a better game from day 1, I'd love to see it on day 1. Why should I have to wait out 3-4 years of (relatively) crappy graphics before I can actually experience of what my hardware can offer?

First rule of show biz, always leave them wanting more. In the case of a hardware console this means something has to be held back so there is more to give. You need away to market and sell the next game.

2. It also means that game developers are wasting time they could be spending adding features or improving their game on figuring out all the quirks of the hardware, documenting them for other developers, etc.

No they won't do that. Most games today are writen to an enigne not a console. Few games are exclusive to a platform these days although it might be availible on one before others. The engine is going to implement a least common denomonator set of features for the devices in your same class.

3. Games on the Xbox 360 improve graphically anyway. I mean, it'd be a really tough case to say that, for example, Soul Calibur 4 doesn't look better than Dead or Alive 4 that was a launch title.

Ok but this is in someways an example of three. Xbox360 was first to the party lots of the engines used in early Xbox360 titles were also running on PS2, which ment the newer Xbox360 was not being fully utilized.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dogtanian]

VB isn't dying with .Net. There's VB.Net

Yes, I do believe that I was aware of that since I *explicitly mentioned it*!

and it's still going strong.

Compared to what? My understanding was that since the move to .Net, VB's popularity had declined.

In a lot of cases it gets new features before C# does.

Which new features?

And you may be correct when you say that, but I'd still rather wait until they appeared in a language that was fairly standard and whose syntax was much more suited to "serious" development if the alternative is having those features tacked onto an inconsistent and clunky design that is the result of building years of cruft onto an ancient language's syntax which was designed around a language for novices running on underpowered prehistoric computers over a generation ago.

VB may have added many more features on since then, but the fundamental syntax still remains based around the design of that time, and it's clunky and horrible for modern programming.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dogtanian]

It was always my understanding (and practice) that you wrote the program in C, and the GUI in VB. It's fantastic for that single purpose. Sometimes, it's easier to write a simple little script into the widget itself.

Is it significantly harder to write that script in C#?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Z80a]

Minter didnt killed 360 yet, and he did not only released a game for it (Space Giraffes) as he did a portion of the console bios (the audio cd visualizer thing).

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hairyfeet]

You wanna know why VB was a good language and popular? As someone who deals with SOHOs and SMBs I can tell you quite easily. It is because VB6 was(and to an extent still is) the engine that small businesses run on. Why? Because they ALWAYS have some funky ass little job that needs an easy to use program to fill that would just be too damned expensive to have written by some big software house. Let me give an example that sadly I can't seem to find where I put the code to anymore.

I was doing some work setting up the PCs for a junkyard/car repair shop. While there I noticed that they were always having to call a guy in or spend a lot of time pouring over these books. When I asked what they were doing they explained that they had 1000s of car and trucks spread out over 3 sites and would have trouble sometimes with finding where a particular make and model was or even if they had it. So I told them for $500 I could make that problem disappear by giving them a custom application that would track where the cars were. All they would have to do was input the data one time(or pay me an extra $200 to do it) and then add any new cars to the database. I promised that it would be simple to use and would show them mockups and customize it to their requirements. I cooked up a VB6 app linked to a database that would give them the choice of typing manually or using a pull down for make/model. Since they already labeled their lot by numbers such as B3, D4, etc it was trivial to have it call up a map JPG for whichever site it was along with the number. Last I heard they are still using it to this day and it takes them seconds to call up any car without needing to pour though books or call anyone off the job.

And THAT is why VB6 is STILL even after all these years the #3 business language. For simple jobs where web access isn't required it allows for an app to be created quickly with minimum effort and at a price that even the smallest shops can afford. When you figure in the amount of man hours I saved that shop by giving them a simple way to keep track of their inventory I'm sure it payed for itself in a few weeks. It is fast, stable, does its job day after day without needing to pay for updates or maintenance. In short it just works. While I wouldn't even attempt some giant complex app in VB6 for these small jobs it simply can't be beat, at least IMHO.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[drinkypoo]

They did this same strategy with the PS2 and its emotion engine or whatever. I remember after about a year, hearing about how these first gen games still hadn't even used a good hunk of the PS2's power. Well, if you look at some of the games that came out over the next few years, I'd say they were right!

Then I'd say you have to be an idiot to buy the PS3 until near the end of its lifespan, when the games are good, and the system is cheaper and has hopefully had most of the bugs worked out. Hell, if they continue to follow the PS2 model to the letter (so far, so good - they lied about the specs, lied about the release, brought out a system with a high failure rate... though not as high as Microsoft's, and made it hard to develop games for it) then they'll bring out a smaller, cooler version and everyone with a first-generation PS3 is really going to be kicking their own ass.

It's interesting that Sony won their position at the top of the heap by making it easy to develop games on the original Playstation, and kicked the Sega Saturn's ass handily, mostly because it was much much harder to code for. Then they brought out the most complicated and wonky game console ever, which would have needed only a crappy development system with no documentation to be Sega Saturn MkII, while Sega brought out the relatively elegant and quite capable Dreamcast, only to have it murdered by Sony outright lying about the PS2's specifications and the console's lack of hardware-based DRM (seriously. at least on the Saturn you have to plug in a modchip, on the PS1 it's a pretty serious job and on the PSOne it's a terrible one. If you aren't exceptionally nimble-fingered, anyway.)

If games for the Xbox 360 are already at their best, and games for the PS3 aren't, why on earth would I buy a PS3 now?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, I'd say you are correct and I agree with you. Unfortunately, this has also resulted in games being programmed for the Xbox then ported to Windows. This leaves you with clunky interfaces and bugs that are nearly unbelieveable. One good example of this is GTA4. Designed with the Xbox in mind, it's been hell for anyone trying to run it under Windows.

While true, the question, as usual, is - who's to say that, if there were no XBox, there would be GTA4 for PC?

I'd still rather take the bastardized console offspring over the complete lack of the game...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[drinkypoo]

The VCS wasn't easy, it was cheap (compared to the only other console at the time with interchangable games.) NES was cheap and easy. SNES was cheap and powerful. PS1 was slightly cheaper than the competition, and vastly easier to code for. Note that NONE of these systems were the most powerful of their generation until the PS2, which won by discrediting the Dreamcast with outright fraudulent specifications, and by being more reliable than the Xbox. If it weren't for Xbox 360 RROD, the PS3 would be over already.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

like the iTunes App Store?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[cliffski]

well said.
As a game developer, I make PC games. Why? partlky because of market share, but mainly because its so open and easy. The thought that a platform developer WANTS it to be difficult is just mind numbing.
What do we do the other 9 years?
How about we develop more fun games?
What a jerk. I bet the guy saying this has never actually played a game in his life, except to impress journalists with the polygon count on characters nasal hair.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dogtanian]

Yes, but what made it easy? Was it the visual programming environment, or was it specifically the language itself (which is what I was talking about)? And if the latter, is it inherently "easier" to use or is it just because the people who use Visual Studio are used to it?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Toonol]

But that's particularly relevant to what's happening in this generation. The PS2's long life has nothing to do with it's complexity, but is only a consequence of it being the most popular (albeit least powerful) console of the last generation. The PS3 will have a long tail IF it is popular enough that it can't be ignored by game designers, even after eight-ten years. Being third place doesn't help that. How many games are being programmed for the GameCube right now? That's the position the PS3 looks like it will end up in.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

So they're not planning to improve the hardware for ten years? While everyone else is doubling their capabilities every 12 to 18 months?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[im_thatoneguy]

As much as I think difficult to program for is a huge problem I think I understand what he's trying to say.

"We could have put in weaker hardware that was easier to develop for, but instead we chose a platform that would be difficult to work with but potentially provides much more power down the road."

He's not saying they intentionally stagnated growth in order to get better games over time. He's saying stagnated growth is a *symptom* of a design decision focused around long term system performance.

All of this is moot though. They gave the system too little RAM. You can only work around that so much. So I find his argument that "Our console will slowly live up to its potential while the competitor will hit a wall." to be inaccurate. They're going to hit a memory wall before the 360 hits a processor wall.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Hurricane78]

What do you think comes out, when a decent programmer programs on a harder system?
Worse code, or course.

A good programmer can write good in a bad environment. But he can write even better programs in a good environment.
And a not-so-good programmer writes not-so-good programs in a bad environment. But ok/good programs in a good environment.

Making a programming environment worse makes the programs worse. Common sense.

If they wanted good games, they should have made a certification program. One that only allows games to run, that came trough the quality check.
I think Nintendo did that once. But I don't know if they are still doing it for professional games, in the world of Wii minigames.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Too hard to program for == failure to impress gamers == flop.

It's more than that for the 7800. It's system is designed to be more generalized than the NES (it was built for tile-based games). As such it can do a wider variety of games well, but the programmers first still need to build up the proper engine for it. This means while it could do tile based games, it was harder to do. Unfortunately for them, tile-based games/platformers were all the rage in the NES era.

But the bigger problem for the 7800 was that it was treated like shit by the current owners of Atari at the time. Little to no promotion, extremely poor third-party support, and very little R&D to enhance the console's abilities with the cartridge format. Heck, the 7800 was ready to launch before the NES was introduced, in 1984, and had a small press release of about 5000 consoles. Then Atari got bought out and the owners didn't want to do anything with it so they threw it in the closet until 86, long after NES had taken over - and only because they thought they could cash in on the revived industry.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[ahoehn]

The real question that Sony should ask themselves is if people are going to buy a 9 year-old console to play a cool game?

You're right on the money - but I'd add that another big factor is, well, the money. Buying the cheapest PS3 console will still set you back $400, while you can generally get a 360 arcade for $150. Sure, you're paying for better hardware, but if the titles aren't that much prettier as a result of that hardware, what's the point?

It all comes down to the experience of the games you're playing, and if the games on the PS3 aren't 2.7x better, it's difficult to justify the price of a console that costs 2.7x more.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Your price comparison is flawed - if you buy one of the cheap versions of the xbox 360, you'll have to buy a harddrive, multiple controllers etc later on. The final price of a fully usable system is almost the same.

Of course, this helps microsoft, since being perceived as cheaper is a great sales booster...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[i.r.id10t]

Yup, VB is the scripting language of choice for the GUI dependent Windows world... lord knows I did more than a few things with it that could be done with bash, etc. on a *nix system.

Also, in the pre-server side scripting language days (before PHP, etc) it was also relatively easy to do basic CGI stuff with it...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

But even a shoddy port of a game from xbox360 to ps3 already looks the same or better on ps3...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Another bad consequence is that the X-box has relatively little memory compared to a PC and e.g. Thief 3 had ridiculously small levels compared to its predecessors only so that it could be released for the X-box too. A PC you bought a couple of years after the X-box was released was hardly high-end even if it surpassed the X-box hardware.

The fact that releasing patches afterwards for a console game is harder does, however, not seem to result in more rigorous testing and less buggy games for Windows. X-box owners have to live with what Windows gamers can patch: Thief 3 sets the difficulty level to the easiest if you save the game - so if you want to play it on a harder level than easy, it's really hard because you must remember not to save the game...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[CAIMLAS]

Regardless of what it sounds like, it's a foolish approach. A console comes out, and gamers immediately start evaluating it based on which games are available for it. That's why it's so important for the 'release title' that comes bundled (see: Halo) to be good/popular.

If no good games are available, then gamers will say "wait and see". They "wait and see" for only so long before simply writing the platform off entirely. Additionally, the platform not only has to have good games, but to have better games than the competition - not as an aggregate, necessarily, but it helps. Lots of crap games with only a few good ones is still not likely to promote the platform to the point where the non-hardcore gamer buys it.

And where the hell does he get this "9 and a half years" figure? Surely he doesn't think a game platform's life is that long, does he? Game developers will not focus on a platform that long, and if it gets games after (say) 3-4 years, it's only because it was convenient to port it to said platform after primarily developing it on another one.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Ash Vince]

MS essentially walked into the marketplace because programming for the XBox was easy if the game had a Windows version.

Actually this is utter rubbish. To create a game under windows there are several development kits you can use but to create a game for the xbox you have to use the MS tool set. I am not sure about the 360 but I know the compilers to create code for the original xbox were horrible to work with.

The xbox is very different from the PC in one important way, it needs signed code. This locks you in to using a very expensive development kit you have to purchase from Microsoft.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

PS2 had the same complaints and objectively was the hardest to program in its generation yet it destroyed competition. Console popularity has little to do with the development complexity and a lot with games available. In turn games available depend largely on the marketing and politics.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Named parameters, optional parameters, exception filters, XML literals, named indexers, case insensitivity, and late binding all immediately spring to my mind as features of VB.Net not present in C#. Some of these features C# is getting in v4 but most of them VB.Net has had since day one. So if you wanted these features and didn't want to wait 8 years to get them VB.Net was the way to go.

As for the syntax... Some people don't like LISP's heavy use of parens, some people don't like Python's significant white space, some people don't like typing "end" to end blocks in Ruby, some people don't like using curly braces which don't indicate the type of closing block vs "wend" style closing blocks. This is all personal preference and saying that one syntax is more "serious" than another is just showing your own close mindedness. And like VB.Net is tied to BASIC's history C# is tied to the cruft of the C family of languages. At the same time it has even managed to introduce it's own cruft - do I really need 2 different ways to declare anonymous delegates?

Anyway, I'm not actually a VB.Net programmer but reports of it's death have definitely been exagerated.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Cautela]

Bad ports are the sole responsibility of developers, not something inevitable due the nature of the process. Mass Effect is a good example of a port better than the original Xbox version (GUI, not just graphics). Dead Space is also a good port. I'm sure there are others.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Darkness404]

Sure, but Nintendo still is winning.

A) There is no reputation problem (not that much first-party crapware like the GameCube era, and no hardware issues like the Xbox)

B) Nintendo makes money on the consoles (so, even with someone buying it exclusively to play the glorified tech-demo that is Wii Sports, Nintendo still gets a profit)
br> C) First. Party. Games. This is why, even during Nintendo's lean times, people had to have a Nintendo console. Games that will never, ever, be released on other platforms. You won't see Zelda on the 360, nor Mario on the PS3. On the other hand, you don't have a "real" guarantee that the PS3 you bought just to play *some third party "exclusive" game* won't be released on the Wii or 360 a year down the road.

D) Value. Sure, the 360 is cheap, but when you add in everything needed to make it as useful as a Wii or 360, (wireless, storage, etc) it comes to be about the same amount of money.


Sure, the Wii has a lot of crapware on it (as any system targeted towards casual gamers would) but it isn't a bad system at all.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

No, silly. The PS3 didn't come out 10 years after the PS2, nor did the PS2 come out 10 years after the PS1. The hardware is supported, and is manufactured, for 10 years. Stop being like the other mindless sheep and thinking this means only 1 console every 10 years.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[TuaAmin13]

You mean like Bob's Game?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[drinkypoo]

While true, the question, as usual, is - who's to say that, if there were no XBox, there would be GTA4 for PC?

If there were no Xbox, Halo would likely have come to its full fruition.

It ain't all peaches and cream.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[alienw]

The PS3 will never be $100. Just like the Xbox was never $100, just like the 360 will never be $100. That's not possible when you need to have a hard drive, a Blu-ray drive, a fairly advanced processor that you don't manufacture, and expensive high-speed RAM. The only console that is cheap enough for this is the Wii -- it could already be sold for $100 if Nintendo wanted to do that.

Besides, the PS3 is seriously lagging behind the 360 as far as games go. For the most part, the 360 has better games, better graphics, and better online play. Of course, some people buy both, simply because the 360 is a good console and the PS3 is a good Blu-ray player.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[alienw]

Well, that's all nice when you have crappy competition like the N64, which was pretty much a complete bitch to program for. Unfortunately for Sony, Microsoft is extremely well positioned to compete with the PS3. They have excellent dev tools, a lot of experience with game APIs, and an understanding of what it takes to actually write games. Sony is fundamentally a hardware company that has no understanding of software development. The problem is, hardware is now a commodity. That is what bit them in the ass with music players, and it will bite them in the ass with consoles, too.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like a post-release justification for a massive blunder.

I followed the development of the PS3 pretty closely and this has been the Sony mantra for a very long time. In fact, you can call this story old news. Ancient news.

It goes all the way back to the original Playstation. Sony discovered the system had a lot longer shelf life because the games got progressively better over time. Really, the differences between the first and final generation games are dramatic.

With the PS2, the system was even more difficult to program. Vector processors? That was insane! And you got the same effect. A long lived system with huge differences between the first and final generation.

It's the formula that seemed to be working for Sony since they got in the business.

The problem with the PS3 is all component selection, not developer toolchain. The components were too exotic for manufacture pushing the release back, decreasing yields, increasing costs, and increasing cooling demand thereby increasing case size.

When you're paying $900 in components for a device that's supposed to cost $400, but you have to sell it for $600 a full year after your competitor has already been on the market at a lower price point, you're fucked. That's all there is to it.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

Well, the PS1 sold for $50. The Gamecube also was $50 just prior to being discontinued. If you figure $25 for a cheap, small hard drive, then yes I could see a 6-year-old Wii, X360, or PS3 being sold in 2012 for $100 and still be profitable.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[alienw]

Huh? The SNES was not powerful. It had the worst processor of its generation, very little RAM, and not much else. It did have a pretty nice graphics chip that supported a lot of colors, but that was its only advantage. The Genesis was a much more powerful console, but it had a slightly crappier graphics chip, which meant that the best games on the SNES looked better. On average, though, there are very few third-party SNES games worth playing. Nintendo's real advantage with that console was a superb development team.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[the_greywolf]

They did precisely the same thing with the PS2. Early games were kinda shitty because no one could figure out how to program it. Fast-forward 7+ years and newer games are getting more elaborate visuals and take better advantage of the very unusual hardware.

I imagine a lot of people felt this way about the PS1 when it came out.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tepples]

You mean like Bob's Game?

The analogy isn't perfect, as Bob's Game is a single-player adventure. There's no drawback to putting a single-player game on a PC or a phone. In fact, the Kotaku article mentions that Bob posted that he's porting his work to Steam (Windows) and three PDA/phone platforms (Pandora, Android, and iPhone).

The trouble comes when an indie developer wants to develop and self-publish a casual party game, one that shows all players' characters on the same screen. The PC is capable of reading four USB game controllers plugged into a hub, but games designed for sharing a monitor really need a 26" or bigger monitor, not the 14" built into a notebook PC. Sure, any $500 TV has VGA and HDMI inputs and can be used as a monitor for an indie party game. But until more people replace the CRT SDTVs in their living rooms with such HDTVs, consoles are the most reliable way to get TV output.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

>>>It's also got the lowest number of well rated games by a longshot.

Yeah, yeah, that's what people told me about my PS1 and PS2, but I still enjoyed the hell out of them. I like quantity, because I like lots of variety, even if the games might not be perfect. Same applies to the Wii.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Guspaz]

If there were no Xbox, Halo would likely have come to its full fruition.

It ain't all peaches and cream.

It would have come to fruition as a Macintosh RTS game. Not much "fruition" going on there. Barely anybody would have played it considering that Apple's marketshare in 2001 was 2.48% and dropping (it wouldn't begin to recover until 2005). It would be a footnote, a fun modestly selling game like Marathon or Escape Velocity. Fun games that sold enough to support their producers but games that almost nobody has heard of outside the Macintosh community.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dogtanian]

saying that one syntax is more "serious" than another is just showing your own close mindedness

No, pretending that all syntaxes are equally suited for modern use is phoney open-mindedness. VB's syntax is at heart derived from around a language designed for beginners in an era when line numbers were necessary, and the functionality and the syntax of the language were mixed together and not easily expandable nor intended to be.

These features were added with later BASICs, and of course VB, but the fundamental syntax can't shake off those origins... else it wouldn't be BASIC(!)

VB of course has mutated into something that old-school BASIC programmers wouldn't recognise or find that much easier to use than C-derived languages- in some ways having the worst of both worlds unless you're an "experienced" VB user.

It's not crap because it's different; it's crap because it retains the clunkiness and kludgy syntax of BASIC with no real advantages because the reasons for that clunkiness are a generation in the past and no longer relevant.

The features you describe are nice, but they'd have been much better added to a modern language rather than plastered onto the mutant offspring of a 40-year old language.

Agree with you that C#- and C-derived languages in general- aren't perfect though. *Every damn one* uses the same mistake-prone choice of "=" as the assignment operator.

And case-sensitivity in general I don't think is a good thing. But I'd rather put up with it than have to use BASIC. :)

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

>>>NES->SNES was consumer momentum... PS1->PS2 the same... but notice the switches between vendors is from a no platform to a yes platform.

Could be. If you're right about consumer momentum, Nintendo will be dominant until circa 2016 (the Wii & the Super Wii), and then programmers would switch to something easier to control (PS5? Xbox 36000?). But I don't honestly expect that to happen. I don't think Nintendo will be dominant next generation.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

Isn't your post redundant? You're just repeating the same thing I already said (VCS-easy; NES;easy; SNES- not easy)

>>>NONE of these systems were the most powerful of their generation until the PS2

First off, do you really consider the Genesis to be more powerful than the SNES? I'm not aware of any console of the 1990-91 timeframe that had better specs than Super Nintendo.

Second, the PS2 was a distant third place after the GameCube (@2) and the Xbox, in terms of power. Games ports to the Cube and Box looked better, or vice-versa, games ported to the PS2 looked worse. I like my PS2 since it's library is huge, but I'm not going to lie and claim it was the most-powerful of its generation.

BTW, I think Sega made a mistake discontinuing the Dreamcast. The sales figures at the time were outselling the Cube, and the DC could have come-in a respectable 3rd (just behind Xbox) if Sega had stood by their product. Instead Sega gave-up too early, and handed 3rd place to the Cube.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

How old are some of these posters? Twelve? Give me a break. Only "decent" developers? Yeah, good strategy, Sony. Yeah, let's limit our game library by allowing only "decent" developers to program our platform and piss these third-party developers off by increasing their own production costs and weaken their ROI... and in 10 years or so, we'll finally have enough money to start developing another console, IF we're still around.

Now where's my MiniDisc walkman? I wanna play some old ripped rootkit tunes.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[rdean400]

How I interpret the comment is that the SDK isn't aimed at making things difficult, but making sure that the APIs provide access to everything that the console provides. Because there's a lot there, it's not going to be a very easy API to program.

However, that being said, software drives hardware sales. No matter what the market, it's the software that drives the hardware. If they don't provide an easier API for building more basic games, and lower the cost of entry, the Wii and X-Box will continue eating their lunch.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[alienw]

You can't make a hard drive for $25. Cost does not depend on capacity, and you can't just do a process shrink and make everything cheaper. Even if you could get a hard drive for $25, it's still too expensive for a $100 console. The PS1 had a bill of materials that added up to maybe $15 towards the end of its life. When you can just integrate everything on one chip and use a $3.00 CDROM reader, things are cheap. When you need hard drives, BD readers, and fancy silicon, things are much more expensive.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Huh? Playstation Store and WiiWare both carry low-weigth, fun titles from "indie" studios. I don't have an XBox360, so I'm not sure what's going on there..

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[ultranova]

If I'm interpreting his comment correctly, he is saying that he wants to see a progression in quality over the 10 year lifespan of the PS3. The first games will take little advantage of the HW, but as time goes on and developers become more acquainted with the platform they create games that take more advantage of those HW features.

But that's an absurd strategy: it means that PS3 will be behind an otherwise equal, but easy to program for, competing consoles for almost its entire lifespan, and only catch up with them just before becoming obsolete.

It sounds like a post-release justification for a massive blunder.

Coming up with a justification that makes you seem like a far bigger moron than the original blunder did doesn't really help safe much face.

How does someone like that get to be a CEO? Or is this just another confused and misleading Slashdot summary?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Idiomatick]

snes is easier to code for than ps1.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Pros_n_Cons]

He's right. Look at killzone 2 that just came out. Everyone who does reviews is saying this is the best visual console game to date. They took advantage of _most_ of ps3's power but not all. There is still technically more hardware to use so one could make the case there are better games to come.
Can the same be said about xbox 360? I dont know I'm not a console developer but from what people are saying the xbox is mostly tapped out and will need a new version to compete with ps3 around time of EOL.
We wont know who had the better strategy for a while yet but it looks like one went for the NOW money and one is thinking over the future.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Idiomatick]

"inherent value in using the lowest level language available" Not for aps sure. But in a competitive gaming situation? Absolutely! Low level languages CAN always be better than high level languages. The cost of entry is just higher. If you coded everything in assembly you could make a GTA twice as fast as once coded in something like C++ or VB (pretty sure you actually couldnt get it running at all in VB but still). You can be alot more direct. high level languages just allow you to give more generalized commands thats all. If you want it to be easy pick the highest level language you want, but it you want it to be bleeding edge fast, sucks but use lower level languages. In some places where code is ran alot you actually will see noticable speed increases by coding your own asm implementation. As you said, its all about the right tool for the job.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[mog007]

It sounds similar to the old days. Games toward the end of the NES and SNES era saw huge advances, with the developers pushing the consoles for all they were worth. Of course, this wasn't a limitation intentionally imposed by Nintendo, it was just a natural progression as the developers were getting more acquainted with the hardware. Even the N64 saw the release of Conker's Bad Fur Day, which pushed the N64 hardware to its very limits.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tepples]

Huh? Playstation Store and WiiWare both carry low-weigth, fun titles from "indie" studios.

WiiWare requires developers to operate out of commercially zoned office space, not someone's home. It's not like the iPhone App Store, where anyone with $1,000 and free time can develop and publish a game. Even an ESRB rating (which WiiWare requires) costs four times that.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[PRMan]

Actually, the 2600/VCS, while difficult to program by today's standards, was actually EASY to program by the standards of the day.

It was the first system with player/missile graphics (sprites), easy 2-channel sound effects built in rather than having to code it all by hand and different sized self-repeating map tiles.

Compared to other systems of the day, it was a breeze to code for. And then things got really interesting when people discovered the easy rainbow effects possible wtih display list interrupts.

Obviously, it couldn't have been that hard to program for given the 10000+ (9800+ crappy) games made for it.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[MrLint]

If MS had not bought Bungie Halo would have come to its full fruition.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hey!]

But how do you get developers?

If you recall anything about the days when MS-DOS, then Windows rose to prominence, you will recall that programming was an absolute nightmare, and attempts to make it easier were dreadful kludges that hid the mess just long enough that you could get yourself up to your neck in crap.

But programmers put up with it, and a generation of programmers grew up thinking that this is normal, in order to target the program where the users were.

Now, how do you get users? To a first approximation, of course applications (games) sell platform (console) sales, but what I think this guy is talking about is a different pardigm, the one that drove the adoption of Microsoft platforms in the 1980s: the killer app. There were better desktop platforms than DOS back in, say, 1983, but business customers didn't want to hear about them if they didn't run Lotus 1-2-3. Lotus was making money hand over fist, and so didn't have any immediate incentive to rock the boat, but in retrospect, it would have been worthwhile to support a second OS contender. It's always easier to be sensible in hindsight.

The same may go here. Although Sony might not have made the right decision with the PS3, it might not be as utterly brain-dead as it appears with benefit of hindsight. The reasoning might go, give the programmers hardware that can do all kinds of interesting new things, and while there'll be a lot of struggle, somebody will put those things together into something unlike anything anybody has seen before, and that will be a killer app.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see certain things. First, you don't necessarily need esoteric technology to give people something they haven't seen and want. Nintendo had a hit by marrying a clever (but not really very complicated) controller to a technologically conservative console then setting the price at an impulse purchase friendly level. This will be a case study taught in business schools for years to come.

Second the idea that companies will spend highly expensive programmer time on figuring out new technology only works if there aren't marginally better uses of that time, like releasing the same game on more than one platform. In an industry where PS3 is not dominant, it can't command that kind of attention.

Finally, if nobody strikes the killer app mother-lode, the victory goes to the most agile company. If developers are ignoring the unique capabilities of the PS3 and targeting multiple platforms with more or less the same stuff, then that means that apps come out sooner and better on the easier to program platform. New developers choosing platforms to target initially will choose the ones with the most revenue and least cost first, then look at the more difficult ones once their marginal revenues drop. So all in all, if exotic architecture doesn't do wonders at the outset, it holds you back rather than catapulting you forward.

Again, this is easy to see in hindsight; in foresight it's much easier to get jazzed over something really cool and exotic. And we have to keep in mind, things might have turned out differently. All it would have taken was one programmer having just the right insight that would allow him to do something on the PS3 unlike anything anybody had seen yet. It's a hell of a gamble betting that kind of investment, but you have to remember the dream of every business is to control a market as its own private fiefdom.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Mad Merlin]

You can't make a hard drive for $25.

Maybe, but you can get a USB key for $10, and that's not even bulk pricing.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[damaki]

Are you kidding?
There were litteraly dozens of great third party games and not only the best selling ones. Look at Street Fighter 2, SNES had the best Arcade conversions, and what about Square/Enix and others RPGs? Platform/action games, such as, you know, Castlevania IV which is insanely good. Or maybe International Superstar Soccer, for soccer fans. Maybe we could have a look at Civilization, Sim City, Toy Story.

Dude, there are so many amazing third party games that were awesome.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Draek]

If programmers spent less time figuring out the hardware, perhaps they could spend more time working on plot, playability, and flow. Or you can be Sony and make excuses after the fact.

Or you could let programmers worry about the programming and hire actual writers for the plot and, if the plot sucks, hire better writers, not call Bob from programming and tell him to start writing.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[ClassMyAss]

The only ones that think Visual Basic has a bad reputation are kids in bedrooms that think there's some inherent value in using the lowest level language available, rather than the right tool for the job.

In my experience, people think Visual Basic sucks specifically because of the fact that it's easy to use for inexperienced coders. They've had to deal with (i.e. inherit, maintain, and fix) tons of crap code created by people that program just enough to get by, and that type of code just doesn't show up as much in C because of the steeper learning curve.

You really don't understand true pain until you've had to maintain a significant codebase created primarily by aspiring non-programmers in the financial industry that thought learning VBA would increase their employment prospects. Unfortunately these people slip through the resume screens and get jobs coding all the time because the recruiters can tick off the VBA box, completely overlooking the fact that their "extensive" VBA experience amounts to a 2 week "Intro to Excel Programming" course at the local community college, and a lot of these places don't even make people write code during interviews.

Not to say that similar stuff doesn't happen with C or Java, but...anecdotally, at least, the overall quality of Visual Basic code that I've seen tends to be extremely low, probably more on par with your typical basement PHP code than anything else. That's not a reason not to use it if it's the right tool for the job, of course, but it is a reason to initially put most VB programmers into the "suck" bin until proven otherwise, especially if that's all they know how to do.

FWIW, even though I program a lot of Java, and I find that for many purposes it's the best tool for the job (esp. when C# is not a realistic option or when Java libraries are more mature than the alternatives), the same thing holds true there - if it's all someone knows how to do, they're probably not very good.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[ClassMyAss]

Agree with you that C#- and C-derived languages in general- aren't perfect though. *Every damn one* uses the same mistake-prone choice of "=" as the assignment operator.

At least Java throws an error when you accidentally leave off the second '=' in a '==' comparison; the real problem is that the purer C derived languages let assignments act as values, and cast them automatically to booleans without complaint.

Then again, it's easy enough to set up warnings for that type of thing, so...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[davolfman]

Precisely. NES came directly after an industry collapse that took out most of their competition for them. They were virtually guaranteed success that success meant more developers hacking at the hardware to eek out more power.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GhaleonStrife]

Never mind that Sony has been cutting features from the PS3 ever since launch, and the only thing MS has cut is the hard drive. While I'm sure that the PS3 is a nice console, and it does have some games I'd like to try (Killzone 2), I'm not willing to shell out all of that money for a crippled console compared to the launch version. If the fully-featured (read: backwards-compatible) version were still available at a competitive price, I'd probably have dropped the money on it by now. But every time I hear of a price drop being accompanied by a reduction in features, and the discontinuation of the models that have the features I want, I'm less likely to buy as it gets cheaper.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hedwards]

I don't agree, you can't compare a general purpose PC to a mostly single use Xbox. Xboxes are designed primarily for gaming and a few other low intensity processes. Whereas a PC can be used for a number of other things.

Designers of a console typically give up flexibility for efficiency. Often times this leads them to be much more difficult to program for. It needs to be done in a lower level way. Write directly to the register controlling a specific pixel and the hardware handles the doing often same for sound.

A good console will keep the complexities reasonable, but by being so much closer to the hardware you can use every bit on the storage card and reduce unnecessary overhead. Thus requiring somewhat less memory to accomplish similar tasks.

Not to suggest that it's perfect, just that you're not making a fair analogy.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hairyfeet]

I think it is because unlike most "jack of all trades" languages VB6 is really only made for one job: Make a GUI frontend to a database. Pick up any VB6 book, and while they will always have a few goof off jobs(mine had make a Trident based web browser) nearly every lesson is "make a GUI for a database" just different variations thereof.

And let us be honest here, for most small businesses that is all they really need. They have data that they need a way for even a temp worker to find the information and get it out quickly. That's all. They don't need web access, or multi-level permissions or auto synced information that goes halfway around the planet. They just have data they need to access quickly and easily. Be it buying history, order information, or as in my example locations of products. Databases really don't care WHAT you put into them but the average person needs something other than cooking up SQL statements to get the data out. That is where VB6 excels and why it is still popular to this day.

Could you write the same program in Java or C++? Sure you could. Could you do it for $700 including data entry and have it done and deployed in less than 3 weeks? Kinda doubt it. Not and make any profit on it anyway. With VB6 hooking up a GUI to a datatbase is beyond simplistic. So all you really need to do is tailor the GUI to the small business that needs it. A couple of mockups and feedback solves that problem pretty quick. So while I can't comment too much on other languages(I am a PC and network repair guy by trade not a programmer) I can say I have never seen anyone whip off a GUI that hooks to a database as quickly as I have seen it done in VB6.

And programmers really shouldn't look down so on VB6. It is not the languages fault if bad programmers try to fit it into a job it wasn't built for. If you do as I do and ONLY use it to make GUIs for databases I bet you'll find VB6 is perfect for that niche. And it just happens to be a niche that SOHOs and SMBs often need filled. And to me that is the ultimate answer. If it makes the customer happy and fulfills their needs in the time and price allotted, who are we to say they are wrong? They are happy, I have money in my pocket. Seems like a win/win to me.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hedwards]

Not quite, unless I'm missing something, you don't technically need the hard drive in order to use the 360, but with the PS3 you've got no choice at all.

Meaning that for people willing to make due, they have indeed spent less money. Perhaps it's a good buy to get the disk, but it is a choice, and it does mean that a person can by the 360, then save up for the disk later. Making it more accessible to less well off individuals.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Trogre]

Yeah, or Halo for PC.

Oh wait...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[dwpro]

"Real programmers" love Visual Basic

No they don't.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[caitsith01]

So the real issue is this: is it better to make a hyper-advanced piece of hardware which no-one can properly utilise for 3-4 years after its release, or a current-gen piece of hardware which can immediately be utilised 100% followed by another current-gen piece of hardware in 3-4 years time which can again be 100% utilised?

In other words, if by the time the PS3 is being used "properly" by developers MS has released the XBOX3, and the XBOX3 is more powerful than the PS3, then haven't Sony just spent 4 years asking people to pay too much for something which they can't use anyway, only to be undercut again by cheaper, better hardware? It just doesn't make sense as a business strategy.

It's the same with PC hardware: there is no point in dropping $4000 on an uber fast system to play games - by the time games can actually use your hardware to its full potential, the same power can be obtained by spending $1500 on a mid-range machine with DDR7 RAM, a 16 core CPU and a Radeon 6870 (or whatever is around in 2011).

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[caitsith01]

And he is right, you are not really going to see a vast improvement in the games on the Xbox over the next years. Developers are already trying to max out the hardware.

You're right - we won't see that, but instead we're going to see an entirely new XBox which will wipe the floor with a PS3 and still cost less.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Quarters]

I find it very interesting that your comment and my comment are being voted down. Avoiding the PS3, especially in light of Sony's admission that the games that really make use of the hardware won't come any time soon is valid thinking. Why should I spend $400+ (US) on a PS3 now and potentially only have lackluster games to carry me through. If I wait until the end of the PS3's life cycle it will have gone through many hardware revisions and probably quite a number of price drops. If Sony is openly telling me the compelling games won't come until then why should I give them any money now?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Grave]

You mean like it's going to on 3/3 as Halo Wars?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a ripoff. For $4 more you can get one with 4 times the capacity.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2013240522%201309421176&bop=And&Order=PRICE

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[nacturation]

... just because Sony decide to make it deliberately hard in order to artificially prolong the life of a console.

I don't think the point is that Sony made it deliberately hard. Sony made a system with a lot of longevity, but the price for that longevity is complexity. It's the difference between developing something really easy to use where you'll max out its potential in a short time vs. something that's not very easy to use but you can do just about anything. A simple calculator vs. a reverse polish notation programmable calculator, for example.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[LWATCDR]

Okay why can't the PS3 hit $100? Yes hard drives are expensive but why do you think that they must keep using hard drives? Flash will keep getting cheaper and cheaper. A 20 gig flash key maybe $5 in five years. Ram? Well that will probably drop in price. Blu-Ray drive? Well CD drives and DVD drives have plummeted so I would say that is also possible.
Impossible? I wouldn't say that. Unlikely. Well maybe.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[nacturation]

It would seem that they also believe that the singular reason a game is "good" is related to the programmer's understanding of the hardware. This just isn't true.

Okay, so you're saying that the quality of a game is independent of the programmers' understanding of the hardware. Got it.

If programmers spent less time figuring out the hardware, perhaps they could spend more time working on plot, playability, and flow.

You just contradicted yourself. Now you're saying that the quality of a game is dependent on programmers' understanding of hardware?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tukkayoot]

I think this is quite a valid strategy. It's liek Visual Basic, it turns application development into a drag and drop excercise. Anyone can do it, even people who don't really understand programming! However that results in Visual Basic getting a bad reputation because anything that's written by bad programmers is going to end up a bit shoddy. Sony don't want their console associated with shoddy games. They'd prefer that only decent programmers create games for their system.

Does have a large number of poor quality games really hurt a console's sales, though? I suppose it's conceivable (an ignorant gamer buys the console, doesn't bother to research games before buying, and then tells all of his friends that PS3 games suck because he's only picked mediocre titles), but most people that I know judge a system based not on how good the average game on the system is, but instead based on the quality and quantity of top-tier/highly-rated games on the system.

Making the system more difficult to develop may reduce the quantity of shovelware/crapware that exists, but it also reduces the quality/quantity of top-tier games as well. Since those games probably drive sales more than crappy games hurt sales, it seems to me there is a good chance that the strategy is not only frustrating and cynical, but ineffective.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[shutdown -p now]

Compared to what? My understanding was that since the move to .Net, VB's popularity had declined.

It depends on what you compare it to. I can't find the source now, but not long ago I've read a study that concluded that in some market with heavy .NET penetration, VB is a more popular language over C#. UK was specifically mentioned as one of those, I believe.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[electrosoccertux]

I think this is a flamebait article. Of course Sony doesn't make it hard on purpose. What they have is a choice of hardware platforms on the table. Platform 1 is hard to develop for, however given quality programming, can provide great graphics. Platform 2 is easier to develop for, however does not have the same potential for optimization.

Let say I sell plants. I have two choices of shelves on which I will store my plants for the customer to browse through. On one of them, the bottom shelf has 3 feet of room, the middle shelf has 2 feet of room, and the top third has 1 foot of vertical space to work with (ignore the top of the shelf); for a total of 6 feet. The other shelf has 3 shelves as well, but each has 2 feet of space.

If I go with the first shelf, I can put big plants on the bottom, medium plants in the middle, and small plants on top. However, this using shelf requires extra effort on my part (sorting the plants into small, medium, and large). The second shelf, however, I don't have a chance for optimization-- all the shelves only have 2 feet of vertical room. As a result I cannot stock plants which are taller than 2 feet. Lets say the profit potential on the 3x2 foot shelves is $100. However, if I am willing to make the time investment to maximize plant placement on the customized shelves, I can make $120; the extra $20 coming from buyers who want plants larger than 2 feet high.

PS3 is a similar scenario-- the extra $20 is the potential for better graphics quality. Microsoft chose to go with the 3x2 foot shelves. All their developers can make great looking games. But the potential for game and engine optimization is minimal. Sony, on the other hand, went with the customized shelves. This enables their developers, with greater time investment, to make a game with more visual effects, that the Xbox360 would not be able to run, no matter the level of optimization.

I think Sony's choice would have been the right one if they could have released alongside the Xbox360. But coming late to the game hurt them. When games as great as Killzone2 can be made with a 40 man team, the Xbox360 team takes what, 35 people? If you can make a good game, a game sells 2 million units at $50/game (that's $100million!) an extra 5 developers to optimize the engine for the hardware is not a problem.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[shutdown -p now]

At least Java throws an error when you accidentally leave off the second '=' in a '==' comparison; the real problem is that the purer C derived languages let assignments act as values, and cast them automatically to booleans without complaint.

Aside from C++, which other languages do you know that do that (that aren't just a specialized dialect of C/C++)? C# doesn't have auto-convert to boolean. D is even more interesting, as it has auto-conversion, but explicitly disallows the usage of == in a conditional expression or statement (where it is most often mistyped).

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[shutdown -p now]

Yup, VB is the scripting language of choice for the GUI dependent Windows world...

It depended on the area. A very strong competitor that VB had was Delphi (which could be slightly more complicated, but with many more possibilities), and in Eastern Europe, and Russia in particular, Delphi was always much more popular than VB - on the order of magnitude.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

In a larger gaming company (one that can afford the PS2/3 development tools), you won't have a programmer determining plot, graphics, etc. Programmers will create the engine and implement the game, but graphics artists will create the graphics and story writers will actually create a plot. Don't expect EVERYTHING from the programmers. Not at that level.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[yo_tuco]

"Let say I sell plants."

I would have preferred a car analogy. It would have not been as complex to develop your point and you'd have done it with fewer words.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Rallion]

Though what you describe is quite common, there are an increasing number of counter-examples. By all accounts, Mass Effect is better on the PC than on the XBox, because they actually improved the interface. (I only played the XBox version myself, so I can't speak to that myself.) Mirror's Edge has better physics capabilities on PC. And I just downloaded and played through the new PC demo of The Last Remnant, a game that was panned for its technical problems when released on the console, but it ran beautifully on my computer.

It looks like what's happening in a lot of cases is that developers go to consoles first, because that's where the most money is. But if that console is the 360, they practically already have a PC game made. The 'porting' ends up being a process of not simply making it work, but of making improvements, tailoring it to the platform, and taking advantage of the extra opportunities offered by a keyboard/mouse interface or increased memory or more powerful graphics cards. (And then the PC version is usually $10 cheaper. Hah!)

Obviously, GTAIV does not fit this description, which makes me glad I have the 360 version. However, I did get the PC version of Fallout 3, which was supposedly not even designed with a specific platform in mind; yet, along with what seems like half the people playing it on the PC, I'm having horrendous stability issues with it. Every time I shoot an enemy for the first time, there's about a 1/10 chance the game will crash, and that's just one trigger among many. And of course Bethesda has, again, relied on the mod community to make their interface less huge and obnoxious. Really, guys? You have a third of my screen, and we can only fit three lines of text there at a time, and then not even let me use the scroll wheel to move through them?

So, yeah, crappy ports exist. They're common, even. Mentally, I still file the word 'port' somewhere next to 'crap'. But that might be starting to change a bit.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[atraintocry]

Offtopic: part of the reason that 8- and 16-bit era games got better towards the end of their systems' lives was because (a) as the price of ROM memory fell, you could squeeze in better graphics, (b) cartridge-based games means you can augment the console by putting a coprocessor right on the game board. The first one was especially pronounced with the NES, the second with the SNES. Sega took the opposite path, releasing new hardware every other week, and to nobody's surprise but theirs, they no longer sell hardware.

Sure, part of it is better engines and better coding practices, but IMO the effect is a lot less dramatic with today's consoles.

On-topic: Sony's always had the power to prevent undesirable studios from making games. All they have to do is refuse to sell them the license. They have always had that control. Doing it through the API is phenomenally stupid and I have to assume that Sony is just lying here. The reality is most likely that the designers didn't do enough to make accessing hardware functions easy or elegant, and Sony wants to spin the studios' complaints into something that points to the system having increased quality.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AbRASiON]

The 360 does not blindly have 'the better games' in any way at all.
This is firstly a completely and utterly subjective thing.

Secondly, something which 360 gamers seem to blindly forget (time and time again) is that NOT EVERYONE OWNS A 360!
So right now there are PS2 / Xbox1 / GC owners who are looking for a new console, don't blindly assume they have a 360 and the PS3 offers no value.

About half of the 360's good games are ALREADY ON the PS3, as they are cross platform.
About half of the remaining half are coming out on the PC also....... or already out
The remaining 25% of the 360's good games are truely exclusive to the 360.

That being said, of course half of the PS3's great games are cross platform and also on 360, logically of course.

I am tired of having to defend my purchase of the PS3 to people blindly assuming 'everyone has a 360, why get a PS3?'
I am getting a perfectly satisfactory experience on PSN for free, some may argue the 360's cost of live is cheap but as a 'hard-casual' gamer (less than 30 hours online a year but I do play mainstream blockbusters all the time) - why the heck should I pay 50$ a year for online?

Also the PS3 is SIGNIFICANTLY quieter than the 360 is, before the option to load to HDD (NXE) the 360 was frankly, a god damned abomination of noise in my loungeroom, I was glad to sell it.

Overall I'm very very happy with my purchase and if anything, Microsoft need to woo me in to re-buy another 360.
Gears bored me senseless, why I don't know but it did, it's a shame as I'd heard so much positive about it.
I loathe Halo as one of the most over-rated franchises of all times.
Fable 2 they completely stuffed the movement, animation and camera code compared to the original >:( I found this not fun either (damnit!)
Finally Forza 3,... well this is something I want pretty bad.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Rimbo]

Actually, ever try programming in C on, say, an Apple //e?

You can try it right now. Go get Virtual II or some other emulator, grab a copy of Aztec C compiler, and try it yourself.

The reason BASIC was so popular back in the days of 8-bit PCs was because it was simpler than Assembly language, and the interpreter could easily fit in a very tiny amount of ROM; the programs themselves were efficiently-stored as well.

On the flip side, C requires a compiler, a linker, a decent library to take advantage of the system. Aztec C even came with a full-fledged C shell, two separate compilers -- the second compiler provided an interpreted bytecode-style object, just like BASIC, to keep the binary size from exceeding the 64KB page limit.

The problem with C at that time was that it was a 16-bit language in an 8-bit world.

So BASIC became something that shipped with nearly every PC in existence, and lots of people learned it. It stuck around because BASIC was, in a sense, something Microsoft was really attached to, but also you had these massive armies of people who'd only really learned BASIC as a language. When Microsoft became dominant, VB became important along with it.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

"Basically, I'm guessing VB was originally designed for people who were familiar with BASIC because back then it was "easier" than hard languages like C..."

The attraction of VB was rapid application development. At a time when "Visual" C meant hand-coding to the Windows API (never saw what was "visual" about that) or (even worse) the useless wrapper layer MFC, VB let you drag and drop controls on to a form and quickly write object-oriented code. Same thing with COM and OLE; C programming required "marshalling" and "interfaces" and 3 gazillion long random strings called GUIDs. In VB, you checked off "Microsoft Excel Object" and declared an entire document as a variable. There are many things not to like about VB, but there are also things that did make it a joy to use. (Borland C++ Builder/Kylix was also pretty good, but the IDE was always just a bit more buggy and it never seemed to work as smoothly with COM.)

As for VB.Net and C#, they've basically made two languages which differ only in minor irrelevant details (eg. put/don't put semicolons at the end of lines), and destroyed the parts of VB that were actually clean. VB6 rarely had deep hierarchies of objects (eg. you want a form caption, you say Form1.Caption). Now you have names like Windows.Controls.Forms.Attributes.Captions.Text.Characters or other nonsense. How you're supposed to write or debug code when one line can't even fit on the monitor, I don't know.

As for the PS3, though....well, I don't know anything about the official toolkits. The libraries on Linux aren't bad...still low-level but better than for plain-vanilla x86. (The PS3 has, for example, sin() and cos() as SIMD functions for either the SPU or the CPU. No trig SIMD functions on gcc/x86, sad to say...you'd have to install Intel's math library, and that's not Free.) I'd like to know how the Cell compares to CUDA/GPGPU; it looks interesting, but my computer is limited to AGP cards (too old forn CUDA). It'll be interesting to see if the Cell architecture, long term, can outpace nVidia.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, the ps2 was hard to program when it launched, and that didn't stop it from beating the easier xbox at the time

I don't think things can be sumarized as "easy to program" or "hardware power" or "fun". the success of a console is a complicated business

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[sleeponthemic]

The Wii must be easy, because quite frankly, there is so much awful, exploitation software for it that it must be quite simple to mock up something that seems to maraud as possibly usable.

I agree with Sony's point of view here. I'm tired of the Wii being touted as great. I disagree. I think it is an ok console with a hand full of decent games, surrounded by a sea of mediocre software created on the cheap and quickly solely to exploit the userbase.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[vuffi_raa]

The PS3 will never be $100. Just like the Xbox was never $100

it is less than $100 now, and xbox 1 was the last generation same as the ps2 is last generation-

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, have you even looked at the game lineups for 2009? The PS3 is leading for 2009 as far as games go, not lagging. Better graphics? Your statement has no cred.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Daniel Phillips]

Ballmer was absolutely correct in emphasizing the one thing that really matters for any platform.

I bet Monkey Boy would give his left testicle right now to have that $6 billion back.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

And remember how so many hack developers were all whining how hard it was to program for the PS2? The PS1 was absurdly simple for what it did and they got lazy.

But back then, the Dreamcast was already on the way out, Nintendo's Dolphin was a long way off and the Xbox hadn't been announced yet. So they learned to live with it.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Savantissimo]

Whoosh.
The point of the sig was not to bash Bush (worthy cause though that is), it was ironic humor since Bush for once is telling the literal truth - he does know how it feels since he had to give up his job due to constitutional term limits and thus has to move out of the White House and find a new place to live. The humor is he has a family fortune, personal fortune, at least two other houses, whopping big pension and plenty of opportunities to make $100,000 a pop for speaking engagements and other forms of delayed bribery. Bush was speaking the truth, but he meant it humorously.

In other news, you have a new entry on your freak list. (It's so I can avoid reading the dumber posts.)

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[dropzonetoe]

I am in that camp. I have had my 360 for ages but just yestereday bought a PS3 for a blueray player... a blueray player That also happens to play littlebigplanet. I looked thru the game list again to see what all I might want game wise and found only 3 games that I was interested in, and LBP was one of the three. I do hope that they do produce more games but I do have my 360 to game on in the meantime.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on how you look at it. Speaking as someone who did it for a short while, it was a horrible platform to develop for. You had no choice but to write horrible unmaintainable garbage. There wasn't any hardware for display lists, you had to code that yourself. Wait for the h-blank, update the registers, use the handful of cycles between the next h-blank to process the code for the next sequence, meaning that you wound up with only the vblank to do your game logic and sound.
 
If you wanted anything that actually approached a game you had to squeeze game logic into your drawing code, which was a problem because if the code ran long, even by a cycle, you miss the h-blank and the screen goes bananas.
 
The system was evolved from a jumped up pong machine and for doing games like that I suppose it was easy. But anything even remotely approaching what the modern sprites/tiles setups were doing was an absolute nightmare.
 
Much of Atari's downfall came from their inability to see that developers wanted sprites and tiles, hardware scrolling and dedicated sound processors. They were still perpetuating the silly draw lists style right up to the jaguar days, granted there was now hardware dedicated to it so that you weren't wasting precious CPU cycles babysitting the graphics. The benefits of that approach were negligible as everything it could do could be handled with ease by horizontal interrupts. This did mean your special hacks were consuming the CPU, but you typically needed far fewer than an architecture designed for one every line.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL!

Best. Troll. Ever.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[dunkelfalke]

I see that you never have played Deus Ex 2.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[SenseiLeNoir]

I agree fully with your sentiments.

When I was looking to by a games system over a year, and although the PS3 had less games at the time than the 360, I chose the PS3 for the following reasons.

- Although I did have an Original Xbox, I had no reason to play the 2 games I had on it.

- HDMI, Hard Disk already built in, no need at that point to buy any extra peripherals, other than the second controller. 360 at the time only had HDMI, HD, & wireless on the Elite.

- Hard Disk easily user upgradeable via SATA 2.5 drives. I later replaced my laptop's hard Disk with a new larger one, and put that disk into the PS3 120GB of storage. 360 requires a proprietary HD.

- Blu Ray/DVD upscaling Playback, DivX/XviD upscaling playback, Web Browser, DNLA. These things EASILY justified the extra expense of the PS3, enough said. The 360 simply did not have all that, and required an add-on for HD-DVD. The 360 had Media Player Extender, but only really worked well with Windows Media Player, and not any DNLA server, such as my N95. Plus its built in DivX/XviD support was better. Add to it the BD-Bluetooth remote, it became a lot better.

- Standard USB ports. Plug in a USB Drive, or a USB HArd Disk, and access anything on the drive. Add a normal USB keyboard, no problem. Need more ports? Just use a standard USB hub.

- Bluetooth. Controllers/remote control uses Bluetooth, reduced profileration of wireless standards (already have bluetooth/wireless/DECT phones in my household, dont want yet another standard to play with). On top of that, can attach a normal Bluetooth headset for audio/mic, a bluetooth keyboard or mouse for input (works well). Even supports a Microsoft Bluetooth Entertainment keyboard with a built in mouse.

- PSP integration.

- PlayTV, very cost effective (£50) Freeview Tuner. Allows me to watch free to air Digital Broadcasts, record using the HD, whilst watching another/timeshifting (two tuners built into the PlayTV). Easily Transfer recorded programs to the PSP.

- Firmware updates keep adding features.

- Linux (though This is probably more a novelty due to memory constraints, but does work quite well as a web server, etc).

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[killvore]

The real question that Sony should ask themselves is if people are going to buy a 9 year-old console to play a cool game?

Pokemon?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[SenseiLeNoir]

Although what you said is true, you have exaggerated the effects.

I have one of the castrated PS3's, but for me, backwards compatibility was not an issue, as I didnt have PS2 games in the first place. I had PSone games, which are supported nicely on even the latest PS3s.

I also ended up with the 20gb HD, instead of the 40GB/60GB HD, but arguably even 40GB was not enough, and I replaced it with a 120GB HD, from my laptop, which I replaced with a 300GB. The new PS3s come with 80Gb.

Removing the ps2 compatibility reduced the energy footprint of the PS3, as did the new processors they are using. A definite plus, for a system that was switched on more and more for things other than just a Games Console.

I can see why those with a library of ps2 games would be annoyed, but then they could use their existing PS2s

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[August_zero]

Less a valid strategy, and more an "oops" is what I would guess. Does making it harder to produce games, make better games? Darwin would say so, but then Darwin never saw anything like the companies that shovel out budget level drek, that while low in individual sales, often provide a safer return in the long run than larger projects costing millions to produce. My biggest issue with sony now is, that when games get ported to both the xbox and the ps3, the xbox version is often better and less flawed in terms of performance on the hardware (often is not equal to always) and typically gets better support from the publisher, take Fallout 3, and GTA4 for a couple of high profile examples. This disparity is only going to get worse if the gap between the systems continues to widen.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Sobrique]

I'd rather have the hours of my life back, when faced with a highly disappointed but much hyped conversion.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Skuld-Chan]

The risk is - if most developers aim towards the bigger market - the 360, then the ports will be made for the PS3 as an afterthought.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[drinkypoo]

First off, do you really consider the Genesis to be more powerful than the SNES? I'm not aware of any console of the 1990-91 timeframe that had better specs than Super Nintendo.

In raw processing power, yes. In total capabilities, no.

BTW, I think Sega made a mistake discontinuing the Dreamcast.

They didn't have a choice any more. Sega imploded, they didn't just disco the DC.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[roggg]

The real question that Sony should ask themselves is if people are going to buy a 9 year-old console to play a cool game?

Good point. More importantly IMO is the question of how much longer PS3 will even be on the market. For me, I don't see how it's remotely possible for this product to make it through a 9 year cycle, as they are way behind both MS and Nintendo right now. They better have a next-gen product plan that's a lot more market friendly than the PS3 if they plan to ever be a player in this market again.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[roggg]

Okay why can't the PS3 hit $100?

I won't even get into the hard-drive argument as I don't really know if they can get costs down to where it's a profitable sale at $100. The fact remains that this is the 3rd place console in the market, and it will be discontinued much sooner than either the Wii or the 360. It may hit 100 bucks before that happens, but not in the good way that the PS2 did. The PS2 was the clear market winner of it's generation, and is still marketable. The PS3 is looking more and more like the clear market loser. It's a different world when you're on the bottom of the heap. The PS3 won't be a successful $100 game platform for the same reason the gamecube isn't.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[happyemoticon]

From a certain very jaded standpoint, the most commercially relevant feature of a game IS the graphics. Traditionally, companies dupe people into buying games because of impressive graphics and promotion, so graphics drive game sales, and people buy consoles because the games on it have impressive graphics, because that's the only differentiating feature of consoles. I"m talking here about your middle-of-the-road developers here, the ones with soulless executives who only see the bottom line, and inspired staff who'd rather make a fun game but are often not allowed to.

That's why the Wii is so disruptive, and that is why so many developers (more specifically, their managers and execs) dislike it. It is not graphically competitive, but has a fun and intuitive controller. While you can reliably make a game pretty by throwing artists and shader programmers at it, you cannot reliably make a game fun. Or perhaps you can make any game fun *eventually*, but you can't always predict how long that will be. And, by the way, the best game designers and production houses in the business are ALL notorious for delays - Miyamoto, Blizzard, Valve, etc.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AndersOSU]

oh goober, you should listen to the people you disagree with occasionally.

Yes Greenspan is more culpable than W. Yes, I blame Clinton, HW, and more than anything Ronald Reagan (the only president before W dumb enough to take Milton Friedman seriously).

To be specific I blame Clinton twice - once for being suckered in by the globalization/deregulation buzz, and a second time for letting greenspan keep his job. But hey, without Newt playing wedge politics he might have made up for those errors by fixing healthcare a freaking decade ago - and he wouldn't have had deregulation nonsense shoved down his throat. But that's many, many times fewer than I blame Reagan, HW, and W.

As for the wars, the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the absentee Bush of 2000-2001. Who needs intelligence reports anyway - everything is just fine...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[stewbacca]

Hello, this is 1995. I want my Desktop Publishing, Graphic Design, and Web Design industries back. I was ok with a few talented artsy types who were devoted to their craft, but since AOL and Win95, any dweeb with a keyboard can churn out crap for the sake of ad-clicks.

I guess it's Sony's call on this one. Let anyone develop and you get what you deserve. Make it hard for talented developers to develop, you get what you deserve. There's gotta be a happy medium in there somewhere.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

Fixed it for you.

Actually you broke it for be in line with your broken perception of reality.

This isn't about blaming parties. Its about knowing the facts. You want to blame the person with whom you can visually associate problems. That's fine. That's a common problem and a natural error. The simply fact is, W is not the root cause of all the problems the US is currently suffering. Okay, I understand you want to irrationally hate monger. That's fine. When you get to the point where you'd rather be right rather than irrationally hate monger, go back and re-read what I said. Until people stop hate mongering and actually bother to both, understand the root cause and how we got here, we're doomed to repeat.

You want to be part of the solution or continue being part of the problem by closing your eyes and drawing lines by party divisions? Based on your comment, I can only assume your comprehension of the situation starts and stops at party lines.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Requiem18th]

And yet no multi-line strings? Slightly off-topic but I don't think ALL syntax differences can be boiled down to personal preference, there are some, or many cases of different languages supporting radically different program flow or features, but for languages in the same category I think there are objectively superior choices, even if someone complains out of sternness.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

Um, Clinton wasn't responsible for Iraq.

Actually its well documented he is responsible. Had Clinton killed Obama when he had the chance, the two towers would likely still stand today. But Clinton decided a very limited response was more appropriate. Twice he failed to kill Obama despite clear evidence he and his group were behind embassy bombings and various terrorist attacks against both the West and the US.

Basically, the Al Qaeda that the US military fought during Bush's terms is the same Al Qaeda Clinton allowed to train and build, all the while they were attacking Western and US targets during Clinton's term. In short, had Clinton done his job, Bush would had never had cause to initiate war. That's what we call "root cause". And when I said do his job, I mean actually ensured the terrorists were killed rather than simply piss them off.

It's well documented Clinton failed to kill Obama on two occasions. And in both of those occasions, had Clinton allowed the military to do a measured response, as they requested, rather than the "limited" response required by Clinton, Obama would be dead and very likely 9/11 would never have happened. And likely hundreds of others would still be alive today - not counting those who died post 9/11. And, let's not forget those that died during the USS Cole bombing which was allowed to happen because of Clinton's failure to act and respond.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[LWATCDR]

You maybe correct but I was commenting on the impossibility of the PS3 becoming a $100 device. I did state that it may not happen because it is really lagging in sales. The problem with the PS is simply there are no games that I really want to have.
My wife and I just picked up an XBox 360 to add to our Wii. Yes the 360s online experience is better but there are not a lot of games I really want for it and they tend to be expensive. Love the NetFlix on it.
The PS3 just doesn't have enough in the way of games to interest me.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

Whoosh.

If you can't understand, and obviously you can't, why I interpreted it the way I did, then an obvious, "WHOOSH" is in order. And the word, "order" is all too appropriate because its an order of magnitude more obvious given the context as provided.

In other news, you have a new entry on your freak list.

That's fine by me. I won't have to see the stupidity which is your illogical "whoosh"ing in the face of obvious context; which is irony of irony given your, "whoosh"ing position. The irony of your position is enough to make ones head explode.

Now that's funny. Seriously, think about it. That's seriously funny. Using your own logic you should be marking your self as your own, worse freak. WHOOSH. LOL.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

Your post is odd to say the least. You scold me for failure to listen, then you agree with me, then you disagree with me by professing what I can only assume is ignorance of the facts. Very odd to say the least.

Read my post about Clinton vs Bush above. Keep in mind, I'm not saying Bush has zero culpability here. I am say Bush is not the root cause. Most, especially the blind-eye, die hard, Democrates, seem truly shocked and surprised to learn the war situation could have been completely avoided, and thousands and thousands alive today, had Clinton simply done his job by allowing the military to do their job in the first place. Read my post above about Clinton's failure to act and act appropriately when he finally does.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[squizzi]

And then you compare it to Burnout: Paradise - a game that was developed for/on the PS3 and then ported to the PC and 360 respectively - and inturn became a fantastic PC (and 360 game) port with awesome performance and incredibly bug free. The cell architecture has its pros and cons, just like anything else. Except Sony doesn't really enjoy putting their first party games on their competitors OS ... so, we won't get to see many amazing ports, since third-party developers that most likely will make ports will probably be developing with the 360 in mind. I don't blame them, if I wanted to minimize my costs, or even get a game on the market quickly I would head up development on the 360. Most third-party devs, especially indie devs and the new guys that haven't been picked up by Sony or M$ to develop, may not have the budget to develop for the PS3, which is a shame. But I think the PS3 really has something going for it with the cell... Games designed specifically for the cell and not dually developed with the 360 in mind ex) Sony exclusives, MGS4, KillZone 2, etc. are fantastic in quality. And to make my post longer, I end with a question, what about the new Final Fantasy or even Resident Evil 5 - I wonder what platform these games started development on?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[WeatherServo9]

I think there were many more reasons for the Atari 7800's failure; difficulty programming may have contributed, but I think it was low on the list of problems. The big one was the games; initially most games were yet another version of classics. While Nintendo had new, exciting games like Super Mario Bros, etc., Atari had marginally improved versions of Joust, Asteroids, and so on - all previously available on other systems. These were all nice titles to have available and round out the catalog (and indeed many also saw Nintendo ports), but they weren't really competitive, system selling titles, something Atari 7800 very much lacked. Plus the 7800 was really meant to have additional chips added to the cartridges to improved it's capabilities (sound most notably, it had very weak sound - same as Atari 2600 really). As a cost cutting measure Atari at first wouldn't allow programmers to utilize extra memory or sound chips and were rushed to market - as a result many 7800 games weren't nearly as good as they should have been. Nintendo's controversial policy of keeping games on the NES and no competing systems for two years also did not help Atari at all! Atari's marketing wasn't great either, I'm sure that didn't help.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Not deliberately hard, just not deliberately easy.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Gizzmonic]

It's cute that you think Islamist reaction to US imperialism can be completely laid at the feet of Bill Clinton. Why the hell were we paying billions of dollars to the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc when all we got in return was a song?

In the words of Andrew Bacevich, all these agencies had plenty of scenarios and plans for attacks in Riyahd or Seoul. They had no plans for an attack on Manhattan. Indeed, it seemed inconceivable (though it probably shouldn't have, especially after the first WTC bombing).

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Nebu]

I am tired of having to defend my purchase of the PS3 to people blindly assuming 'everyone has a 360, why get a PS3?'

Uh... why do you feel you need to defend your purchase of the PS3? I'm pretty confident nobody on the Internet really cares what you, personally, have bought and why.

If you're happy with your PS3, that's great. But any anguish from "having to defend" is just coming from within yourself. There will always be flame wars around consoles on the Internet. Learn to just relax and enjoy the consoles you own. Who cares what other people on the Internet think is the better console? If you're happy with your console, that's all that matters, right?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[t3chn0n3rd]

Software development kits for PS3, are they selling them?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Nebu]

Actually, the pattern is that it alternates. So the next good console will be easy to program (i.e. XBox360), and the one after that will be hard to program (i.e. PS4).

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Gizzmonic]

They aren't going to reduce any more features.

I'm sure you can borrow a PS2 from someone for cheap if that's what you want to play. Yeah, it's a hassle and it takes up more space...otherwise, you can get an 80 GB model with software backwards compatibility on Craigslist for $300 (or maybe even less) used.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hedwards]

Um, your bigotry is showing. He's Osama bin Ladin, Obama is the black man that's now running the executive branch.

But on the other hand, why bother to think things through when you can just be a racist jerk and place the blame on the Democratic party. I mean because hey, it's not like the Republican party armed Bin Ladin, oh wait, you say that the CIA under Reagan armed him.

Of course this'll get modded down as well, because clearly suggesting that a Republican was incompetent at foreign affairs is tantamount to heresy.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[brianwgray]

On that note, developers that strive to become great PS3 platform programmers have the opportunity to make more money because they have a skill set that is not easily obtained but is desired by their employers.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

>>>You can't make a hard drive for $25

You can buy internal hard drives for $50 retail, which means the wholesale price is around $25. If Sony can take a $50 PS1, add a hard drive for $25 wholesale, and sell the bundle at $100, then they can do the same with the PS3 or Xbox 360 in 2012 or 2013.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

>>>Iam tired of having to defend my purchase of the PS3 to people blindly assuming 'everyone has a 360, why get a PS3?'

Now you know how people felt back in the PS2 era ("why did you buy an Xbox? PS2 is what everyone has"), or back in the PS1 era ("why did you buy a N64? PS1 is better and more popular"). Your past has now come back to haunt you. You're reaping what you sowed.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[pegasustonans]

Besides, the PS3 is seriously lagging behind the 360 as far as games go. For the most part, the 360 has better games, better graphics, and better online play.

I'm tired of people dragging out this three-year-old argument. It's simply not true.

If Killzone 2 isn't enough to convince you that the consoles are an even playing-field, then how about these PS3 exclusives:

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
LittleBigPlanet
Resistance: Fall of Man
Resistance 2
Warhawk
Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Heavenly Sword
Folklore
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Gran Turismo 5: Prologue
MotorStorm
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
Valkyria Chronicles
Wipeout HD
Flower

Perpetuating the fallacy that the 360 has better graphics is so 2006. I own both consoles and can honestly say that there are no differences worth mentioning in any worthwhile games over the past year.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[torkus]

You're dead-on about the PS3. If not for the blue-ray player (and the $zillions in marketing for BR) I think the PS3 would have been practically stillborn.

to wit:

I bought a PS3 because i talked the wife into a ~$2000 1080P TV and she decided we needed a blue-ray player to go with it.

With the $100 gift card at target at the time, the PS3 was cheaper than a blue-ray player. If it hadn't been for the utility of that drive I never would have bought it. A year or so later, I own exactly 3 PS3 games...but it's handy for watching movies off my media server.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AndersOSU]

You don't listen, because you present Greenspan and Reagan as people who aren't being blamed. They are - in spades.

Clinton couldn't have fixed jack by using the military. Clinton could have avoided some of the current problems by not signing trade agreements that promise everything and demanded nothing, by vetoing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act and similar legislation, and by not allowing Greenspan to keep his post.

I've read your other posts, and yeah Clinton isn't blameless. But you also said something about not blaming the most visible figures and getting to the root cause. The war situation could also have been avoided had George W Bush read his intelligence reports, and had Cheney and others not manufactured an al Qaeda - Iraq - WMD link out of thin air. The war situation could have been avoided if George H W Bush had intervened when it was clear that a violent and repressive Taliban was taking power. The war situation could have been avoided if Reagan and vice president George H W Bush hadn't washed their hands of Afghanistan when the Soviets pulled out. The war situation could have been avoided had the same chain of presidents not completely screwed up relations with Saudi Arabia which allowed the bin Ladens to become wealthy and then to alienate Osama while he is still enjoying popular support.

Bush may not be the root cause, but the regulation-is-always-bad-let's-cut-taxes-and-if-that-doesn't-work-start-a-war credo that he and his party trot out as the solution to every problem is. So yeah, I'm still laying it at the feet of W, because arguments about Afghanistan aside there's no denying that the decider chose to go to Iraq, and chose to let the financial institutions operate almost entirely free of regulation.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[UnknownSoldier]

> And remember how so many hack developers were all whining how hard it was to program for the PS2? The PS1 was absurdly simple for what it did and they got lazy.

Quite trolling. How many games have you actually _shipped_ on PSX and PS2?

Having done both, you gotta be crazy to be sipping the typical Sony Arrogance juice. WHY complicate something when it doesn't need to be -- as I a developer I got better things to do (like focusing on gameplay) then trying to figure out someone's obscure hardware. The complexity increase from PSX to PS2 was five fold. And from what I hear from my fellow PS3 devs, the difficulty & complexity is the same jump from PS2 to PS3. Developing for Sony is like building a F1 car -- sure it can do 200 mph, but its a very techinical process. Microsoft took the ferrari approach --- easier & cheaper to build, and you have more fun getting there.

Let me know when you have shipped your first game.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

>>>Obviously, it couldn't have been that hard to program for given the 10000+ (9800+ crappy) games made for it.

There are just over 1000 Atari 2600/VCS games available. You were probably thinking of the Commodore=64 which really odes have over 10,000 programs, although it's a mix of games and productivity software.

>>>self-repeating map tiles.

I don't know what this refers to? The Atari wouldn't produce anything other than one-color pixels (resolution of 25x20). Tiles didn't really happen until the 1980s, like you see in the Coleco or NES.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[UnknownSoldier]

It's easy to ignore the 7 cpus of the PS2 -- because most people don't have to deal with trying to synchronize between them all to maximize load balancing between Memory, EE, VUs, GS and the SPUs.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

>>>You had no choice but to write horrible unmaintainable garbage.

Yes because clearly upgrading Space Invaders every six months was a key concern for Atari's cartridge division. Not. If you're going to criticize a console, criticize it for things that matter. "Maintainability" or "upgradability" was not something Atari cared about, nor any other game console of the 1970s-to-early 80s. They shoveled the games out as quickly as possible with no need to mantain code, because once it was done, it was done.

>>>Much of Atari's downfall came from their inability to see that developers wanted sprites and tiles, hardware scrolling and dedicated sound processors.

Wrong. Why do you think Atari released the 5200 five years after the original VCS? (Five years being the typical time between generations.) The 5200 could do sprites and also music using the dedicated sound chip, and the even-more advanced 7800 had the ability to control 128 different sprites. Atari DID listen to developers. Atari even negotiated with Nintendo to release the NES under the Atari label. Atari was aware they needed to upgrade to keep-up with technology.

Atari's only mistake was canceling the Nintendo contract in 1985, thereby handing the U.S. market to the Japanese (Nintendo and Sega). It was a business mistake, not a technical one.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[commodore64_love]

>>>So the next good console will be easy to program (i.e. XBox360)

You're probably right, but X360 is not the #1-selling console. The best-selling console for this generation is the Wii. And prior to that it was PS2, PS1, SNES, NES, Atari VCS/2600.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[shutdown -p now]

I see that you never have played Deus Ex 2.

I did. Compared to the original, it sucked, but then the original was brilliant. On its own, DE2 was an okay game. At any rate, I wouldn't say it was dumbed down specifically for the consoles - rather, it was dumbed down in general, probably because the original was found to be way too deep for the majority of the gaming crowd out there.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dan667]

Ballmer may have made that rant, but it was Bill who actually followed it. If you looks at the releases of visual basic, vba, excel, this was true, Microsoft courted developers. Once Ballmer took over, they changed their focus from the end customer and developers to a marketing strategy to try and get money from people who are not the end customer. That is why vista sucked and why drm and all the other "features" they are adding are nothing people actually want. This has cost them dearly.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Fulcrum of Evil]

The war situation could also have been avoided had George W Bush read his intelligence reports

Hell, he would've avoided the Iraq quagmire if he'd read his daddy's book. That's what really burns - his own father outlined the reasons for not invading and what would happen if he did.

Adding on to your chain if failure, the war situation could've been avoided had we not been waging a sort of covert war against the middle east for the past 100 years or so.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Zarniwoop_Editor]

Over 4 million PS2's sold in the US alone last year. I think that answers the question of will people buy a 9 year-old console.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm... not sure I'd say that the company which makes Gran Turismo has "no understanding of software development." But I do see your point.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Starayo]

An improvement GUI and graphics-wise it may be, but the 360 version doesn't shove any SecuROM crap on my precious PC. :)

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Daetrin]

I'm pretty confident nobody on the Internet really cares what you, personally, have bought and why.

You must be new here.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

LOL. That is a pretty bad mistake. It was early morning, I'd not had coffee, and I had just finished reading an article about Obama so his name was fresh in mind. No bigotry required unless all humans are bigots to the degree your assign to me. That's just the way the human brain works.

because clearly suggesting that a Republican was incompetent at foreign affairs is tantamount to heresy.

I actually agree with you here. For some reason people seem to only see the world in black or white when it comes to politics and stupidly believe everyone must fall in line with the two major parties. Simple fact is, Bush screwed up a lot things. He did a lot of things to which I completely disagree. But the point remains, many people are blindly, ignorantly, dumbly, blaming him for things which he had nothing to do and reacting accordingly. Sadly, this behaviour of blind ignorance and stupidity will only result in far, far worse results if we're not very careful. It's only blind ignorance and zealotry which seems to make people ignore the truth.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Lonewolf666]

PS3 is a similar scenario-- the extra $20 is the potential for better graphics quality. Microsoft chose to go with the 3x2 foot shelves. All their developers can make great looking games. But the potential for game and engine optimization is minimal. Sony, on the other hand, went with the customized shelves. This enables their developers, with greater time investment, to make a game with more visual effects, that the Xbox360 would not be able to run, no matter the level of optimization.

Only that time and Moore's Law will prove Sony wrong. Before the planned lifetime of the PS3 is over, some new console (or the PC) will probably offer more performance per money. To extend your analogy, Microsoft will probably have a 3x3 foot shelf before all the 3/2/1 foot shelve are sold...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[bluefoxlucid]

Right, but the thinking "Make it harder to implement the task" correlates directly to "Make it more expensive to implement the task," which becomes "Rebalance the same budget such that design and creativity are moved into implementation" and thus the best people out there make shitty games.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[plague3106]

I'm not sure Nintendo is much of a factor. Yes, there are a lot of party games. There are few games I'm interested in playing on my Wii. I was considering xbox or ps3.. and decided on the ps3. The main reason is that it also has a blueray player, and there do seem to be games coming down the line for it. Xbox at the same time is trying to steal the people without a console from the Wii. So they are marketing more family friendly games... which is exactly what isn't interesting me right now. Add in the huge problems with the xbox's rrod, and other issues, and the fact that I have a PSP, the PS3 is a clear choice for me.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dogtanian]

I'm aware of all this, and agree entirely with what you say. But you missed my point.

I wasn't saying- and never would- that C was suitable for most 8-bit computers. Indeed, many of old-school BASIC's limitations (lack of structure, "hardwired" commands with core language- including syntax- tied to "function" commands like PRINT, etc.) are understandable in the context of those machines for the reason you give.

However, I was talking about *Visual Basic*, and that came out in the early 1990s during the late 16-bit/early 32-bit era.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Dogtanian]

At least Java throws an error when you accidentally leave off the second '=' in a '==' comparison; the real problem is that the purer C derived languages let assignments act as values, and cast them automatically to booleans without complaint.

Haven't used Java for quite a while now (yikes!), but is that an explicit feature or a useful side-effect of it warning of a non-boolean value where it expects a boolean value?

In other words, the assignment is still legal in that context, but it's the incorrect resultant type that trips the wire- and presumably would be missed if we were comparing/assigning boolean values?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you don't have to buy these things, which is the point. Advanced features don't work, but the games do - and that's pretty much the concept behind the offering.

I do like that you're breaking out this old, debunked argument, though. It's a nice sign that the Sony fanbitches are finally getting tired of defending the piece o' shit 3.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

It's cute that you think Islamist reaction to US imperialism can be completely laid at the feet of Bill Clinton.

It's cute you can't comprehend what you read. That's not what I said. The "Islamist reaction" is what was fuelling the attacks to which Clinton utterly failed to react. Though in that part of the world, failure to act is weakness, which in turn does fuel further action.

I never said he is the cause of all "Islamist reaction." I did say, which is factually correct, he directly started a chain a events which led to the attack on 9/11 after failing to properly respond to many, many other attacks which took place while he was in office. His response to some of these attacks were...drum roll...do nothing. And when he finally does respond...he does the minimal possible rather than what is an appropriately scaled response - as the military had requested. This in turn allowed Osama to escape death long before the attack on 9/11 was fully hatched. This in turn allowed 9/11 which empowered Bush to go to war in Afghanistan which in turn opened the door for him to attack Iraq. In short, had Clinton not been such a fuckup, Bush would never have been allowed to fuck up like he did because the window of opportunity would simply not had existed. To be clear, this is NOT high praise for Bush!

In short, stop willingly reading your misinterpretations into the writings and statements of others so you can protect your ignorant view of the world. Like it or not, Clinton fucked up. Like it or not, Clinton fucked up BAD! And as a nation, we all payed for it. Had Clinton not so completely fucked up, Bush would never have had the provocation which brought us to this point in time; and it would be very unlikely he would have won a second term to boot.

Any reasonable Democrat should be pissed at Clinton. Few has fucked up as badly as he did. You might even say, he was the original "W".

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Next was doing that in the 80s with objective C. It's even easier again and needs less code writing.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

You don't listen, because you present Greenspan and Reagan as people who aren't being blamed. They are - in spades.

Opps. Sorry, I was confused from the fact most people are only pointing a finger at Bush. Which, given the context above, means you're barking up the wrong tree. Which in turn means, I do listen when in fact, it is you who is not listening.

The war situation could also have been avoided had

Yes, yes, yes....we all know that. That's the entire point of my post and yet you still entirely miss the point. Who is ultimately responsible? Bush. Who is the enabler who fucked easily on scale of that of W Bush? Clinton. That's the point - at least as far as the war goes. Ya others before him had a hand too...but they had a bigger hand in the financial woes too...the war is one problem...the economy is the other...and the economic problems were put in place during Reagan's, Bush Senior's, and Clinton's terms in office...yet people only want to blame 'W. That's the point. People are rabidly blaming Bush when there are many others to blame too.

So yeah, I'm still laying it at the feet of W, because arguments about Afghanistan aside there's no denying that the decider chose to go to Iraq, and chose to let the financial institutions operate almost entirely free of regulation.

And I place it where it belongs - for the war - at the feet of Clinton and Bush. Had Clinton simply done his job, Bush would have never been empowered to do everything you cited. In short, Clinton's huge fuck ups empowered an idiot to go on a rampage. Without Clinton empowering him, the masses would have seen him for what he was - an idiot; or he would have stayed outside the boundaries of idiocy. Not to mention, had Clinton simply done his job, thousands and thousands of people would be alive today.

People want to make this a party issue - simple fact is, Clinton created a monster and far, far too many people refuse to even consider there is blame to share outside of 'W.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

Hell, he would've avoided the Iraq quagmire if he'd read his daddy's book. That's what really burns - his own father outlined the reasons for not invading and what would happen if he did.

Adding on to your chain if failure, the war situation could've been avoided had we not been waging a sort of covert war against the middle east for the past 100 years or so.

I can't disagree with anything you've stated.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AndersOSU]

Here's what I don't get: we have to look to the root cause - but we can't go back further than Clinton?

First there's two wars. You can't blame anyone but W and his "administration" for Iraq. Clinton doesn't even come into play.

Then there's Afghanistan. Blah blah, Clinton was soft on terror, he should have killed Osama after the Cole bombing, which indecently happened at the very end of the Clinton presidency - W didn't go after those responsible either. Maybe that's true. MAYBE. None of that excuses our absentee president from dismissing senior intelligence officials who flew all the way to Crawford to give Bush warnings that Osama was determined to strike the US by saying, "alright, you've covered your ass now." So Clinton didn't preemptively invade Afghanistan - ok, but Bush was asleep at the switch with real actionable intelligence.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[virtue3]

Uhm, 5 extra developers isn't an issue? You don't just need a "developer" you need a senior level developer that is well versed in multithreaded and embeded systems. As well as knowing his ASM. And that's going to set you back at LEAST 100k. So 500,000k/yr added up on your game is nothing?

Killzone took two years to develop. That's a million dollars extra for the game. On a platform that has less base users than xbox. And if your game flops, you are entirely and utterly done. Game over, don't pass go, don't collect $200 mil.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AbRASiON]

The point is the PS3 is constantly derided by un-informed people who seem to enjoy exaggerating the point or following the status quo, despite having never owned or used one.
It's hip to pick shit at the PS3 - very lame.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AbRASiON]

Never owned a PS1, didn't 'sow' anything, not a blind PS3 fanboy, you're welcome to try and label me as one but you'd be wrong.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[dunkelfalke]

some parts of dx2 were fun - like ng resonace. but the whole game was dumbed down, and the all fitting ammo and especially the extremely small levels were typical console.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[jackbird]

Where's the profit in making $700 in 3 weeks?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[CronoCloud]

Linux (though This is probably more a novelty due to memory constraints, but does work quite well as a web server, etc).

What? 256MB of RAM not enough? 256MB was often the base configuration of early WinXP boxes!

Using fluxbox helps, as does using VRAM swap in YDL 6.1. It's snappier and makes a better desktop than Linux on the PS2 did.

Oh, one comment on your post, one thing the Xbox 360 has that the PS3 doesn't is SMB/CIFS support. Sure the PS3 has DLNA, but it would be nice to have SMB/CIFS too.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[fava]

You can buy 80GB drives in lots of 100 for as little as $18 to $23 each.

http://www.goharddrive.com/category-s/74.htm

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[DragonWriter]

The PS3 will never be $100. Just like the Xbox was never $100, just like the 360 will never be $100. That's not possible when you need to have a hard drive, a Blu-ray drive, a fairly advanced processor that you don't manufacture, and expensive high-speed RAM.

You could have said the same kinds of thing about the hardware in the PS2 when it came out, and you would have been just as right. All of those things were expensive and "fairly advanced" when the PS3 came out, but will probably be dirt cheap in a couple more years.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Books are not a sieve. One does not "pour" through them.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[CronoCloud]

Repeat after me:

It wasn't marketing that killed the Dreamcast, the PS2 is simply a better system than the Dreamcast. It has a faster CPU, the discs hold more data, it has more RAM, the memory cards hold more data, has standard USB ports, the BIG full size PS2 has a hard drive option and the PS2 can output 1080i. And unlike the Dreamcast, the PS2 is backwards compatible with it's predecessor. The PS2 also has a greater variety of games, unlike the Dreamcast with it's library that tended to appeal only to the die hard arcade/fighting game/sega fanboys.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a pretty big leap you made there, from someone putting a Bush quote in their sig, to your post. Did someone forget to take their meds this morning?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Chris Burke]

I'm tired of people dragging out this three-year-old argument. It's simply not true.

Three year old argument? The PS3 was launched in late Nov, 2006, so it's only been out a little over 2 years...

Oh, right. This is a console flame war. Of course XBox fanboys were arguing that the 360 had more games than the PS3 a year before the PS3 actually came out. I guess it would have even been technically true at the time.

Carry on. :)

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

Here's what I don't get: we have to look to the root cause - but we can't go back further than Clinton?

Seem to be confusing root cause with associative cause. Yes, there are other factors but we're talking about the root - Clinton.

W didn't go after those responsible either.

He couldn't. The US had already, "responded." An additional response at that point in time would have been very negatively viewed by the world.

So Clinton didn't preemptively invade Afghanistan

An invasion would have never been required if Clinton had used enough force to completely destroy the known Al Qaeda bases which were actively training recruits. Intelligence even watched them via satellite. He didn't. He used only enough force to destroy some buildings (and yes *some* people - they were in those buildings) to send a message. Frankly, I'm not sure what message that was. It seems if you murder hundreds, including US citizens, attempt to blow up the trade center towers in NY, blow up our embassys, murder our allies, blow up a US destroyer and murder sailors, you run the risk of temporarily losing your training facility and maybe a dozen men or so? WTF? He clearly sent the message you can do whatever you want with little risk of retaliation.

In that part of the world, Clinton gave them a green light to do whatever they wanted - setting the stage of Bush to stumble in. To say it was a green light for successful asymmetrical warfare againsts the US is an understatement. Hmmm... couple dozen(?) men dead in exchange for hundreds of westerners and millions of dollars of damages plus actual sailors dead too. Sounds like victory by anyone's measure. And oh, to kill those few men and buildings we spent millions more to use cruise missiles to achieve no strategic or tactical victory. Pure brilliance.

Like I said, Clinton taught W how to fuck things up.

So Clinton didn't preemptively invade Afghanistan - ok, but Bush was asleep at the switch with real actionable intelligence.

So was Clinton. Clinton received the very same reports all the while tons of attacks took place under this watch and he did nothing but validate their theory of asymmetrical warfare means victory. You can't burn Bush without doubly burning Clinton.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an alternative interpretation: Sony didn't want to bake in a high-level concurrency API for fear of under-utilization of the hardware by a majority of developers. And if there's one thing computer scientists know quite well about multi-core programming, it's One Size Does Not Fit All.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AndersOSU]

and you can't burn clinton without burning H. W. Bush, who you can't burn without burning Reagan, who you can't burn without burning Carter etc. etc. etc.

You're trying to have it both ways, either 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan are W's fault, or they're result of a string bad foreign policy decisions, with blame resting on everyone and starting with Truman.

You seem to be the ideologically motivated blind-eye, die hard. Clinton didn't respond to the Cole bombing because we didn't know who did it. Al Qaeda was suspected, but it wasn't clear. Here's a timeline courtesy wikipedia:
* 12 October 2000: bombing
* 7 November 2000: election
* 20 January 2001: George W Bush assumes office
* 25 January 2001, Tenet briefed the President on the Cole investigation. The written briefing repeated for top officials of the new administration what the CIA had told the Clinton White House in November. This included the "preliminary judgment" that al Qaeda was responsible, with the caveat that no evidence had yet been found that Bin Ladin himself ordered the attack... in March 2001, the CIA's briefing slides for Rice were still describing the CIA's "preliminary judgment" that a "strong circumstantial case" could be made against al Qaeda but noting that the CIA continued to lack "conclusive information on external command and control" of the attack
* 9 February 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney was briefed on bin Laden's responsibility "without hedge."

You don't bomb a sovereign country on a preliminary judgment. The appropriate time to respond would have been between 25 January 2001, and 9 February 2001.

W didn't need any lessons on how to fuck things up.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is quite a valid strategy. It's liek Visual Basic, it turns application development into a drag and drop excercise. Anyone can do it, even people who don't really understand programming! However that results in Visual Basic getting a bad reputation because anything that's written by bad programmers is going to end up a bit shoddy. Sony don't want their console associated with shoddy games. They'd prefer that only decent programmers create games for their system.

Except its not like that at all. If a game doesnt get the MS seal of approval its not allowed to be published. You dont have every joe shmo programming a game and it gets put on shelves. The only thing this does is same result for more time spent or same time spent and below average result.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hairyfeet]

It took me a couple of hours a night to whip it off in my spare time. It wasn't like I actually sat there for 3 weeks and built the thing. Plus if you have used VB for any length of time you have plenty of code snippets and there are places like code VB and VB6 that have tons of free code you can use. So all I had to do was show up there a couple of times to get feedback on my mockups and then finish it off in my spare time. The longest part was putting in the cars but once I got a groove going that took a weekend. So for putting it together on my spare time(and getting some nice business from referrals) I'd say $700 wasn't bad.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[DigitalWallaby]

The PS2 did have the valuable advantage of a large stable of PS1 games that it could play. The XBox was starting out of the gate and had a long way to catch up. The PS2 also had a large existing fanbase that would automatically upgrade from their PS1. It's more likely those advantages superseded any inherent difficulty in programming its games.

And don't forget, gamers don't care how hard it is to develop games, they just want to play them.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GhaleonStrife]

Yes, but the point is to trade up. Sell the old PS2, and move up to the PS3 at a "reduced" price. Requiring two or even three (If you want PSX games) consoles for what the original PS3s did in one just seems kind of... backwards.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[rtechie]

a smaller, cooler version and everyone with a first-generation PS3 is really going to be kicking their own ass.

Unlikely. Cost reduction on the PS2 was achieved by removing features, like the hard drive, a halfway decent DVD-ROM drive, and backwards compatibility to the PS1. Likewise, Sony has been removing features, like backwards compatibility, from the PS3 as a cost-cutting measure. A cost-reduced PS3 is likely to have a inferior Blu-ray drive (maybe no DVD support?), no or smaller hard drive, no built-in wireless, etc.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[NuShrike]

And Visual Basic inbred itself into .NET!! Oh what horrors.

But, maybe the better solution is the Street Fighter II strategy: easy to get into, difficult to master.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[donaldm]

If sony didn't want their console associated with shoddy games then they certainly failed, just go to gamespot, IGN, etc and see how many crappy games are on the platform (like all consoles have).

You only have to take a look at the games over the last year for the four consoles (I am including the PS2 as well) and there are a few good games and a lot of IMHO crappy games of which the Wii takes the grand prize for shovel ware and PS2 ports. What makes you single the PS3 out all the consoles to have this issue?

I can understand if one of the Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony game studios brought out a bad game then the blame would be on the company game studio but blaming the console maker for a crappy game from a third party developer is just silly, you should put the blame on the game studio.

A simple example is "Alone in the Dark" (Atari and Eden Studios) which did not come out for the PS3 for quite a few months. Basically the game was awful to ok, however when the game was finally ported to the PS3 it wasn't stellar but it was a huge improvement over the PS2, Wii and Xbox360 versions. Who are you going to blame here?

Basically a bad game is the fault of the gaming studio which in some respects is not overly fair since it depends on what the buying public perceive as a good or bad game and unfortunately many game studios are taking the easy route (after all they are in the business of making money) when they find they have made a profitable game they do have a tendency to produce a part 2 then 3 then ... well, you get the picture instead of trying something a bit more innovative which may bomb.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[drsquare]

Every salary you pay to a programmer to work out the strange CPU is one less salary available to pay a writer. Unless you think games have unlimited budgets...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[mollymoo]

You just wait and see the plant analogy he'll come up with in another ten years. It'll be fucking awesome.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[GooberToo]

and you can't burn clinton without burning H. W. Bush, who you can't burn without burning Reagan, who you can't burn without burning Carter etc. etc. etc.

Once again you're confused as to the contributions made by others. We're talking about ROOT cause.

You're trying to have it both ways, either 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan are W's fault, or they're result of a string bad foreign policy decisions, with blame resting on everyone and starting with Truman.

I'm actually not "trying" anything. It seems pretty clear your hatred has blinded you. One action is not equal to all other actions - which you seem to understand but can't focus on anything other than Bush. This is why it seems your hatred has blinded you.

You also fail to understand the difference between policy and action - or lack thereof. There is huge difference; a difference which you seem to easily ignore or more likely, simply can't see because of your bias.

You also go into the time line but fail to see, no surprise, once intelligence did connect the dots, Clinton failed to do the right thing. Your time line also ignores Clinton's briefings (where Bush is later told the same thing), Clinton's response (he did fire cruise missiles - something you claim wasn't and couldn't have been done), so on and so on. You're seriously narrow minded in what facts you're willing to even acknowledge.

You are happy to excuse extreme incompetence when it is a Democrat but become enraged when its a Republican. That's tunnel vision with blinders on. Believe it or not, adding the label, "Democrat" or "Republican" doesn't suddenly make someone superhuman and the other an idiot. All humans screw up. Some more than others. Both Bush and Clinton fall into the later category. Had Clinton not fucked up so supremely, Bush would have never had the opportunity to follow suite. Thusly, we establish root-cause; Clinton.

If you want to continue to wear your blinders, we'll have to agree to disagree. In fact, based on your completely blind response, its clear we have to agree to disagree. No other options exist that I can see.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tixxit]

Yes, you have completely misunderstood his comments. You took, "the best is yet to come" and interpreted it as, "what we have now is shit, so bear with us." Do you see the difference? Just because the console hasn't been used to its full potential yet, does NOT mean, in any way, that the games being made now aren't good. They made a system with lots of potential. Right now they are able to make games on par with the 360, but just give it a few more years and then you'll really see the difference in the 2 systems. Personally, I have no intention of buying a 360. It seems like a good system, but I think I'll be better served, in the long run, by buying a PS3. Yes, the price is a little more ($100 CAD), but you're also getting a BluRay player, so...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tixxit]

No, they did not "deliberately" make it hard. Read it again. They made a system with lots of potential that is hard to develop for. It isn't hard to develop for because Sony really hates developers, its hard to develop for because it uses the Cell processor and some good, but traditionally weird, hardware.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tixxit]

Yes, SNES allowed for expansion on the cartridge itself, which allowed games to incrementally increase, by adding features in the cartridge itself (pretty nifty). The PS1 was much like the PS2, it included extra, but not traditional, hardware that developers only really started exploiting later. PS2 was exactly my example...

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[tixxit]

And, thus, the point of my post. The Xbox 360 has a very traditional PC hardware architecture. The games we're seeing now, the ones that weren't rushed and were given big budgets, look great, but they're also exploiting much of the 360's hardware to the hilt. The 360 will peak much sooner than the PS3, and both are pretty comparable right now as is.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[default luser]

But you just can't do that anymore, and still expect developers to hang-on tight. Let's look at the progression.

PlayStation: one of the easiest consoles to develop for at the time of release. Featured a single beefy processor, and a simple ploygon-based 3D rendering pipeline (minus a few features). Long-term improvement: people decried the CD media for it's slow load times, but then developers learned to stream data off the CD, making later games more fluid and much more immense.

PlayStation 2: more difficult to develop for because the dual vector units VU0 and VU1 were the source of most of the system's computational power. Developers, however, could start-out just using the main CPU for game engine, and the vector units for serial graphics processing only, and still unlock about %60-70 of the system's potential power. Stepping-up to use of the dual vector units provided a decent late-game improvement.

PlayStation 3: much more difficult to program for than any previous console. Just for reference, if you took a program parallized to work well on the PS2, and just ported it wholesale to the PS3, you would only unlock about %20 of the performance potential of the PS3. Pathetic. The difficulty of fully-harnessing the PS3 is already made clear in the article above, and some developers may never be able to, as you may not be able to split your game's threadas eight-ways.

There's "building potential" into the system, and then there's the PS3. The costs of unlocking the PS3's potential are too high for most developers, especially if they're making a multi-platform release (where you can't re-use most of the optimizations made for the PS3). You can only charge so much on a game before customers won't pay the toll.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless by hard they really just mean it has new things to learn and devs are being lazy and sticking with something more familiar. But as others start to pick up the new tools they are finding new features for better quality games.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[electrosoccertux]

If it flops you're done for anyways. 35*100k*2; that's $7m. Better make sure it's a good game.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[Gizzmonic]

Actually, all PS3s can play Playstation 1 games in software.

Still, it doesn't help with your PS2 issue and you'd think they'd be adding rather than subtracting features at this point.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[MikeBabcock]

Okay, so you know what about manufacturing exactly? As lots of others have pointed out, making a $100 PS3 wouldn't be as hard as you think it is, given the natural evolution of hardware and Sony's experience in the game. Even Microsoft admitted before the 360 came out that Sony had the advantage in constantly improving their hardware manufacturing (as they did with the 10+ generations of PS2) and lowering costs over Microsoft.

Seriously, go look at the hardware revisions for the PS2 and think about how Sony evolved that platform.

As for games, you're obviously out of touch. Please name me an excellent true 720p or 1080p game for the 360. Go play some Gran Turismo 5 Prologue if you don't think the PS3 really can produce 1080p 60fps graphics (it does).

I'm playing Killzone 2 at 1080i right now, and thoroughly enjoying it. Nothing, and I mean nothing looks this good. Nothing compared to Drake's Fortune when it came out either, nor Ratchet and Clank when it was released, and their developers are at least a year behind on development compared to the experience 360 developers have under their belts.

Thanks for coming out.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AbRASiON]

What do you mean the 360 has SMB support, as in accessing windows file shares?

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[CronoCloud]

Yes, exactly. The Xbox 360 can see regular SMB/CIFS shares, the PS3 can't.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[AbRASiON]

Is this a recent edition? I had mine until about July 08 and it did no such thing, it only used that filthy DLNA rubbish which shat me to tears.

I am not aware of this addition at all, I have several windows file shares setup for XBMC to work with and it works fine, the PS3 and 360 simply could not use them (in July)
?

Thanks

- SL

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[MemoryDragon]

Funny thing is most games coming from the xbox are very stable, GTA4 is the exception not the rule. I have seen a huge rise in quality of gaming on the pc especially the last two years. Dont get me wrong but as far as I have read most of the problems on the PC gta 4 stem from drm code which was introduced for the pc version only. Basically drm code which shut down parts of the game dynamically!
So the porting was not at fault there!

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[MemoryDragon]

Funny thing is I dont have crashes on fallout 3 (I had three so far), could it be the graphics card, the xbox uses ATI, I have an ATI card, so go figure that it might have something to do with it.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[CronoCloud]

I was told it was the case, by an Xbox 360 owner who said that was an advantage the Xbox 3630 had over the PS3, but I've just been googling and find information only on DLNA sharing. Crap.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[alienw]

Um, we are talking about used/surplus drives. They cost way more from the manufacturer.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[alienw]

Not sure what planet you live on where resellers have a 50% profit margin. Places like Newegg have a margin that's somewhere in the single digits. If they sell a drive for $50, they are probably paying $45 or so for it. Also, a lot of cheap drives are clearance items -- the manufacturer is discontinuing the drive model, and they are selling excess inventory below cost.

Re:Call him Monkey Boy all you want

[hairyfeet]

Bingo! Give the man a cigar! If we hadn't had the CIA propping up "El Presidentes" all over the place and stirring up shit at every opportunity there is a good chance that most of the world would NOT hate our guts and want us all dead. And I have YET to hear a legitimate reason, other than "Jebus won't come back! All hail Jebus!" for why we are pouring billions of dollars every single damned year into Israel, even while we are suffering a meltdown.

The politicians are so afraid of offending Jews they won't even suggest we stop spending billions propping them up. I say they have had since 1947 to find a way to support themselves. if they haven't figured out how to survive by now without Uncle Sam's welfare checks then the wealthy Jews of the world better break out their pocketbooks, because we need to stop the checks to them and ALL the other countries we have been propping up. It is NOT our job to try to force the entire planet into being "little Americas" and there is no honest reason why we should keep blowing billions propping up these countries.

Of course the second you dare suggest such a thing you will be labeled an anti-Semite on the left and the right wing fundies will all start screaming how "Jebus won't come back if Israel falls! Don't you read your God's word? ALL HAIL JEBUS!". Which is of course our Mideast problem in a nutshell. Too damned many Christian nutjobs basing our Mideast policies on what some goat herder wrote 3000+ years ago. News Flash! If your God is actually a GOD, I'm sure He/She/It will have NO problem making sure Israel doesn't fall! So quit spending our damned money and basing Mideast policies on your 3000+ year old goat herder prophecies,okay?

Straight from the OSS fanboi playbook

[Anonymous Coward]

"We don't want stupid people using our stuff"

Re:Straight from the OSS fanboi playbook

[aliquis]

lol, it's funny because it's true.

Anyway, this CEOs claim is obviously bullshit or a translation made by the interviewer/whatever. No-one would make it hard to develop for their system on purpose, but it's a fact that people get the hang of it and as a result of that you may see more advanced titles further into the systems life.

He may have meant that they didn't wanted to cripple it for the sake of making it easier to code for since it would be around for a long time and people would get the hang of it sooner or later anyway.

Re:Straight from the OSS fanboi playbook

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I hadn't just used up all my modpoints.

Re:Straight from the OSS fanboi playbook

[HAKdragon]

In regards to the mis-translation idea, Kaz Hirai speaks perfect English (Ridge Racer!). In fact, I've only ever seen him speak English, never Japanese.

Re:Straight from the OSS fanboi playbook

[BlueBoxSW.com]

That was my first thought as well. Well put.

I wish idiots who used this line of thinking would stop what they're doing and go take a micro-economics class.

It has been pretty well shown (in my opinion) that if you want to limit the use of development tools to only those who are really serious about using them, you raise the price, not raise the level of effort to develop in the tools. Then, when the tools and frameworks have matured, you lower the price and let in the masses.

Re:Straight from the OSS fanboi playbook

[aliquis]

I didn't mean translation, I meant interpretation. Non-native english speaker.

Re:Straight from the OSS fanboi playbook

[HAKdragon]

Ahh, my bad. Apologies.

Brilliant!

[DoofusOfDeath]

1. Develop console containing pretty cool hardware.

2. Make it hard to develop, while Microsoft and Nintendo have the opposite goal.

3. In the early years of the console, have many fewer good games than XBox360 does. So constantly be at risk of not reaching critical mass.

4. ???

5. Profit!

Sounds like Sony turned this into a SDK philosophy.

Re:Brilliant!

[tixxit]

They followed a similar strategy with the PS2 and are likely trying to recreate it. However, PS2's only competitor was the Dreamcast (which was no 360 in terms of sales), this time Sony came into a market with a clear leader already. Nonetheless, I still want one.

Re:Brilliant!

[godless dave]

Don't forget about charging more for your console than your competitors.

Re:Brilliant!

[aliquis]

Gamecube? Xbox? Though not released at that date but current gen wasn't all released at the same date either.

Guess one have to look at Ultra64 as a competitor if one don't look at NGC.

I too would want a PS3, but I won't buy one and wouldn't be able to afford the games so I would need to have it cracked. (Which is probably one huge reason they sell less.)

Re:Brilliant!

[aliquis]

Worked good with the PS2. Price isn't everything, the Wii cost more than the 360 but is much less (computing-wise) capable.

Re:Brilliant!

[SailorSpork]

Yeah, whereas conversely, Nintendo's approach:
1. Make it fairly simple to develop for
2. Rake in money from swarms of 3rd party shovelware and the occasional 1st & 3rd party decent game
3. ...Profit

Re:Brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a Wii costs more than a bare bones 360. If you want any actual functionality from it, you're going to need to invest in upgrades.

Re:Brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you afford a PS3 then you afford the games.
Except that you'll buy just a few, like most legitimate customers do.
Ok, now go back to your 100GB music collection.

Re:Brilliant!

[aliquis]

But I obviously want all the games I think I could enjoy, why shouldn't I have them? Me having them don't make it so others can't. No-one loses if I have all of them (except if I don't buy the first either.. but I wonder which loss is actually bigger.)

Re:Brilliant!

[DoofusOfDeath]

I too would want a PS3, but I won't buy one and wouldn't be able to afford the games so I would need to have it cracked. (Which is probably one huge reason they sell less.)

Actually, I bought one about a year ago so I could try out some programming on the Cell processor. But since it can dual-boot, I also bought a few games.

What I realized is that for most game genres, I just prefer a PC:

• For martial arts / sword fighting games, the PS/3's controller beat a standard PC, hands down. On the other hand, the two games in this categories that I tried for the PS/3 (Virtua Fighter (5?) and Heavenly Sword) reminded me of the worst part of these games: needing to waste too much of my short life memorizing countless, intricate sequences of controller commands in order go employ certain moves.
• For FPS's, I found I hate not having a mouse, and the PS/3 games seem to just not support mice.
• I couldn't find anything like my PC favorites on the PS/3: Civilization, Starcraft, etc.
• I was surprised by the poor design in some of the games I did buy for the PS/3: Armored Core (4?), and Virtua Fighter (5?). The menu systems (especially VF5's) were nothing less than Sadistic. I realize you can get bad games on any system, but these made up 50% of the games I'd played on the PS/3. Disliking half of the games is the worst ratio I've encountered for any system I've owned, and this probably speaks to Sony's inability to get many good game makers to target the PS/3.

Re:Brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, what? The Wii did not cost more than the Xbox 360 when it came out. The Wii was easily the cheapest.

Re:Brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a job so you can contribute to society rather feel like you've cleverly beat the system by leeching off of it.

Re:Brilliant!

[KDR_11k]

That's only after the 360 got pricedrops.

Re:Brilliant!

[aliquis]

Now isn't then.

Re:Brilliant!

[aliquis]

Oh, someone I know reads Slashdot but lacks the balls commenting with a user name?

Re:Brilliant!

[tixxit]

Gamecube? Xbox? Though not released at that date but current gen wasn't all released at the same date either.

Yes, that was exactly my point. They were not released at the same time. The PS2 was released a good year before the Xbox and Gamecube (in the US). When the PS2 was released, its only competition was the Dreamcast. Obviously, I did not just completely forget about the Xbox or Gamecube...

Re:Brilliant!

[F34nor]

I loved my Dreamcast. VOOT, Jetgrind Radio, and Tony Hawk with a PS controller adapter. You could even get it with a mouse and keyboard.

Re:Brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

What I realized is that for most game genres, I just prefer a PC:

I find this is the thing that muddies the waters with consoles. Previously PCs were so vastly different to consoles that PC to console ports were rare. The PC had terrible graphics hardware, but large RAM, HD and a processor orders of magnitude more powerful meant you got Wolfenstein and Dune2 instead of a Mario World. The markets were vastly different and each stuck to its own camp.

Now there's this expectation that consoles should be doing PC games. They are technically powerful enough to do it since the target market on PCs is people who buy a sub $800 Dell which isn't significantly faster in practice. So you get PC gamers who look to consoles and think they're going to enjoy themselves. Not too likely. The PC is better at PC games where you want high resolution, great graphics, mature network code, whereas the consoles are home to arguably more innovation due to the physical constraints. You get a Katamari Demacy because Farcry can't be done.

Ports are not good, PC to console ports (and vice-versa) doubly so. Don't buy a console unless you want to play the Valkyrie Chronicles or Final Fantasy XIIIs or Dead or Alives. Sadly the frankly weak offerings from all three console manufacturers had meant that ports are inevitable this generation, dragging great games into the mud of just above average.

Re:Brilliant!

[Jesus_666]

For martial arts / sword fighting games, the PS/3's controller beat a standard PC, hands down.

There's always Windows drivers that allow you to use PS3 controllers as if they actually adhered to the Bluetooth standard. Or you use them via USB. Or you get an adapter for a PS2/PSX controller. Or just a PSX lookalike USB controller.

You don't get the tilt stuff (except maybe with the custom drivers) but everything else is just a matter of USB HID and possibly an adapter.

Re:Brilliant!

[donaldm]

I too would want a PS3, but I won't buy one and wouldn't be able to afford the games so I would need to have it cracked. (Which is probably one huge reason they sell less.)

If you have a Wii or Xbox360 how do you afford the games since they nearly all the same price as an equivalent PS3 game. By saying "I need to have it cracked" sort of puts you in the pirate category ;-)

Re:Brilliant!

[aliquis]

I don't have a Wii or 360 smart-ass :D

And I am a pirate, once again: smart-ass :D

Kisses :)

Re:Brilliant!

[Nick Ives]

* For martial arts / sword fighting games, the PS/3's controller beat a standard PC, hands down. On the other hand, the two games in this categories that I tried for the PS/3 (Virtua Fighter (5?) and Heavenly Sword) reminded me of the worst part of these games: needing to waste too much of my short life memorizing countless, intricate sequences of controller commands in order go employ certain moves.

You can use the PS3 controller via USB. It's broken on amd64 Windows (libusbfilter can cause bluescreens) but works straight away in Linux.

Oh, and that's just modern 3D fighting games for you. Get SSF2THDR :)

I was surprised by the poor design in some of the games I did buy for the PS/3: Armored Core (4?), and Virtua Fighter (5?). The menu systems (especially VF5's) were nothing less than Sadistic. I realize you can get bad games on any system, but these made up 50% of the games I'd played on the PS/3. Disliking half of the games is the worst ratio I've encountered for any system I've owned, and this probably speaks to Sony's inability to get many good game makers to target the PS/3.

It's because Sony has a more liberal attitude towards developers. They haven't figured out what MS has learnt from years developing Windows: What matters most is the end user experience.

MS has concentrated on developing the 360 as a platform in the same way they develop Windows as a platform and that's why they're winning. I love my PS3 for its exclusive titles but I generally get multi-platform games on my 360 if they don't come out on PC. It's the little things like knowing I'll always be able to play my own music without having to copy it to my consoles HD that make the difference.

I'm the same way...

[Anonymous Coward]

...with people reading my code.

Python?

[Alvare]

So instead of Python I've to code in Fortran/QBASIC ? I'd already downloaded PyPS3 ....

Re:Python?

[Anonymous Coward]

python is vb for people that hate vb.

FTFY.

Seriously... have you even used Python and VB? They are both imperative languages--and that's about where the similarity ends.

Re:Python?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is any .net framework language ever an imperative language?

Re:Python?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing your major wasn't in CS. Or at least I'm hoping so. See Wikipedia for an explanation.

Re:Python?

[shutdown -p now]

Seriously... have you even used Python and VB? They are both imperative languages--and that's about where the similarity ends.

Not quite. They're also both good rapid prototyping languages - the kind that you can just jump into doing things without writing a lot of boilerplate code.

Granted, VB had little appeal outside that niche, while Python scales much better... but still, GP is right in that, in Unix land especially, Python is probably the closest thing a VB coder will find.

Well, maybe it's also about the reasonably readable syntax (compared to curly braces family).

Refine

[Magreger_V]

I think what they are trying to say is they don't want just any jackass writing a game for there console. They want a smart jackass

Re:Refine

[Cathoderoytube]

Wha...?

Re:Refine

[V!NCENT]

The entire point of that is ofcourse that Windows for example is full of crap apps because any moron is able to write a Windows app. But what if you log in with a user account in XP? Yup... all apps you have require root.

I can imagine that Sony doesn't want to sacrifice good technology and doesn't want to dumb it down for the stupid but just says: "Ok this is a special piece of hardware. Unit x, y and z are for multithreaded number crunching, unit k is for the graphics, this is for that, etc. and go ahead and utilise it to make something awesome. If you can't do it than go make your crappy software for the Wii".

And guess what? All crappy games are out on the Wii and do not utilise shit. The graphics of most games are even poorer than on the Gamecube.

Re:Refine

[aliquis]

I think what they are trying to say is they don't want just any jackass writing a game for there console. They want a smart jackass

Guess it's the same for Nintendo:
Bob's game

Re:Refine

[Anonymous Coward]

>And guess what? All crappy games are out on the Wii and do not utilise shit. The graphics of most games are even poorer than on the Gamecube.

This, is one very sad truth...
It crushes me inside to see what Wii has become.
Not just that though, the games difficulties are so atrocious.
They aren't even trying anymore, screw the kids, add some damn depth to your games instead of "Thrust your arm forward to hit the ball"
Seriously, almost every damn game is a step-by-step guide!
Oh well, i will keep it for those few games i will enjoy.

Re:Refine

[DavidTC]

Yes, it's so sad.

Nintendo had a choice. They could either continue the graphic arms race with Sony and MS, and attempt to capture the 20 million or so 'serious gamers' by adding yet another 20% incremental increase in graphics quality that cost $200...

...or they could simply rebrand their Gamecube, design a new controller that lets 'non-gamers' who don't want to spend hours pushing buttons play, and sell more than both Sony and MS put together. Oh, and they make a $50 profit on each sale, instead of the losses that Sony and MS make. And they're able to sell for cheaper, avoiding the absurd upward trend that game consoles have had for the last decade.

Boy, what dumbasses for picking the second choice. They must cry themselves to sleep on their pillows stuffed with money.

Instead of whining about the Wii, how about you recognize it's not aimed at you 'serious gamers' who want eight bajillion FPS.

Re:Refine

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said i want eight bajillion FPS?
Making up them stories again Dave?
While yes, i like them, i still love a bunch of other games from a good deal of genres.
FPS isn't even near my favourite.

I was saying make a game with actual depth, something that is a rarity on Wii.
Perhaps you should stop playing the step-by-step guides and learn to read before you try to form an argument for the current state of Wii.

Looks like we have a Fanboy here.
It's okay, it's okay, Nintendo still loves you.

Re:Refine

[KDR_11k]

Seems like a pyrrhic victory considering the Wii outsells the PS3 about 2:1...

Re:Refine

[KDR_11k]

No, Nintendo just doesn't want an idiot who pulls publicity stunts instead of filing the required papers to get an SDK. Do you think the DMV would issue someone a driver's license when he doesn't take training and instead chains himself to the mayor's car?

Re:Refine

[V!NCENT]

And Windows doesn't outsell Linux and Apple?

Re:Refine

[KDR_11k]

Did Linux dominate the market and then lose it while making announcements like "we've made our software deliberately hard to install so the lusers won't get it"?

Re:Refine

[V!NCENT]

The point being made here is that if you let every moron develop on your tech, then you get all the crap too.

Windows was an example of allowing everybody to program for you ("Developers, developers, developers!") and then getting all the crap too. How that hell thÃt was modded flamebait is beyond my comprehension. I wasn't even bashing Windows (at that current time ofcourse ;-))

This is what happens...

[Max Threshold]

...when you hire somebody to develop a business plan for a product, then lay them off and forget to adapt the plan to a changing market.

Hard to develop for "On Purpose"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It still remains easy to accidentally develop a PS3 game, however.

Sad attempt at saving face

[Zironic]

It seems he's realized that his console is losing the console war by a wide margin and all the developers hate him. I think even he knows that hard to program for in no way implies more power.

Re:Sad attempt at saving face

[V!NCENT]

Multithreading, 'nuff said. The PS3 is full of processing units.

Re:Sad attempt at saving face

[BagOBones]

The Xbox 360 has 3 powerful general purpus processors each cabable of a full range of processing functions and a Powerfull GPU.

Sounds like lots of Multithreading potential to me

The PS3 has a moderatly powerfull general core wraped with 8 narrow function modules, and a GPU that was slapped in in late development.

Multi threading is already hard to do right by fingring out what jobs can be done at the same time, sony makes it even harder by limiting the TYPES of jobs that can be done by these 8 limited cores.

Let darwin decide?

[girlintraining]

I go to an obscure reference; Acts of Gord, specifically the Book of Chronicles, Chapter 1, wherein the great Gord spake thusly:

The public does NOT buy a system unless they feel it will give them lots of new games down the road. Look at MS. They are screaming "Xbox has
developers! Honest! More than we can fit into a bus!" which is the right approach. Joe Average will NOT buy a system if he feels that there won't be lots of new stuff coming out. And Nintendo burned a lot of bridges with their barren N64 release schedule for good games. They need to come out and say "hey! Hundreds of games are coming out!" except that would be a lie.

I highly encourage you all to go read Acts of Gord, not only because it's hilarious but because it's written by a guy who actually RAN a video game store. For several years. The bottom line is this: You screw the developers and no games get put out. No games = no consumer interest.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Attaturk]

...because it's written by a guy who actually RAN a video game store. For several years.

Wow. That's a mighty impressive qualification. ;)

Re:Let darwin decide?

[alvinrod]

I know you're being sarcastic, but realistically we're talking about a guy who made a business for himself. How many people can actually say that they've tried to do that? How many more can say they've succeeded at it?

I don't think that the type of business he was running should even come into consideration. It's probably not fair to judge you, but statistically speaking, you probably work for someone else much the same as I do. Most of us don't own and operate our own businesses, but I'd rather be poor and my own boss than pulling in six figures working for someone else. Right now, that's not something feasible for me, but I hope that I can get there some day. I think I'd really enjoy the freedom that owning my own business might afford me.

More specifically, the fact that he was in the gaming industry and actually ran his own store does give him more authority on the subject than you or I could possibly muster unless we're somehow related to the industry. I don't know about you, but I mostly just play games.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Jerf]

It puts you on the front line of seeing what decisions people are making and why. It's actually a very important perspective.

I am a developer for a company that sells products and provides in-house phone support. If you asked someone about my product and they piped up and then said at the end "I support this product", you might be tempted to say "Oh, you aren't a developer so you don't know what you're talking about." But the support dude has a better picture of some things than I do, because he's actually there, talking to customers directly, and part of my job is making sure I get that information from him. Because there's just no replacement for that sort of thing; the CEO is even further from customers than I am, my manager tries to keep on top of such things but still doesn't talk directly to customers as much as our support crew.

Of course, I have a better picture than the support dude does of some other things, too, but I'd be a moron if I discounted the support perspective because they're "below" me, or for some other dumb reason.

Running a game store may not qualify you to discuss video game company strategy, and actually Gord tries to sometimes IIRC and at that point I believe he oversteps a bit. But it's the best qualification there is for having a firm grasp on what people are looking for and how people buy, and you ignore that at your own peril... well, "your own peril" if you're a video game company, anyhow, you're probably not in any peril.

You can get this by being an employee too, but A: he did it for a very long time and B: being the business owner and being very, very directly affected by the issues will have a stronger focus on the issues than "somebody who works at Gamestop over Christmas" would.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[V!NCENT]

It's the right qualification for such a statement.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[91degrees]

I really have to wonder what sort of carrot the manufacturers use to encourage developers to develop for their platform, pre-release.

It has to be a pretty big risk. It's possible that the console is barely going to sell at all.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Blakey Rat]

I was playing Shadowrun the other day, and I said "mana" when referring to... well, "mana." Someone on my team said that Shadowrun doesn't use the term "mana" it uses "MP" (or something similar.) We got into this whole argument:
* You knew what I meant so why correct me?
* Every game uses "MP" or "Magic" and not the word "Mana" so you should have known that was the wrong term
* Uh, the most popular game on Earth, World of Warcraft, uses the term "Mana" so I think people are going to know what the hell I mean

Then he hit me with the ultimate:

* You should listen to me, man, I work at Gamestop!

This made about half the people on the team just crack up. I had to explain, as gently as possible, that I've never seen a Gamestop employee who had two brain cells to rub together. The thought that he figured "worked at Gamestop" was impressive in some way was simply hilarious.

Anyway, when the competition hits you with "I work at Gamestop!" I generally consider myself winner of the debate.

(BTW, If you care, the "correct" term in Shadowrun is "essence." But say "mana" in case you get that guy on your team, you can piss him off.)

Re:Let darwin decide?

[SuiteSisterMary]

Gord is funny as hell, but doesn't know alot about what he talks about. For example, he goes on a lot about how the PS1 was never sold at a loss. Meanwhile, Sony's on book on the development of the PS1 clearly states that it was priced, at a loss, to undercut the Saturn.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do not like his opinion, door is to the left.

Go read it. It is AMAZINGLY funny.

My favorite is the dude who comes in screaming that gord had ruined his credit. Gord would make an attempt at collecting money give up and just turn it over to a credit agency. The guy was trying to get a loan. Gord wanted his money. The guy wanted him to take that junk off his credit report. Gord put it best 'maybe you are not a good credit risk as you apparently can not even be trusted with a 3 dollar game rental'.

He has a very different perspective on the games industry. What sells... If it doesn't sell its not on the shelf taking up space and capital just because some fan boy likes it but isn't willing to BUY it.

And if you do not like his opinion door is to the left.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would take very little of what Gord writes about on his site, since the majority of those stories are either exaggerations or completely made up.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[drinkypoo]

Anyway, when the competition hits you with "I work at Gamestop!" I generally consider myself winner of the debate.

This seems safe, so long you don't work for Burger King or Microsoft.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick thought on owning your own business: Just because you own your own business doesn't mean you don't have customers with requirements.

I help a friend out with his side business he owns, doing network cabling and PC support. If the customers need something NOW (especially in the small business arena) they need it now. There's not as much freedom in my opinion with catering to that.

However, it is nice to be judged on how well you interact and work with the business rather than to be judged on a once-yearly performance review. So you trade some conveniences for others; guess it's up to you and what your thought of "freedom" truly is, because let's face it - we all have to do something to whittle the time away here on Earth.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[snowraver1]

But on the other hand, you will have one of the few games available if it does. New consoles always have early adopters, and that number, i think, would be fairly predictible. The PS3 sold out on laund day didn't it? (I don't know)

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares how many people start their own business? Is it a key destination in your morality play? How many people stick caltrops in their rectums while reading do Carmo's Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces? Zero? There's a real growth opportunity for you to succeed in!

Operating a game store doesn't necessarily give anyone any expertise in anything, even operating a game store. That says nothing about this particular person's claims, but it has a lot to do with how you come to assume qualifications. And naturally whether you're an expert or not doesn't matter. You could be a complete idiot and it wouldn't change Gord's knowledge about any subject.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Anonymous Coward]

...because it's written by a guy who actually RAN a video game store. For several years.

Wow. That's a mighty impressive qualification. ;)

Well ask yourself, who has a better idea of the market, the guy buying and selling and interacting with the consumer, or a suit at SONY nursing a hangover and a marketing report?

Re:Let darwin decide?

[alienw]

Well, he didn't really succeed at it. I think he folded up shop after a couple of years.

Also, I don't understand your attitude. For the most part, owning your own business is harder, less rewarding, and less productive than working for an established company. Unless you are an exceptional businessman, starting a company is difficult, risky, and a ton of work. If you have some new technology you are commercializing, at least there is a chance that someone will buy the company down the road. Otherwise, you are pretty much stuck fighting for a scrap of market share in what is probably an oversaturated market.

As far as freedom goes, you are much better off working for somebody. If you run a company, you will pretty much be putting in 16-hour days 7 days a week with no vacation time, ever. Sure, you could go on vacation, if you don't mind the company collapsing in the meantime.

Anyway, I would suggest you actually talk to some business owners before you decide that it's something you like. Chances are, you won't like it.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[girlintraining]

Well, he didn't really succeed at it. I think he folded up shop after a couple of years.

Not exactly. Someone tried to execute a power play to liquidate his assets and freeze him out on decisions, but he caught wind of it and closed shop amidst serious fraud between a partner of his and the leasing agency. His business methods were sound, as were his observations. Also, it was more than "a couple" years... try about seven.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[incognito84]

Worst... Rationalization... EVER!

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Reservoir Penguin]

Me and my wife are small business owners, What you said about putting in a lot of time is 100% true. But... somehow it doesn't feel like a burden. I'd hate putting 16 hour days for some random corp or even for Google. But when you are working for yourself, somehow work and "non-work" integrates seamlessly which I think is a good thing because the whole separation of life into compartments - this is work - you do it for money and when you have enough you retire to do "non-work" - that is something enjoyable, something work kept you from all those years, it's a bad thing, it destroys your character.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I, as a $150,000/year developer, insist on doing support, and on sitting down to watch users work. To my knowledge, nothing else approach these in finding easy fixes that give large benefits.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[mcvos]

He mostly goes on about how stupid some of his non-customers are, and my impression is he's in a pretty good position to judge that.

Re:Let darwin decide?

[SuiteSisterMary]

Oh, definately. But 'running a successful gaming store' does not translate into 'understands the ins and outs of Sony's business decisions at a corporate level.'

Hell, 'Come back! I haven't set you on fire yet!' still makes it's way into casual conversation, lo these many years later, amoungst certain friends.

Denial is a river in Egypt

[91degrees]

No. No, we didn't screw up in our design or our developer tools. We meant to do it that way!

A Sony spokesman has said something similar before about the PSP's sticky buttons.

Is this something about Sony's culture or maybe Japanese culture in general?

Re:Denial is a river in Egypt

[LittleRunningGag]

It can't be.  Just look at the former PS models.  One of the things that Sony had going for it was the gigantic collection of games that were out for the PS1 and PS2.

Sure, not all of them were great, but there were so many games that it was hard to not to find something that you liked.  Even if the majority of them played like No More Heroes.

Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[L-Train8]

There are a number of reasons to make a console hard to program for, but they all rely on a huge install base that the PS3 doesn't have. The article quotes a developer saying that if you are going to develop for multiple platforms, it is best to start with the PS3, because it will be easy to port to other systems than to port to the PS3. If there were 20 million PS3's in homes, this would ensure that the 360 and the Wii would be seeing lots of ports instead of original games. Another reason is that investment in programming knowledge and tools is very expensive, and once a studio has the expertise, they are likely to stick with the platform in order to maximize their investment. Sony was counting on a success similar to the PS2, were developers would have to program for the PS3 because that's where the users would be. Without it, the 'benefits' of a hard-to-program console become liabilities.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment makes perfect sense except...there are 21 million PS3's in homes already. (See http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/4653.html)

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[commodore64_love]

Sony would have had a success if they had not priced PS3 at DOUBLE the price a console is supposed to be (around $300 historically).

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Sony priced themselves beyond the budget of most gamers, and those gamers quit #1 Sony (120 million PS2s and 100 million PS1s), and decided to try the reasonably-priced also-rans - Nintendo and Microsoft. Now the also-rans are the new dominators. Sony was foolish.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[V!NCENT]

Nobody has yet brought out a game that takes full power of the PS3. That's just like Metal Gear Solid 3 that brought HDR lightning, shaders, cool post-processing effects, briliant animation and a shitload of polygons to the PS2; it takes time.

What happens with the Xbox360? Developpers are taking the fullest out of the Xbox360 and therefore it will not, ever, bring you better graphics, so the lifetime of that console is about to run out.

Graphics on the PS3 will just keep on improving as the console gets cheaper and cheaper and in the end makes more revenue for Sony that the Xbox360 for Microsoft. Believe me when I say that the Xbox360 support will just drop like a stone when the next Xbox comes out, just like the Xbox1 when the 360 came out, while the PS3 will just like the PS2 be supported for many years.

How expensive was the PS2 when it was released? Yup... See what a succes that became?

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[geekboy642]

The average person still thinks 20 million is a lot. There's 28 million xbox360s in homes. Nexgenwars says there's 45 million Wii consoles plugged in, and in Hawaii I still can't find a store that can keep them on the shelf.
Being hard to develop for, AND being the least popular current console, both count for a lot to a developer or game studio.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Xtravar]

Believe me when I say that the Xbox360 support will just drop like a stone when the next Xbox comes out, just like the Xbox1 when the 360 came out, while the PS3 will just like the PS2 be supported for many years.

Actually, that's one of the reasons I decided to get a PS3. I had an Xbox 1 and a PS2 (acquired during the late end of their lives), and the PS2 definitely outlasted the Xbox in fun and duration.

However, I did end up getting a 360, and I've probably played it more than the PS3 by now for two reasons: 1. it has the exclusives I want, 2. I can get games free. Having seen the insides of both machines, I must say the PS3 is more impressive in design and engineering. That doesn't really help the fun factor, though.

I'm hoping the PS3 goes somewhere soon, but with Sony laying people off and removing features like backward compatibility it could be that the PS3 never takes off before the Xbox 720 is released. I think console lifetimes are getting shorter, and Sony probably did not adjust for that. Also, they made such a perfectly locked down machine that you can't pirate games or run 3D in Linux (which would be great for open source emulators of other 3D consoles). Even with pirated games, there's money to be made off downloadable content.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[PJ1216]

To be fair, the 360 was priced about $100 cheaper when it first came out as well. The 360 is only now coming in under the $300 and its for a stripped down console. So, they both came out at similarly high prices, the 360 just fell faster due to A) being the only nextgen on the market for awhile, and B) hitting critical mass due to that advantage (and all the other advantages that came with it like developers, etc.).

So the whole over-priced argument applies to the 360 as well. They just corrected it faster, but you lost a lot more value in it though. The ps3 is still worth every dollar, its just expensive.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were 20 million PS3's in homes, [...]

There are 20 million PS3's in homes (source).

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

FOXnews was the 3rd most-popular cable channel in February (after USA/TNT). Left-leaning CNN/MSNBC were a distant 15/23.

Appeal to popularity. Fail.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony priced themselves beyond the budget of most gamers, and those gamers quit #1 Sony (120 million PS2s and 100 million PS1s), and decided to try the reasonably-priced also-rans - Nintendo and Microsoft. Now the also-rans are the new dominators.

Dominators? Xbox360 is a distant second more than PS3 is a distant third. (Wii has got about half the market, xbox about 30% and ps3 about 20%).

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[L-Train8]

That number on its face sounds impressive, but it's still half the install base of the Wii, and 7 million less than the 360. Compare that to the fact that the PS2 sold over 5 times as many units as its competition.

A more pertinent number to this discussion is titles sold per console. I don't have those data on hand, but last I heard, the PS3 had a miserable stat in that category, as most early units were bought by videophiles as a cheap Blue-Ray DVD player, and weren't really being used as a game console.

By either metric, Sony doesn't dominate the market like they did with the PS2, and this has turned some of the design decisions made years ago into big liabilities.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[MikeBabcock]

Shhh, don't confuse the fanboys with math.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

You game pirates are the scummiest of the piracy lot. All that effort, and you let your greed convince you to steal it. Shameful.

Don't bother replying with a weak justification for your shitty behavior. I've seen them all before. They aren't any good.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Brianech]

You mean 200 dollars for the stripped down model. Right now you can get the 60gig model for 270, and the 120gig model for 360 at futureshop. But yes, the initial release was more expensive, just not as expensive as the PS3's. I think Sony needs to reconsider its pricing though, especially in todays economy. Last month according to NPD numbers the 360 outsold the PS2 and PS3 combined. Pricing may not affect sales to adults/university students, but it sure as hell affects parents who are struggling in todays economy but still want to give their child a next gen console. When you go into a store and see a 200 dollar 360, a 280 dollar Wii and a 400 dollar PS3, the 360 is going to look mighty attractive. I personally own a 360 and have been waiting (in vain) for a significant PS3 price drop. But the only games I want for PS3 are Little Big Planet and Killzone, so 400dollars for 2 games isn't worth it.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[V!NCENT]

Also, they made such a perfectly locked down machine that you can't pirate games or run 3D in Linux (which would be great for open source emulators of other 3D consoles).

That's just plain not true. Frist of all it was Sony who pushed support for the PS3 in the Linux kernel. According to Sony (use google yourself) their plan was to use Linux in the next Playstation. The 3D doesn't work yet because of the proprietary, yup, nVidia card. Noveau, the clean room reverse enginered nVidia X.org driver, has a mailing list in which I read that they were going for PS3 support as well. I don't know what state that is in today.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Suddenly_Dead]

What? The PS2 was already dominant at that point. The later games didn't create that dominance, the early price, games, and consumer momentum did. The PS3 has already lost that momentum.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Darkness404]

It is becoming increasingly obvious that most people just care about if a game is fun or not. For example, I don't care if I can count the hairs in Solid Snake's beard or not, so long as the game is fun. Sure, I'd rather the graphics not look like crap, but all the 3 major consoles (Wii, PS3 and 360) have decent enough graphics.

This is why the Wii is dominating, it is focusing more on what makes games fun rather then proclaiming that they can put 34234234234234 scaling and rotating polygons on the screen all rendering withing .005 MS.

Graphics != A good game. Sure, I'd rather have a game with good graphics then not, but really, if the same game was on the Wii, PS3, and 360 I'd pick the one that had the most content and best controls rather then the best graphics.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[KDR_11k]

And?

What creates a big game library is not a powerful console or untapped potential, what creates a big game library is profitability for game developers and publishers. The PS1 and 2 kept running on during the following generation because they sold tons and a game for them could still make a lot of profit, the GC and XBox got dropped because they were way less popular and making games for them was not profitable enough, especially with new systems coming around as potential new profit sources. It's already becoming hard to profit on the PS3 and XBox 360 and their replacements aren't even announced yet.

It doesn't matter whether a system's graphical abilities are maxed out because graphical improvements don't matter anymore. That's why the Wii has 50% of the console market despite not only having the weakest hardware but also having a game library that's too lazy to even use the power that's there. It doesn't matter how much untapped potential the PS3 has for improving graphics, people stopped giving enough of a damn about that during the PS2 generation. Developers develop games to make money (that's why it's a job and not a hobby), not to trump each other on graphics.

My prediction is that both the 360 and the PS3 will be dropped like a rock when the next iteration rolls around and I also predict that both will be replaced* at roughly the same time. Replacement and longevity is not a company policy, it's a market effect. Even if Sony tries to go for a ten year cycle for the PS3 they'll have a hard time getting anything worthwile out of third party developers in the extended time and putting their own developers on it would mean not putting them to work on games for the PS4. Meanwhile the Wii might keep getting games after the end of its generation because it'll still have a gigantic install base by then.

Also untapped graphics potential cannot compete with a generational leap anyway, half a decade of technology improvements simply do more than just optimizing your code.

*=assuming the company doesn't withdraw from the videogame business

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Quarters]

Right...so you actually think the 360 will die out because games may at some point look better on the PS3. Outside of platform exclusives, which are a dying breed of game anyway, no developer will ever utilize that extra oomph that they may be able to eek out of the PS3. There will never be enough ROI on PS3 only game sales to justify having one set of art assets for the 360 version of the game and a different set of art assets for the PS3 version.

People don't care that game X has 20% more polygons than game Y. What they care about is owning a fun game that looks good. Developers care about being able to develop a game quickly, easily and on/under budget. The 360 provides all of that currently and will continue to do so. The PS3 is a PITA to work with now (yes, I am a dev), and it will continue to be a PITA to work with in the future. Whatever untapped potential the PS3 may have that is yet to be unlocked is not worth the time/expense it will take to find it. Especially not in this economy and especially not since the ratio of potential sales 360:PS3 is heavily weighted against the PS3 currently.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[gbarules2999]

Exactly. Xbox 1 may have been the best system of the last generation, but you'd be hard pressed to mention a game that was WAY better looking than the usual on Gamecube. Soul Caliber 2 was released on all three platforms at the same time; the Xbox one loaded the fastest, but it didn't look any prettier than the other two.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody has yet brought out a game that takes full power of the PS3. That's just like Metal Gear Solid 3 that brought HDR lightning, shaders, cool post-processing effects, briliant animation and a shitload of polygons to the PS2; it takes time.

What happens with the Xbox360? Developpers are taking the fullest out of the Xbox360 and therefore it will not, ever, bring you better graphics, so the lifetime of that console is about to run out.

Graphics on the PS3 will just keep on improving as the console gets cheaper and cheaper and in the end makes more revenue for Sony that the Xbox360 for Microsoft. Believe me when I say that the Xbox360 support will just drop like a stone when the next Xbox comes out, just like the Xbox1 when the 360 came out, while the PS3 will just like the PS2 be supported for many years.

How expensive was the PS2 when it was released? Yup... See what a succes that became?

Are you serious? The lifetime of a console is about to run out because its already being well utilised? Look at wiis they were being pretty well utilised from when mario galaxy came out, graphics arn't everything. However saying that the PS3 currently does not dominate for graphics and never will, the reason why? Its not much more powerful than a 360, each are slightly better in different respects.

The ps3 has a run of the mill graphics card ( no better than the 360s ), with limited ram ( 256 of which 128 is locked for processor usage the rest for graphics ) the 360 has the same 256 but it can be utilised fully by either graphics or processor.

It simply has a silly number of processors which are virtually impossible to utilise. Modern games rely 80% on one things.... the graphics card which is already being stressed to the maximum in both consoles. The 360 has a 3 core cpu which is more than capable and debatably a better graphics card.

Performance is not going to magically increase over night, programming techniques and efficiency will improve *across all consoles* and the end of life games will be all much better not just on the ps3.

What we see how is many 360 games performing much better, having additional effects and additional MSAA which i don't even believe the ps3 is capable of, mainly because of the ease to program.

Imagine this, a deadline of 10 months is set, They have to fit in ALL the content the designers wanted then start bug testing and making everything run smoother and more efficient. An easier to program for console allows for a shorter time to create the content meaning more time can be spent on bug testing and making the game run faster there is NO benefit in making things difficult it is just pointless and insane.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[forsey]

I find it funny that people equate the greater raw processing power of the PS3 with better graphics potential. What they forget is that most of the graphics processing isn't done by the CPU (XBOX 360) or the PPU and SPUs (PS3) but by the GPU. The XBOX 360 has a more powerful GPU that supports some interesting features which the PS3 does not. Sure there maybe a few graphics operation you could offload from the GPU on the PS3, but not much.

The real place where the cell could do well is in physics and AI programming. Especially with physics, it is fairly easy to split things up into small programs you can run on the SPUs.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a Kleenex for your blubbering.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Rallion]

Your argument contradicts itself. First you say that the system will be doing just fine because it has better graphics.

Then you compare it to the PS2, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that graphics do NOT sell the system -- the overall quality of the game library does. It also demonstrated how a console's success or failure is self-perpetuating: if you sell more units, more people make games for your system, so you sell more units.

Yes, the PS3 will certainly get some prettier games in the years to come. When it does, nobody will care. It didn't matter in the last generation, when Gamecube and XBox games looked miles better than the competition on the PS2, and it will matter even less now that everything looks pretty much 'good enough'.

Sony needs to give up on any hopes of 'winning' this round (and, internally, I expect that they already have). They have little chance of catching up to the 360 worldwide, these days they can't even consistently beat its sales in Japan. (Note that presently, that big game that selling Japanese 360s is Star Ocean, which isn't exactly the graphical powerhouse that you insist will sell systems.) Any thoughts about catching the Wii are pure fantasy. At this point Sony needs to be concerning themselves with turning a profit.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[AbRASiON]

Rubbish!

Graphics still do play an important part in gaming.
The Wii is appealing to a mainstream demographic, children, grandmothers and general non gamers.
The Wii is basically right now a replacement monopoly set for the family to rally around at xmas.

There is a use for the Wii in the casual younger 'party' gamer type, people come home after a night out on the piss and just wanna hang out and Wii bowl and that's fine.
Ultimately though the Wii is NOT for your traditional gamers and we single player, storyline focused gamers ARE still out there and we do spend money.
Many, many a Wii sits idle due to lack of use by my particular, geekier demographic, the online is bad, MOST games don't focus on SP or good, linear, narrative driven SP.

So now we get to me and my demographic, I don't have a lot of time to game but when I do, I sit down like a good book or movie from start to finish and sorry but graphics DO matter, there are limits to what I will put up with.
Now they don't make a game but they help - do you think God of War 1 and 2 would be as fun as they are with stick figures? They'd still be fun but it would be not as good.

I am more than happy to drop some coin on good storyline games, with good graphics, good gameplay, good online etc.
I'll pay the extra for the graphics and depth.

This Wii fad WILL eventually stop, or perhaps when they try to introduce "HD Wii 2.0" see how many people don't flock to it.
There is many many an idle Wii out there and there's many people who have bought it and maybe they do use it but they sure as heck aren't going to even consider replacing it any time soon and they probably don't won't buy any more than the top 3 to 5 games over the lifetime of the entire system - they buy on trends and marketing.

Meanwhile us 360 and PS3 "hardcore" or "hard-casual" gamers are buying between 2 and 10 games a year.
I already have 10 PS3 games and I've had it for 13 months, all of the games 80$ AUD each - and I'm an ex pirate who would only download before for goodness sakes.

Long story short.
GOOD DEEP single player games DO need decent graphics and audio and gameplay - waggle controls and simple gameplay simply doesn't cut it.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were 20 million PS3's in homes...

21.3 million as of Dec 2008

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[AbRASiON]

Yep, the PS2 was supported for a long time after it game out by Sony, whereas MS dropped the Xbox 1 like a bag of crap basically.
That being said, the Xbox 1 was costing them money and had the lower marketshare.

Now the reverse has hapenned, the PS3 has the lower marketshare and it costs Sony quite a bit of money.
I'm hoping that the PS3 slowly builds up sales over time with more and more decent games.

What Sony specifically needs is to have some more developers onboard with EXCLUSIVE games only.
One of the most stupid things Ken Kutaragi ever did was allow GTA4 to go to the 360, they were offered it and refused to pay the exclusive price.
One of the dumbest moves a gaming company has made in the past 20 years.
That alone would have gained 2 to 5 million marketshare for Sony, right there.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[sleeponthemic]

Nobody has yet brought out a game that takes full power of the PS3.

Not saying you're wrong, necessarily, but what you are claiming is completely within the realms of becoming an urban myth in years to come. There has been very little proof of this statement for years, now.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Teriblows]

"Graphics on the PS3 will just keep on improving as the console gets cheaper and cheaper and in the end makes more revenue for Sony that the Xbox360 for Microsoft. Believe me when I say that the Xbox360 support will just drop like a stone when the next Xbox comes out, just like the Xbox1 when the 360 came out, while the PS3 will just like the PS2 be supported for many years." more baseless speculation that is more religious fanboy nonsense. i guess programmers are magic or something:P and who cares, in 5 years your probably going to be saddled with children or something more important than playing on your freakin ps3. maybe even be able to afford a new console:P

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

extra oomph that they may be able to eek out of the PS3

I'm not usually one to go all Grammar Nazi on people, but I saw this one THREE times in this article's discussion.

The word you're looking for here is "eke".

The way you wrote it, you make it sound like you can improve your console's performance using a monkey.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with fancy graphics is the distinction between what you are displaying and how you are displaying it. Assuming the core gameplay is good, a fun, appealing game world is timeless, whereas a game that simply pushes the envelope in terms of the number of polygons on-screen is only fresh until something better comes out.

Some games simply use advances in technology to show exactly the same thing their decade-old predecessors did, just with much nicer graphics, whereas better games make use of the increases in processing power to improve the visual side of play.

For example, FEAR used its substantial (for the time) processing power requirements to give people a genuinely scary survival horror game, and to create the dynamic, chaotic gunfights that made it so much fun. Rather than make everything a little shinier, system resources in FEAR were used to allow bullets to create huge amounts of debris, creating the kind of chaos you would expect if a gun battle broke out in an office complex. Compare and contrast with Doom 3, which like FEAR, was a system hog when it came out, but didn't really give the player anything interesting besides better graphics. Doom 3 stopped being scary after the first few times the lights went out.

"The lights are out? Must be zombies again". *Swings flashlight wildly*

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

along those lines, I'd like to say that games have gone in the shitter lately. Sacrificing gameplay for graphics has become the industry standard. I'm sick of people using the term "Hardcore Gamer" in reference to the guy who waits in line for the most bleeding edge console/game. True hardcore gamers are those of us who are still playing super mario and the early zelda games, etc. because of the amazing gameplay and unmatched replay value. Maybe I'm dating myself, but the way the game industry has evolved in the past 10 years makes me sick

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

How expensive was the PS2 when it was released? Yup... See what a succes that became?

$300. Wake me when I can buy a PS3 for that much.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Shrike82]

For me at least, graphics have never been the main priority. I think what the GP was hinting at is many games try to make up for boring/overused/poorly implemented game mechanics and stories by making everything shinier than the last game. Yes, grpahics are an issue for many gamers, but personally I think the balance has gone way too far towards better and better graphics, lighting and shading, and developers are forgetting that the games have to be polished, bug-free, innovative and, most importantly, fun to play.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[V!NCENT]

This is why the Wii is dominating, it is focusing more on what makes games fun rather then proclaiming that they can put 34234234234234 scaling and rotating polygons on the screen all rendering withing .005 MS.

Name one game on the Wii that is fun and not released by Nintendo. Yes...

Graphics != A good game. Sure, I'd rather have a game with good graphics then not, but really, if the same game was on the Wii, PS3, and 360 I'd pick the one that had the most content and best controls rather then the best graphics.

Do you own Doom 3? Go to system settings and disable all special effects. Come back here and tell me how boring the game has became without them. You have two different types of graphics: observatory graphics and immersive graphics. Observatory graphics are the amount of hairs on Snake's beard. Who cares? Immersive graphics are race games with post processing effects and motion blur that makes your think you actualy go faster than 2mph. How about Doom 3? Those are immersive graphics too. With everything on high and cool 5.1 surround sound you are engaging in true horror. It will scare they the shit out of you. How about playing Crysis Warhead? Who cares about the gameplay when you feel like your walking with an object over a grass-textured plain? Nobody, because Crysis Warhead is all about being on a island and thinking you are actualy there and are actualy doing something.

Calculation power is also very important for games nowadays. How about physics puzzles? Jumping into the water so you don't get shot by bullits. A game of hide-and-seek when your opponent's character is being rendered with per-pixel-lightning, so you can see what he's planning behind the wall. What weapon is he holding? How about Killzone 2 when you have to think about the wind factor when you throw a grenate. Tactics! Etc.

No games are not just pure static mechanics anymore. In some cases graphics are just one big pile of care, like with observatory graphics, but immersive graphics and physics and realistic shadows and fluid animation (jump in the water so the bullits don't hit you) are very functional.

The Wii makes games fun? Well I can conclude that it's fun for the thirst 3 hours with these gestures you have to make but after 2 days nobody would still care anymore. It's just boring.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[V!NCENT]

It doesn't matter whether a system's graphical abilities are maxed out because graphical improvements don't matter anymore. That's why the Wii has 50% of the console market despite not only having the weakest hardware but also having a game library that's too lazy to even use the power that's there.

The Wii sells because it's made for non-gamers. Non-gamers buy it. Girl: "Oh my god my Sims character is sooooo much like Paris Hilton. Wow and my pony is soooo beautifull! :D Wow it's so romantic that Ken is marrying BArbie. That made my cry. Hey dad I want to so fitness". Dad: "No, I am going to play Wii tennis with your mom". Son the gamer: "Yo 'sup dude let's play Super Mario B-... ah FSCK!"

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[V!NCENT]

Your argument contradicts itself. First you say that the system will be doing just fine because it has better graphics. Then you compare it to the PS2, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that graphics do NOT sell the system -- the overall quality of the game library does.

I wasn't comparing succes based on graphics, I was comparing lifetime based on the growth of graphics. A console is just a boring box with a controller. What sepperated the PS1 from the PS2? Graphics. Graphics determines the lifetime of a console. PS2 graphics kept improving over the years. PS3 graphics will improve over the years. Xbox360 stands still.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[V!NCENT]

Killzone 2, 'nuff said.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[V!NCENT]

more baseless speculation that is more religious fanboy nonsense.

I don't even own a PS3 X'D. I am a PC gamer. Please tell me how that's fanboyism.

and who cares, in 5 years your probably going to be saddled with children or something more important than playing on your freakin ps3. maybe even be able to afford a new console:P

If you don't care about consoles than why do you reply?

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Anonymous Coward]

But a good game + good graphics = a better game! So, assuming they get the good game part right, what's the problem?

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Xtravar]

Apparently you've been living under a Happy Ignorant Rock. The Linux kernel (and 'other' OSes) on the PS3 is required to run under a hypervisor.

They hypervisor disallows access to various pieces of hardware. RSX (the graphics chip) is one of them. I think Blu-ray may be one of them, too, so that movies can't be copied. Some people had found a buffer overflow attack to gain access to the RSX chip, but then Sony released a system update which closed the hole.

But congratulations on being so utterly clueless and out of the loop.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[xmod2]

Yes, but I can probably buy an Xbox 360 and an Xbox 720 for the price of a PS3.

So you get a longer lifespan, but you're still going to be playing on old hardware. If things continue the way they are going with parallel computing, the next gen consoles may offer non-trivial differences which make upgrading hardware in smaller increments the smarter choice than buying in on a long term investment.

Personally, I feel it's a cute statement and it was true with PS2 (God of War 2 was amazing), but I don't think that is what made PS2 the winner last gen. It was the huge volume of games (similar to 360 this gen) that made it the console of choice, imo.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[commodore64_love]

>>>Nobody has yet brought out a game that takes full power of the PS3.

Who cares? Even if the PS3 suddenly had a "killer ap" that made everyone jump up-and-down with glee, it's still not going to be the best-selling console of this generation. It's fallen too far behind.

If you still have doubts, consider the Original Xbox. Yeah it made outstanding graphics, but it still failed to beat the dominant PS2. Once a console achieves dominance, it holds that dominance.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[commodore64_love]

>>>Do you own Doom 3? Go to system settings and disable all special effects. Come back here and tell me how boring the game has became without them

QED Doom 3 is not a good game. It's just like dating - if a woman (or man) has to rely on eye candy to keep your interest, then they are not a good partner for marriage. Likewise a Game that has to rely on eye candy to keep you entertained is not a good game. A good game will still be good, even if it was rendered using PS1-style primitive graphics. ----- Final Fantasy 7 or 9 for example. Mario 64 for another.

>>>How about playing Crysis Warhead? Who cares about the gameplay when you feel like your walking with an object over a grass-textured plain?

I'd rather just go outside and walk on the real grass plain, or visit a real island. If I want to "experience reality" then I'll go experience it in the real world, not through some fake software with lousy gameplay. The game is the thing; without that, it is not worth my time. I'll go experience the real thing instead.

I also prefer games that are NOT like reality. Where can I go to pump-up giant tomatoes until they explode? There's only one place - in the virtual world.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[brkello]

The Wii is selling so well for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with "fun games". The Gamecube games were just as fun but it finished worldwide in 3rd. It is a stupid cliche that graphics != a good game. It should be obvious as well that graphics != a bad game either. But if you have two equally fun games, you are going to pick the one with better graphics. Also, if graphics are done poorly, it will ruin the experience making it less fun.

The Wii is doing as well as it is simply because its controller is new and interesting. The games aren't any better, the controls are just new and the console was cheap. Thus people are buying them because it became trendy. Most people I know don't touch their Wii anymore (ahh, the jokes write themselves). Many people find the controller to be more of a gimmick after awhile as more and more shovelware is dumped on to the Wii since people don't know how to make a decent game on it and lots of people have one. That being said, for as many consoles it has out there, it does a poor job of selling games.

So to say that the Wii is doing well because its games are more fun is a bunch of baloney. It is a lot more complex than that. Personally, I am glad there is competition. The Wii doesn't have the power to do cutting edge graphics and AI. It is good there are other companies that still are trying to push the envelope a little. I hope they continue to do so. I'd hate to see everyone go the Nintendo model of just releasing slightly upgraded hardware each release. But it is good to have a Nintendo so that you have a cheaper, quality option.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Jesus_666]

Graphics still do play an important part in gaming.

Only to a certain degree. System Shock 2 is graphically primitive* compared to 2008's releases but it's a much more enjoyable game than it's so-called spiritual successor Bioshock. The latter has the graphics but it also has its gameplay dumbed down to the point where even non-retrogamers are wondering whether it does SS2's legacy justice.

Gameplay-wise graphics haven't really done anything big for us since the days of Quake 2. They aided with storytelling; we can now tell pretty much anything without having to switch to obvious FMVs. But apart from that they do nothing but look pretty. Now, to some gamers that's not just important but neccessary. Others care less and instead want a well-rounded game.

Don't get me wrong - I still do like some new games. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is very immersive. Metal Gear Solid 4 might have the best ending to a video game ever (especially the fistfight, which actually does profit from the detailed animations). But when I get the choice between Halo 3 and Marathon I'm probably going for the latter one. It's Doom era but it simply has the better characters and the more entertaining... let's call it dialogue, even though you never say anything.

There's more to a video game than just the presentation. How important that "other" is depends entirely on the gamer. If the majority of gamers puts any value on "other" then optimizing solely for presentation is not a wise decision.


* And only graphically. It's rare to see that kind of gameplay sophistication in a video game.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Nick Ives]

Believe me when I say that the Xbox360 support will just drop like a stone when the next Xbox comes out, just like the Xbox1 when the 360 came out, while the PS3 will just like the PS2 be supported for many years.

The Xbox died for a number of reasons. I remember reading that the final nail was Nvidia trying to increase the licensing costs for the GPU part in the Xbox! MS figured it'd just be best to try to get 360 out the door ASAP to get a head-start over Sony for this generation. That strategy failed for Sega with the DC but MS knows how to build a platform for developers so it worked out for them.

The 360 will be supported past the release of the next Xbox in the same way the PS2 is now. MS have already apologised about how the Xbox died, that's why they made sure they own all the IP related to the 360 so it won't be an issue for them this time around.

Unfortunately Sony decided to take everything that developers hated about the PS2 (having to handle the VU in the GS and the other VU in the EE with a weird NUMA without any official guidance) and run with it even further this generation. The only reason developers stuck it out with the PS2 was because it was number one. This generation the number one and two consoles (Wii and 36) are dead easy to develop for.

I'm not hating on the PS3, I actually like it more than my 360 because it has a better controller and doesn't sound like an airfield. It's just shit as a development platform (where are the libraries, the example code, the evangelising the PS3 as a cohesive platform? All that stuff MS has learnt to do with Windows) which means less game{s\,,rs} and less sales.

Re:Number of reasons to make a console difficult

[Nick Ives]

The 3D doesn't work yet because of the proprietary, yup, nVidia card.

Nvidia has binary Linux drivers. Sony is the one prohibiting 3D (and also Blu-ray movie support due to piracy concerns) under Linux. This is because if you could play games under Linux developers would just release games as Linux live-CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays-only-if-the-games-are-bigger-than-8.6GB-not-mandated-like-if-you-go-the-official-route.

Noveau will never work on PS3 Linux because the hypervisor prohibits access to the 3D hardware. If they manage to get it to work Sony will lock it down in a system update. This is all on the record btw if you can be bothered to Google.

In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think what the CEO making the comment did a poor job of communicating. Also, the article title is a bit misleading.

I believe Sony aims to make a new architecture, which RESULTS it being hard to program for. But the beauty of a new architecture is that it can be very powerful if done right. And why not? You're aiming to get 10 years out of it (in PS3's case) and the hardware ain't gonna change.

Now to put things in perspective, I remember a comment being made about how in the PS1 era developers wanted more access to the hardware. Then came the PS2, which in the end was a little bit more to the metal then developers hoped for.
They then commented they wanted something easier.

So based on what I know about the PS3 (new architecture, but with lots of middleware), I think Sony has achieved this.

Is it still hard? Yes. Will developers get a grip on it and realize it's full potential? Quite possible.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[swillden]

I think what the CEO making the comment did a poor job of communicating.

Apparently it's catching!

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[commodore64_love]

That's what I used to say about my shiny Commodore Amiga (new breakthrough architecture, destined to be great, etcetera).

So where's my Amiga now?

"Commodore declared bankruptcy." :-(

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as a software developer for a prominent games development company. We make games for multiple platforms (Xbox 360,PS3,Wii,PC, PS2, Xbox, and of course in the past other consoles).

What we do is make a single common engine that runs on all platforms, this is so the people developing the actual game have a common and easy base to work from. (In theory)

Have you noticed multi platform games look better on the Xbox 360 vs the PS3 or PS3 ones come out way later? The simple reason is you have to sweat blood and tears to get the same performance out of the PS3 to match the Xbox. (Hear those thousands of screams out in the night? Those are PS3 developer! :)

Of course on paper the PS3 is more "powerful" (well besides the GPU which isn't), but spending an additional 12+ developer months to get the engine working at the same speed and quality which the competitors platform have from day one is bad for Sony.

I think we'd all agree spending that developer time on the actual game would be more beneficial!

Additionally Microsoft's developer tools are much more mature and user friendly.
Thanks

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[WiiVault]

I'm gonna guess you work for EA if you are working for a shop that still does Xbox classic games. Covering such a wide range of platforms is insanely hard.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[MikeBabcock]

Other "actual developers" have not had this problem by designing their engine for the PS3 and then porting it to the 360 instead. Have a chat with the guys at Criterion about Burnout: Paradise, why don't you?

Targeting the PS3 as your primary platform helps make your code work smarter from day one, and actually makes it more efficient on the 360 as well.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, and the alternative would have been to use a more conventional architecture resulting in something that would be all but identical to the 360. That would have been suicide - nobody can compete with Microsoft with a like for like product - they are just too big and rich, even for Sony.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, and the alternative would have been to use a more conventional architecture resulting in something that would be all but identical to the 360. That would have been pointless and suicidal - nobody can compete with Microsoft with a like for like product - they are just too big and rich, even for Sony.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree that programming for the PS3 then porting to the xbox360 will result in more efficient code. The development time to get a basic game engine running is going to take longer on the PS3. In the same amount of time you could already have a more mature, better performing engine with the help of great tools and a good debugger (PS3 debugger has problems showing crashes and asserts correctly).

I wouldn't be surprised if companies start prototyping games using XNA. In a matter of days you can have a basic game engine running on both pc and xbox360. Here they can quickly changes to flaws or misdesigns in game play, which would be more costly later in development on the full game.

Game companies today need to cut development time and costs if the studios are going to survive. Too many times late in development the game designers will find out that a game play mechanic that took many programming hours is flawed and needs to be redesigned. Programmers will actually improve their code on the full game since they will have already written a simple version. The developers will have better ideas for the code architecture. This is what I think actually causes the the more efficient code when porting from PS3 to xbox360.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

That would have been nice, except we had 360 devkits a YEAR before we had ps3 documentation. It's hard to make a game when everyone has a 360 on their desk and there are THREE ps3 devkits in the company for the first year. Oh, the 360 had an excellent development environment from day one and the ps3 is STILL weak. Also the early ps3 devkits sounded like jet engines so everyone hated to have them turned on. Way to make us want to use them!
Just for the record, asymmetric multiprocessing sucks. Especially when almost NONE of your datasets fit into the SPU memory (256K), let alone the code to process it. There are few game related tasks (besides graphics) that take well to a streamed architecture.
The people who designed the cell architecture knew NOTHING about programming games (read the book 'The race for a new game machine') and it really shows. They went by what Sony told them and Sony really does suck at software. All of the good graphics APIs and tools were actually done by first party developers and then released to everyone else. Sony does develop them further but they had nothing to do with the design.
On a final note, when you have to burn 20%-50% of the SPU processing to lighten the GPU load so the PS3 can just barley KEEP UP with te 360's GPU you know it's crap.
Bah. I program the ps3 for a living and I really love the challenge but damn they chose poorly this time around.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[ryanw]

Have you noticed multi platform games look better on the Xbox 360 vs the PS3 or PS3 ones come out way later? The simple reason is you have to sweat blood and tears to get the same performance out of the PS3 to match the Xbox. (Hear those thousands of screams out in the night? Those are PS3 developer! :)

As a consumer, this is frustrating.

Years ago when I heard rumors about Microsoft getting into the video game console business, I knew this would put the console games into the crapper.

I knew that Microsoft would have enough capital to force their way in and create a rough situation for CONSUMERS. The playstation was the leading platform but developers wouldn't want to be ignorant of Microsoft's commitment to their console and their capital to make it happen. So the net result would be mediocre results on ALL platforms.

Here we are, years later, and I have lived confirmation of my fear for the console industry.

Video game companies would rather have a mediocre performing game on all platforms rather than pick one platform to develop for and maximize the platform for the benefit of the consumer's experience. This is because they will sell more copies world wide being on all platforms. So they think it makes the most sense for them.

The reality? The reality is in the past, serious gamers owned all the platforms. Sega Genesis, Nintendo Game Cube, PS1/PS2 and there was more exclusivity. So why don't game developers get some balls and write games tailored specifically what they want accomplished and focus 100% of their time on that platform. If they want power, goto the PS3, if they want quick time to delivery goto the XBOX, if they want fun low-quality stuff goto the Wii.

This would help developers focus on what they do, making amazing experiences for consumers and making people buy the console to play their game.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, stop these cross-unified ports for all consoles.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that may be true but if the engine is developed for Xbox 360/PC first (as those dev kits came out *way* before the PS3 ones arrived, and longer if you count PS3 dev kits that actually worked :P ) you are kinda stuck with a high cost of re-development of a lot of pipeline tools as well as the core engine.

We are looking into re-developing the engine, but quite frankly the cost benefit isn't really there, Current Gen + Xbox 360 sales are stronger, if we get an "adequate" PS3 version that will do.

We also have ex Criterion/Renderware staff (and from other dev companies too) here who bitch a hell of a lot about the PS3 been as much fun to dev for as been dragged over broken glass to at times, poor dev tools etc.

End of the day when the next next gen consoles come out I think everyone will have learned how to develop better engines... or just licence the unreal engine! (Although most dev companies are scared of an EA type company buying out their core engine...)

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could ignore the PS3 and save a lot of time during development at little expense to sales.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Shrike82]

The reality is in the past, serious gamers owned all the platforms. Sega Genesis, Nintendo Game Cube, PS1/PS2 and there was more exclusivity. So why don't game developers get some balls and write games tailored specifically what they want accomplished and focus 100% of their time on that platform.

They don't focus on one platform because they wouldn't make as much money. If your game is available on multiple platforms you naturally have a larger potential customer base. I consider myself a serious gamer, but I just don't have the money to own every console. I bought a 360 at launch, and later a Wii. Buying a Playstation 3 would pretty much be a waste of money for me (since most games are multi-platform), so games developers would lose out on a potential sale (from me) if they only released on the PS3.

Sure, the multi-platform appraoch might compromise on quality to some degree, but in the developers and publishers eyes it's worth it because it brings in more cash. Truely quantity winning over quality.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[MBraynard]

I think it's equally as likely that the reporter botched the quote when he wrote it down.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[commodore64_love]

>>>Other "actual developers" have not had this problem by designing their engine for the PS3...

That's true. That's what the company called "Rareware" used to do with the Nintendo 64, but the N64 still flopped in the sales numbers, because most developers had given-up on making the difficult hardware perform, and thus there was a dearth of games. (Sound familiar PS3 owners?)

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, shut the fuck up if you don't know what you're talking about. Maybe they are just awesome. Most developers aren't that awesome. Maybe they have positioned themselves strategically as one of the few development houses that are willing to dump the tons of extra development into the PS3, knowing that the lack of companies doing that will ensure them a larger share. Maybe they had enough capital to develop two engines. Maybe they are just spouting bullshit to make it sound like they are the best developers out there. The architectures are dissimilar as fuck, it is not that easy to develop for both simultaneously if you actually want to take reasonable advantage of either the Cell architecture or the higher clock speed of the 360 cores, you are going to have to go specific.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the original poster of "I work as a software developer for a prominent games development...." post.

I don't work for EA but a big development company that make a lot of games (I think we have over 100 released games to date iirc). We've worked for different publishers, on just about all hardware (Amiga, GBA, NES,...XBox 360 etc)

What I should say is *YES* developers do want a common platform to work on, or at least similar enough that they can share code/design patterns.

To produce an A title for PS3/Xbox 360 you are talking a team of 100 easily and a budget that goes anywhere from 5-20 million dollars.... so every wasted developer month trying to get one platform to do what the others do out the box is crazy!

Funny thing is the PS1 did really well because the dev tools and API where pretty sweet, Sony has been going backwards ever since. :(

Oh and the good thing about the Wii/PS2/Xbox(1) is that they utilise the previous generation engine and so it is mature, tools are mature and all "just works(tm)" and less resource hungry in terms of people.

Re:In Defence of Sony...

[MikeBabcock]

Ahh, the joys of posting AC.

Tell you what, I'll buy buy the games from people who are awesome, and you can buy the other games.

I like awesome programmers. You don't have to.

Never attribute to malice...

[orkybash]

I don't know if Sony intentionally obfuscated their API as the summary claims, but rather just didn't care about ease of development. Sounds to me like they're saying that developing for a cell architecture is necessarily hard, and they didn't want to compromise on the architecture because (as Sony has previously stated) the PS3 is supposed to last ten years instead of the typical 4-5. I guess the cell is supposed to be more longevous?

Of course, the end result, that developers are preferring the Xbox and Wii, is the same whether malice or just misguided...

Re:Never attribute to malice...

[Zironic]

Hard to program for gives no benefit in and off itself though.

It's all a question of, if we can get it to run X% better but it's Y% harder is it worth it?

Currently it looks like the PS3's X is to small for it's Y.

Re:Never attribute to malice...

[icebraining]

Is the PS3 "expandable", like the PCs? 'Cause it isn't very mind-blowing right now, compared to current PCs. Yes, it has the Cell and all that jazz, but the RSX isn't a full revolution in graphics chipsets, and ten years is a full era in computer evolution. The PS2 didn't look all that bad when it was released, but six years later (when the PS3 was released) it looked rather shady compared to what a computer could do.

Re:Never attribute to malice...

[orkybash]

That.... is actually pretty much my point. At least to me the summary seemed to be saying that the PS3 is difficult to develop for because Sony intentionally decided to make it so. They did not, it is a consequence of other design decisions that they made. It's not like they got together and said "Let's make the hardest console to develop for that we can!"

Re:Never attribute to malice...

[Computershack]

Spec and numbers aren't everything. Take the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Both have far less RAM than a typical gaming PC yet manage to run the same games at the same resolution with the same detail as PC versions. Sure they won't do 200FPS but when you're playing on a TFT monitor, unless you want lots of shearing in the display, you won't be running at 200FPS either.

Take DX10. Considering how long DX10 has been out, there's not many DX10 games and most people playing them are playing them on DX9 hardware. Unless you want photo realism, DX9 was "good enough" and a top end DX9 card, which you can now buy from eBay for under $40, will whack out sufficient framerates to keep even the most serious gamers happy even though it was discontinued 12-24 months ago.

Sounds like a

[JustNilt]

typical CEO of a large corporation. You know ... seriously out of touch with reality. Sony has shown time and time again that it's simply out of touch with the average consumer. It was just a matter of time until they proved themselves out of touch with their critical partners in a business venture such as this. Without developers, there won't be any good games. If the platform is harder to program for, that means fewer good games and slower growth. Not exactly what most CEOs would want ... a slow growth in a major product that needs scale to become profitable.

Holy cow. to think i would ever say this in real

[unity100]

meaning.

STUPID.

STUPID

this is the STUPIDEST thing i have EVER heard in my life. god. i never thought that i would use this word in its real meaning, this bluntly. until now it was always some ironical, satirical, metaphorical usage. for the first time maybe in my slashdot membership, im calling someone and some idea, bluntly, stupid. unbelievable.

Pure Spin

[tkrotchko]

This is a case of pure spin combined with a lack of english skills. Here's what he was trying to say:

"Our hardware is so powerful that *of course* it's hard to develop for. So to use the most advanced hardware in the world, only the smartest developers will take advantage of it".

That kind of spin may play in Japanese markets, but it just sounds dumb to everyone else.

Re:Pure Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of the 1980's, when Intel's marketers were trying convince everyone that the segmented x86 architecture provided greater flexibility than Motorola's flat 32-bit address space.

If what you have is a rocky beach, tell everyone that a rocky beach is what they need to have the most fun.

Re:Pure Spin

[syousef]

I don't know. The number of times people have insisted that Visual Basic was bad because it was easy and therefore anyone could do it (meaning that incompetents jump in and do a poor job) on this board alone astounds me.

The reality is VB was bad because you could make a real mess of things even if you were a good programmer, and people abused it trying to force it to do things that really required something closer to the machine. It didn't help that it was proprietary and windows only either. The one thing that it and other Rapid Application Development languages like RAD did was get out of the programmers way and make it really easy to do things so that the coder could focus on the problem at hand not puzzle through dozens of APIs and scratch his (or her) head wondering how to get something simple done.

With a simple and easy API a moron will sure make a mess of things, but a GOOD coder will be able to stop focusing on the code grind and rise above to make programming magic.

I develop with J2EE and I absolutely miss and pine for the days when I could prototype a screen in under half an hour. What an over-engineered piece of turd with an extra dollop of XML hell and a heaped serve of Design Pattern madness all those frameworks are.

Re:Pure Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use VB for the prototype and stop complaining about tools which are not meant for done-in-30-minutes demos.

Re:Pure Spin

[MrMista_B]

Alright, so if we take your spin at face value, how do you explain this part?

"so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?'"

I hope they're not seriously thinking they can milk the PS3 for another nine-and-a-half-years.

Re:Pure Spin

[Colonel Korn]

This is a case of pure spin combined with a lack of english skills. Here's what he was trying to say:

"Our hardware is so powerful that *of course* it's hard to develop for. So to use the most advanced hardware in the world, only the smartest developers will take advantage of it".

That kind of spin may play in Japanese markets, but it just sounds dumb to everyone else.

This is the point of a CEO. Read the comments of any CEO after a clear strategic mistake and you'll see almost identical comments. "We intentionally took this path that LOOKS like a blinder for now, but which will eventually reward us with great riches!"

Re:Pure Spin

[MikeBabcock]

His spin is accurate and intelligent.

Sony was willing to take risks on this platform. They may suffer or gain, but they took the risks. Those risks entailed a whole new hardware platform that had huge performance capacities at relatively low costs (cell vs. equivalent traditional hardware with equal processing power). The result is a harder platform to develop for initially, but some incredible game potential in the long-run.

PS Sony and its first parties help third parties all the time if they ask for it.

Re:Pure Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Hat understand this. Java will become a easier developer platform. Open Source gives the users, customers, and service suppliers that option.

Java has been living in a Sun jail. It has been a high end technology for large scale Unix and mainframe systems.

The Open Source community is open the door for faster development.

Re:Pure Spin

[Anonymous Coward]

VB.Net and C#.Net are very similar in the end results they can produce, but having worked with both, my conclusion is simple. You are much more likely to get stuck working with a shitty developer on a VB project, or stuck cleaning up after one.

Yeah, it's possible to encounter bad programmers in any language, but VB seems to be the worst.

Re:Pure Spin

[syousef]

VB.Net and C#.Net are very similar in the end results they can produce, but having worked with both, my conclusion is simple. You are much more likely to get stuck working with a shitty developer on a VB project, or stuck cleaning up after one.

That's only because there are a hell of a lot more VB projects, and THAT is because VB is easier.

You're still more likely to launch into a well written VB project and understand, fix or improve it much more quickly than other languages (though having worked with C# for my Masters thesis, it's not a bad language to use...or at least it wasn't when it was relatively new).

Re:Pure Spin

[Rallion]

Kaz Hirai speaks perfect English. Which makes it pure spin. It's kinda his whole job. Still, he usually just ends up making things seem even worse than they really are.

Re:Pure Spin

[Tablizer]

Java will never be up to the task because it's not a dynamic language. Python or Ruby or PHP have a better chance of being behind the "next VB" as far as WYSIWYG GUI.
   

Re:Pure Spin

[MemoryDragon]

I have been living in the dynamic space for quite a while and this statement is pure bullshit. The issue is not the language the issue is the tooling. What made visual basic so great (which was copied by the nextstep interface builder which used objective c btw...) was not that you had a certain language underneath it simply was the tooling. Delphi was also not a dynamic language but for most apps sufficient enough. The issue with JEE is it is pattern hell combined with a lack of good visual tooling. The main issue is that the entire JEE is not that bad per se and has good ideas, but it lacks a load of good frontend tooling to combine all this together. Netbeans has quite a few good approaches on how things should be done but falls short on bugs!
VB also would have been hard if you had to deal with all the configuration bindings yourself instead of having the tools take over everything!

Sony Arrogance

[zaibazu]

The PS3 has more Potential (tm) Demanding devs to code multithreaded in Assembly when the competitor is around the next corner with proven design is ridiculous. It will take some more years for developers to get better abstraction tools for the architecture, and by then the next xbox will be out.

Uhhhhh

[Sycraft-fu]

I'm going to hope that he just misspoke and what he was really trying to say is "Because our hardware is so advanced, it can't be made easy to develop for." I would hope he's really not so dumb as to think that deliberately making it hard to program for is a good thing.

However I fear his actual words have some truth to them. Not that Sony tried to make it hard on purpose, but that it is in fact hard, and won't be getting easier for two reasons: Sony doesn't really have an interest in making it easier. I think there's two reasons for this:

1) The Cell processor is, well, odd. What I mean by that is that it doesn't work like processors in the past. So tools that exist now aren't going to be good at dealing with it, nor is the knowledge that programmers have. It is different and that makes it hard.

2) Sony doesn't have good dev tools, and isn't good at making them. Because of the difference in the processor, making it easy would require some rocking dev tools form Sony. However they don't have those, and don't seem to have the people needed to make them.

So the combination of those gives you a situation where game programmers are being asked to figure shit out, and it seems that Sony thinks that's ok. They figure you ought to.

Well that's a program, especially when MS is your competition. Say what you like about them, but they've got really slick dev tools. Visual Studio is a really slick development environment, and that's what you get to use for Xbox 360 development. What's more, it is something that many programmers are quite familiar with, since it is often what's used to write PC games. Add to that the fact that the 360's hardware is far more like a PC than the PS3 and you've got a platform that is much easier to develop for.

Personally I can't figure out why the hell Sony put the Cell in the PS3. Seems like a really retarded move. When the PS3 came out, the Cell was a brand new architecture. Hell the first thing I ever saw on the market with a Cell was a PS3 (you can now get other things like processing cards for PCs). Ok well a mass market consumer electronics device is NOT where I'd choose to test a new architecture. Start that shit out in research computer (like the aforementioned cards) and then maybe servers and super computers and such. Give it some years on the market for people to get used to it, and for the kinks to be worked out, then look at tossing it in mass market devices.

So who knows, maybe they are right and maybe there is tons of untapped potential. However it also might not matter. If your console is hard to program for, developers may just elect to give it a miss, and thus so may consumers. That does seem to be what is happening. Nintendo and MS are outselling Sony by a good margin. Just because the PS3 might be more powerful (and who knows if that's true or not) doesn't matter if the end result is that it is hard to make games for.

Heck, ask Sega about that. That was one of the things that really hosed the Saturn. It was actually a fairly powerful console. However it was rather hard to develop for. It didn't work like most other consoles and PCs (for example it used quadrilaterals instead of triangles as fundamental surfaces) and it had poor dev tools. As a result many games didn't look as good on it as on other consoles, even though they could have in theory, and other developers simply gave it a miss.

The PS3 seems to be in a somewhat similar situation, and the remarks from Sony do not bode well for that changing.

Re:Uhhhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I can't figure out why the hell Sony put the Cell in the PS3. Seems like a really retarded move. When the PS3 came out, the Cell was a brand new architecture. Hell the first thing I ever saw on the market with a Cell was a PS3 (you can now get other things like processing cards for PCs). Ok well a mass market consumer electronics device is NOT where I'd choose to test a new architecture. Start that shit out in research computer (like the aforementioned cards) and then maybe servers and super computers and such. Give it some years on the market for people to get used to it, and for the kinks to be worked out, then look at tossing it in mass market devices.

You make a lot of good points, but I think this one is a little off. If you look at game consoles from the past, you'll see that a number of them introduced novel ideas/technology into the industry and looked to see how well it did. Some of these ideas didn't take on too well, while others tended to fair a lot better.

The "slow and cautious" strategy for development and deployment of new technology doesn't really work for the game industry. If Sony/Toshiba/IBM had done what you had suggested, where they test ran the Cell on PC cards before ever releasing it, it would have never made it. Mostly due to the fact that the kind of tests that Sony would need to run to see if it would have been viable in the PS3; would have been time consuming and not very effective, since they would have likely only had a small team of people working on it. At least by releasing it into the wild, like they did, they can allow other developers to find uses for it, which is what has been mentioned by a number of people.

The real question will be though, once the PS3 reaches the end of its life cycle: "Did the Cell's output provide far superior performance for its cost, compared to if we had just used a regular dual core or quad core setup?"

Re:Uhhhhh

[drinkypoo]

Personally I can't figure out why the hell Sony put the Cell in the PS3.

I believe that Sony underestimated the gaming public. They murdered the Dreamcast by releasing completely phony specifications for their game console - not only could it only push about half as many raw polygons as they originally claimed (look way back in the way back in conversations here which include me for citations - which someone else provided one of the prior times this came up) but that was when the system wasn't doing anything else. In other words, you could make a graphics demo with half as many polys as they talked about, but not a game. They thought that they could convince us this time around that the Cell was some kind of magical extradimensional processing engine that would allow us to tap the computational abilities of the celestial aether.

They were at least less right than they believed - sure, some people believed that before, and believe it still, which is why you can see so many examples in this discussion right now where people are trotting out the old "developers haven't even fully exploited the platform" chestnut. That may well be true, but that is only an argument for purchasing some other video game system on which the games are already fantastic. When you combine this fact with the Xbox 360 RROD panic and the ease of picking up the Wiimote it's easy to see why Nintendo is out in front; when you examine Sony's actions through the lens of their apparent arrogance, it's easy to see why the 3 in PS3 stands for third place.

Re:Uhhhhh

[KDR_11k]

Maybe that's where the old saying applies, "when all you have is a Cell processor every problem starts looking parallel"...

Re:Uhhhhh

[MemoryDragon]

Well cell was the logical choice for Sony. The PS2 had a similar architecture, it basically was two mips processors with added vector units taking over.
The design is basically rather straight forward from the PS2, problem is that sony intended to have the cell doing anything including 3d but the 3d processors in the meantime had become such powerhouses that the cell would have looked old doing 3d rendering, so they added another nividia gpu now the cell is degraded to do something nobody really can figure out what to do with it except doing physics, and add to that it is a really slow general purpose processor... So you end up with following architecture,
mediocre gpu, way to few ram, slow as molasses general purpose computing and powerhouse of simd units you have to figure out yourself what to do with it. On the PS2 the machine hat a big enough market saturation so dev studios had enough time to find ways to untap the resources outside of the slow mips core, but the PS3 is a different issue you have to be crossplatform so tapping special resources is a no go, and for the rest you have to fight with the limits of the machine.
It is always funny to read posts like above when obviously a fanboy talks about how it will evolve the next ten years. From a technical standpoint the PS3 does not have ten years, the simd units on modern graphics cards are way beyound what a PS3 can deliver. The entire 3d area is moving towards voxel engines as we speak (real voxels not the 2d voxel maps of the 90s) so ram is a huge issue there, and that is one of the areas the ps3 severely lacks behind. User adoption is limited by the fact that sony basically pissed 110mio customers on the head by cutting down the ps2 compatibility to zero so the uptake is not as it could be. No there wont be a ten years lifespan only in Sonys wet dreams!

Forth

[Windrip]

From the DDJ article, this looks like an interesting machine for which to develop a Forth engine. How do I get one of these?

Re:Forth

[Kamineko]

It's logical. The PS2 was the third place, so the PS3 gets Forth.

Re:Forth

[Anonymous Coward]

FORTH WHATIS?

2015

[Anonymous Coward]

By 2015 the devs will have figured out how to use the PS3 to its fullest capacity.
And then it will be the year of the PS3. The count down has begun.

Just when you think they can't make things worse.

[olddotter]

Wow. Just when you thing they can't shoot themselves in the foot again. (Hasn't Sony run out of feet?)

Apple gets it, see the App Store for the iPhone. Microsoft gets it, they really focus on wooing developers.

Hopefully this was an idea lost in translation. If he said "Its not easy to develop for because if we focus on that, then it wouldn't be the console with the most FLOPS."; then I could deal with.

Sony losses money on the console. They need titles to make money on the over all project. To get titles they need developers. They need a VERY low cost PS3 developer boot camp to teach the tricks of the console and to encourage developers to write more games.

Just wondering ...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people complaining something is "difficult to program" really have desire, and probably more important, *ability* to program it?

I really get tired when I argued some algorithm parallelization issues on Cell with someone for hours, only find he actually don't know what "DMA" and "Virtual Memory Paging" means.

Take it all with a grain of salt

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that what he said or is that what he meant or...?

If you weren't raised in Japanese culture or you don't have a major degree in linguistics, then be careful of any direct translations between languages.

Actually, that's good advice for any language translations.

Slashdot is getting progressively dumber

[Anonymous Coward]

This was a comment made months ago and slashdot is bringing it to light now. Not to mention taking it out of context.

For one its broken english. Since when to asians speak with the completely correct words. Two by this comment he meant its difficult to program for because it is so powerful and given the cell architecture.

It ensures that any good developers that spend time will get good results. If they do not then you end up with games just like the 360 (take all multiplats).

Seriously I would have hoped Slashdot would have put a little more thought into posts especially when it comes to the console wars. This website is getting progressively worse and news for nerds is becoming extremely biased when it comes to many things. ...oh and stop trying to add 1 line jokes and comments to posts. It friggin ridiculous. ...go ahead mod it down wussies.

Re:Slashdot is getting progressively dumber

[Anonymous Coward]

For one its broken english. Since when to asians speak with the completely correct words.

Most of the Asians I've met have a better grasp of the English language than you, you racist prick.

Re:Slashdot is getting progressively dumber

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't saying the language itself you prick. Maybe I should have worded it differently to get it across to the dumb people. What I mean is they come across differently when speaking. Take the story for example. What he says does not necessarily come across the way he means it.

This is just a language use barrier. We interpret it differently because we use the language differently. Which usually comes from learning it as a second language. Same goes for every language.

Call me a racist all you want for thinking this way but I work with these people everyday and see it first hand. Sometimes they say things that if coming from a person who use it as a first language they would get a punch in the face. They don't necessarily realize they are saying it incorrectly.

oh and thanks for modding it down as a troll to prove my point. F*** slashdot and all you mods. Get a clue and report things in an unbiased way to the tech community. Not everyone is pro obama, pro anti-RIAA, or anti-microsoft\apple, pro-linux. Just summarize the story and leave the one line two cent comments to the comment section.

Re:Slashdot is getting progressively dumber

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously you just proved my point. You have an opinion and others have theres. Slashdot has become very mainstream as far as where us nerds get there news. I think they should show a little discretion in there news summaries. You know rise above those common media biased websites, newspapers, and tv channels. But if you feel even those with a brain should attempt to influence others when they get a little power then so be it. ...and yes there is power to be had in running this type of website.

Also, I'm not saying I disagree with slashdots article opinions but the bias makes me sick even when it is in favor of my opinion. Especially when it comes to one tech vs another. Slashdot was not always this way and the fact that its becoming more like this tells me its becoming more like Digg...or maybe they are being paid to sway one way or the other. ...who am I to tell them how to run there website. Well I'm just like you, you dumb F***, I'm one of the sets of eyes they use to make there money. I gave my feedback you and you gave yours. They may be opposite opinions but respect that everyone has an opinion.

I just feel those who report the news should keep there opinions out of it. Otherwise its becomes like the much beloved news channels Fox and CNN.

Re:Slashdot is getting progressively dumber

[Anonymous Coward]

the bias makes me sick even when it is in favor of my opinion.

You have that much of an emotional investment in someone else's website? How sad. You need to step away from the computer, go outside, and play with your dog or get laid or something. Do you even have a girlfriend? I don't know how you could attract someone of the opposite sex if you're so unhinged that you get butt-hurt over some "biased" forum posting.
Seriously though, take the day off. Slashdot won't suddenly fall apart if you aren't here 24/7 to play hall-monitor.

Re:Slashdot is getting progressively dumber

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous for this. After reading everything you've commented on you are clearly a much more fucked up individual then myself. You browse the comments sections and post angry comments and troll the shit out of everyone. Get a fucking life.

If you are not that homo, either way if you feel the need to comment try reading the posts first. I'm not complaining about the posts in the comments section. I made a harmless comment about the bias I see in the article summaries. Like the one line comments after every summary.

This is and has always been a news forum and just like other news outlets it should have some dignity in what it reports and how it reports it. Especially when you consider that its self proclaimed as news for nerds. So seriously it should be smarter than the rest...but sadly it is not.

Its pussies like you that continue to allow jerk offs like those who write the summaries to add there bias slant on this bullshit.

I could not give a shit if those who run slashdot listen to me. Obviously though you care if I listen to you.

Feel free to continue trolling and after you are done have fun beating off with your tears in the closet you emo fuck. Based on your comments elsewhere on slashdot its clear you get off on this shit.

Just don't blow that load on your keyboard while your boyfriend is banging you in the ass in his anime costume. ...FYI I posted once...far from a hall monitor. You on the other hand went like 8 posts deep and just had to comment. Seriously get a life fudge packer

Re:Slashdot is getting progressively dumber

[Anonymous Coward]

I must have hit a raw nerve with that girlfriend remark. Sorry man. Things will get better when you go to college- college girls love virgins! They like to teach. Just make sure you don't stay in your dorm policing slashdot all day and you'll be in for the four best years of your life ;)

Other coverage

[lseltzer]

Yeah, I saw a video about this recently: Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work

cell programming

[goombah99]

Multi-core and multi-cpu programming is the future. I include GPUs in this. And programming these using existing tools is sub optimal.

But it's a catch 22. Few people are going to get their fingers wet in GPU programming without bridge tools like CUDA and fortran wrappers that make it less painful to change over hardcore math libraries. Yet at the same time the resulting code is sub optimal. for example the zeroth order in tools in CUDA sweep the matrix multiply back from the GPU to the CPU memory-- which is not what you want if you are dooing two consecutive matrix multiples. But it gets you started. (I note that more advanced, less library bound, cuda programming get's around this, but only a fool would invest the time learn it before trying the simple way).

Cell programming is another knotch up in difficulty. So sub-optimal convestion approaches may not work well. You really need to program for the CELL. No one really is perfectly sure what the best way to exploit these things is.

I suspect SONY wants people to commit to figuring the CELL out rather than giving them tools to simply do ports. This is what he meant I think by "increasing quality".

I also suspect this means that games produced form the CELL wont back port easily since it will be so architecture specific. Which is also good for sony.

In the meantime if they sell half as many units as xbox 360, yet 100% of the game profits rather than say 10% of the came profits go to sony and committed exclusive cell programmers, SONY is coming out ahead.

Re:cell programming

[powerlord]

I also suspect that because the Cell is a new architecture with much longer "legs" they can design the PS4 as an incremental improvement over the PS3. Essentially a PS3 with a faster Cell and perhaps a full compliment of cores, more memory, throw in a possibly better graphics chip.

If they follow this strategy (which is very likely) then:

1) The PS4 would probably need a shorter development cycle since it would be an "evolutionary" hardware increase similar to spec-ing out a new PC, not a "revolutionary" increase like going from the PS2 to the PS3.

2) The PS4 would probably be able to have direct backward compatibility "built in" similar to the PS2 supporting PS1 hardware.

3) Any expertise a company gained with PS3 programming would be directly applicable to the PS4.

Nintendo's Wii2 should be fine from a hardware standpoint (bump the specs a bit more, maybe include low end HD graphics, but keep things "lite").
MS on the other hand have saddled themselves with a multi-core PowerPC architecture, that even Apple was moving aware from in their competition with MS. Which it may have worked for this generation of console, I wonder how expandable the design would be for the NEXT generation.

Re:cell programming

[Gorobei]

Yeah, multi-core is clearly the future, but the future is too expensive for a single game-dev shop. You have to provide tools to abstract away the DMA transfers, the SIMD stuff, the chunk-size tuning, etc. At a minimum, you wind up with a functional language type framework, perhaps with classic imperative code at the bottom layer. Ideally, you also want a general parallel algorithm framework with good application tuning tools.

Even then, only 20% of current game developers are going to be able to use it effectively.

Total cost to create? Probably around $100M/year for 5 years, starting when the cell concept was first given the green light. Sadly, it's a bit late now.

 

Re:cell programming

[MikeBabcock]

Some people obviously didn't read even the subtitle of the DDJ article: "It may be tricky, but the performance gains are worth the effort."

Yes, that's right, DDJ said its worth the effort.

The games being written directly to the PS3 are incredible in quality and performance. Games like Drake's Fortune, Ratchet & Clank, Killzone 2 and the Motorstorm games simply aren't being made for other platforms. These games are unparalleled on other systems, and just being ignored by fanboys who think console sales are everything.

Re:cell programming

[seebs]

I don't think they'll bother.

Cell was designed when multicore was large and expensive, and GPUs weren't very good.

Now, Cell's going to always have higher development costs than conventional multicore chips, and not much payoff for developers.

Look at the difference between consumer-oriented video games and supercomputing. Supercomputing clusters can cost enough money that their power bill alone vastly exceeds the cost of all the software development ever done for them. Spending a bunch extra on development can pay off hugely if it reduces runtime -- so a hard-to-target architecture pays off.

Now look at video games. Development costs are huge and out of control, and you don't get paid by the polygon anyway, so extra work on performance doesn't necessarily pay off. A console which pushes fewer polygons but is cheaper to develop for makes you more money.

Re:cell programming

[Weedlekin]

"MS on the other hand have saddled themselves with a multi-core PowerPC architecture, that even Apple was moving aware from in their competition with MS."

Apple moved away because IBM repeatedly failed to produce a low-power G5 suitable for laptop / notebook PCs. Being stuck with the ageing and increasingly anaemic-looking G4 line for portables was making Apple's offerings look worse in comparison with the competition every year, so Jobs eventually got fed up with being made to look like an idiot by repeatedly promising things that IBM said would be Available Real Soon(TM), and then failed to deliver.

NB: the Cell microprocessor is a member of the IBM POWER line, so Sony are just as saddled with the PowerPC architecture as MS (and indeed Nintendo).

Re:cell programming

[Toonol]

Or fans who don't particularly care about minuscule improvements in 3d graphics, which is the only thing all this power is put to use for.

Metal Gear Solid 4 could have been programmed for a PS2, if the graphics had been toned down, models simplified, etc. It would have been every bit as FUN, it just wouldn't have looked as good. In my eyes, since the FUN is more important than seeing character's skin pores, the PS3 offers no advantage.

The success of the Wii is a lesson I'm not sure game designers are learning from.

Re:cell programming

[ducomputergeek]

Actually, Apple's move away from PPC had more to with IBM demanding that Apple invest more in the R&D side of things and the fact that the PPC900 series just was not going to make its way into a notebook any time soon. And notebook computer sales were/are Apple's life blood. Intel on the other hand was designing efficient chips that were ideal for the notebook market.

I still like PPC better for certain things and I still run on PowerPC Macs for the most part. But recently I had to get an Intel MacMini for iPhone development. I imagine that a new MacBook is on the horizon in the next year as well. Which is a shame, because I still love this little 12.1" powerbook.

Re:cell programming

[Xest]

"MS on the other hand have saddled themselves with a multi-core PowerPC architecture, that even Apple was moving aware from in their competition with MS. Which it may have worked for this generation of console, I wonder how expandable the design would be for the NEXT generation."

It doesn't really matter. Operating systems and development tools are core to Microsoft's business, a massive portion of the company is devoted to creating software that works in different hardware architectures and development tools to go with it.

Microsoft is better placed than either Nintendo or Sony to switch to whatever platform they feel is best for their console, there is no reason they're stuck with what they used this time. Microsoft have been quite close to Toshiba through the whole HD-DVD thing and IBM built their last processor. IBM and Toshiba are also heavily invested in Cell, more so than even Sony I believe, so it's not unrealistic to think Microsoft may go Cell anyway and similarly leverage the points you mention that you believe are exclusive to Sony. Of course, there's also the point that the XBox 360's Xenon processor is based on elements of Cell anyway.

I'd say Microsoft's only real worry for their next generation console is their media format- do they swallow their pride and go Bluray or go for a custom format? DVD isn't going to cut it next time round.

Re:cell programming

[Doctor_Jest]

Excellent point. That's the key to Sony's plan. Yes, they are having marketing troubles (I don't know why, but they really have stumbled in terms of selling the PS3), but for the most part, the "first fruits" that XBox 360 is garnering now are not what Sony is looking for. Sony is looking for a machine that goes 10 years, not out of attrition, but because even after 10 years there are still games that look better than the last batch and people will begin to see the benefit over a shorter lifespan console like the 360. Someone at Microsoft said they'd keep the 360 kicking for "1 month after the PS3 is retired" or something like that, but I don't see that happening. The next machine's getting steam, but little is known if it'll be a "big break" from the 360 (like it was with the original XBox), or an evolutionary step. I like the PS3. I like my 360 (for different reasons, of course.) But for people to dismiss the PS3 as "not worth developing for because it's hard" is missing the point entirely. Yes it's expensive, but after 3 elites (RRoD), I can see the benefits of better engineered hardware, as my launch PS3 still works flawlessly. It's a well-built, well-engineered system. Microsoft can learn some things about how Sony makes hardware, since after only 2 generations in the game, they've had significant failure rates. (the laser problem on the PS2 was not nearly as widespread as the RRoD, so let's nip that in the bud right now. Sony's on their 3rd console, and I guess it's true, 3rd time's a charm.)

And I have to disagree with the "8 million unit lead" the 360 has. Based on its reliability problems, I don't think those are all unique new recipients of the console. I personally own two (after the arcade went to $199), and I know others who have had 3 or more, and based on failure rates alone, we're seeing some doubling up of units. Yes, 360 has a lead in most places, but it's not nearly as wide as you'd expect if you put a 1:1 ratio to sales/new users. That's not fanboy words, so put your pitchforks down... :) We've got more parity in this generation (if you dismiss the Wii fad, because quality games are sparse on that platform anyway) than the last... Even if the fanboys want to dismiss the PS3 as the Gamecube of this generation, they should be careful what they wish for, because the Gamecube of this generation became the Wii of the next. :)

Re:cell programming

[powerlord]

You are absolutely correct that MS, Sony and Nintendo are all using the PowerPC architecture in their consoles (hence the reason people say IBM was the one who really "won" this generation), but MS is using the PowerPC chip as each of its cores in its multi-core design. Increasing its power while keeping the same architecture would mean increasing the number of PowerPC cores, or increasing the core's efficiency (either through design or clock speed). I thought one of the reasons that Apple left

Nintendo is irrelevant to this discussion since I believe they could easily bump the current Wii's specs considering how "underpowered" most consider their design compared to the PS3 and 360.

Sony is using the PowerPC chip as the main core to handle scheduling of the Cell's SPUs (the PPE), but most of the heavy lifting for the PS3 is accomplished in threads for the SPUs. Upping the speed and number of the SPUs should translate into a bump in speed (or increasing the number of Cell chips used), all of which could be done without directly affecting the need to significantly change the PPE.

As it is existing PS3s only use six of the eight SPUs on a Cell due to initial poor yeilds with one SPU reserved for the OS, increased yields would probably put an extra SPU available to developers. IBM has also announced that it is going to be moving the Cell to a 45nm Fab and has announced quite a few roadmap improvements to the existing architecture without requiring a huge amount of design for a whole new platform.

Re:cell programming

[drinkypoo]

Nintendo's Wii2 should be fine from a hardware standpoint (bump the specs a bit more, maybe include low end HD graphics, but keep things "lite").

By the time Wii2 comes out, HD penetration will be sufficient that it's worth it to include 1080p. It's also going to be much cheaper than it is now. Nintendo would be insane to not go 1080p.

MS on the other hand have saddled themselves with a multi-core PowerPC architecture

Nope, they're not saddled with anything. If you optimize intelligently on today's super-fast processors, you've written the whole game in a higher-level language before trying to do any assembler optimization, so optimization is likely to be your biggest roadblock on the next Xbox. It's a solvable problem. The next Xbox will likely still be multicore, will likely be more capable than the current PPCs in pretty much every way, and will be irrelevant to those developers who didn't have to do hardcore optimization to get their game to run well on the Xbox 360 in the first place. That's the biggest benefit of using DirectX or any API as opposed to providing some super-specialized hardware that demands that you write code to run upon the bare metal to get anything like the full performance from the machine. Being able to make easy PC-console ports or vice versa is a secondary issue; most game developers do it very poorly anyway.

This all ignores the fact that the games won't likely be ported to the next console, anyway.

Which it may have worked for this generation of console, I wonder how expandable the design would be for the NEXT generation.

POWER isn't going away any time soon. Maybe they'll stick with PowerPC. It hardly matters because most of your design skills will transfer to whatever they make next, which will almost certainly be another system with a powerful GPU and multiple CPU cores - again, at least three of them. That keeps the system able to run your threads, so that you can use your game engine relatively easily on the new system - again, having to do relatively little but do profiling and then perform optimizations. At least, that's the idea... Microsoft's real challenge is to make their next console reliable.

Re:cell programming

[Rayonic]

Games like Drake's Fortune, Ratchet & Clank, Killzone 2 and the Motorstorm games simply aren't being made for other platforms. These games are unparalleled on other systems, and just being ignored by fanboys who think console sales are everything.

Er, those games aren't any more technically advanced than what's shown up on the Xbox 360. Sure they're nice and polished, but there's no one game that you can point to and say "that would be impossible to do on the Xbox 360!"

Compare this to the original Xbox (or Gamecube), which did have a distinct graphical advantage over the PS2, and it showed up in the games from day one.

If the PS3 hasn't pulled ahead graphically by now, then it's just not going to. There's no super hidden power inside. Just a weird CPU and a run-of-the-mill GPU.

Re:cell programming

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, not the "Wii2". I declare that it shall be named the "Whoopii". LOL!

Re:cell programming

[Ilgaz]

If Apple doesn't make a huge mistake, that Grand Central thing and the integration of OpenCL will validate your point.

It will be just like the iPhone status which drove us, Symbian users mad. You know, hundreds of apps could be shipped on Symbian for all these years, some Symbian hardware are ages ahead of iPhone but what happens? They ship for iPhone. Why? Ease of programming with good tools.

I bet 1-2 years later, MS will plug their own multithreading stuff to DirectX and xBox 360 will benefit or get upgrade. Funny is, it will be same processor family, nobody would blame IBM for it.

I suspect Sony trusts a mainframe giant to provide tools for a gaming platform. That is a huge mistake, they should somehow plug into Visual Studio and XCode and even more importantly, gcc toolchain.

Well, it won't be like PowerPC situation at least, Cell already proved itself in other things like HPC, high end servers and even televisions.

Re:cell programming

[LWATCDR]

Okay... What the heck does this mean? Sony doesn't make 100% of the profits from games on the PS3. And they sure are not coming out ahead. If anybody is coming out ahead is Nintendo. They make money on every console and they are producing most of the big hits for the Wii.
"n the meantime if they sell half as many units as xbox 360, yet 100% of the game profits rather than say 10% of the came profits go to sony and committed exclusive cell programmers, SONY is coming out ahead."

Re:cell programming

[LWATCDR]

The Cell has not been the game winner that Sony thought it would be. Unless the tools get much better it really may never be a great development system.
The PowerPC is a fine system and is used all over the place. Everywhere from cars to aircraft to IBMs midrange and mainframes.
Nintendo has a very easy update path. They can increase the GPU and if they really want to just add more ram, more CPU or even more cores, and produce a 1080p capable Wii. I would bet that there is a prototype sitting on a bench in Japan. If the Wii's sales start to sag Nintendo can probably produce the next Wii within six months.

Re:cell programming

[Rallion]

The way things have worked out, that lack of portability is a bit of a problem. They just don't have the market share to support it.

For most developers/publishers, the way to sell units of a 'hardcore' game is to make it for XBox and PC. (The Wii is a magical and weird thing; its success is special, I'm leaving it out here because frankly I don't understand it well enough.) That's the first place to go, that's where the install base is. Plus, it's cheaper -- no need to work with the difficult PS3 architecture. Maybe a port could be done afterwards, but it's not going to be a top priority.

So there's no REASON to figure out the Cell. Sure, Sony would LOVE it if people devoted themselves to it, but it would be an investment to figure it out, to gain access to a smaller market than they already have. That just doesn't make sense.

It seems like Sony was really banking on their brand being able to sell huge numbers of $600 systems. It's as if they thought they could match the PS2's sales performance, even though none of the conditions of its success were still present. If they had been right, programming for the PS3 would make more sense, but they weren't, and it doesn't.

Re:cell programming

[Anonymous Coward]

MS on the other hand have saddled themselves with a multi-core PowerPC architecture, that even Apple was moving aware from in their competition with MS. Which it may have worked for this generation of console, I wonder how expandable the design would be for the NEXT generation.

WTF are you on about? ALL the current generation consoles use IBM-designed CPUs based on PowerPC. Quoth the Wiki:

All three major seventh-generation game consoles contain PowerPC-based processors. Sony's PlayStation 3 console, released in November 2006, contains a Cell processor, including a 3.2 GHz PowerPC control processor and eight closely threaded DSP-like accelerator processors, seven active and one spare; Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, released in 2005, includes a 3.2 GHz custom IBM PowerPC chip with three symmetrical cores, each core SMP-capable at two threads, and Nintendo's Wii console, also released in November 2006, contains an extension of the PowerPC architecture found in their previous system, the GameCube.

Re:cell programming

[AbRASiON]

Actually there's an incredible CPU and a run of the mill GPU.

Who knows what will win in the long run, the 360 has an inferior CPU but better GPU and memory design.
The PS3 has an incredible CPU but a weaker GPU and totally dopey memory design (256/256 split, not shared)
The PS3 does have some monster bandwidth, guarunteed hard disk though.

I think you'll find 'those crazy japs!' will pull some interesting games on it, like the people who made SOTC and ICO.

(FWIW: I adore my PS3, I really do, best impulse surprise purchase I've made, thought it would suck until GoW3 and instead I ended up selling the 360)

Re:cell programming

[Teriblows]

no, its a pure marketing move trying to convince people that their machine is an immovable institution that is a good investment:P has nothing to do with reality. in 10 years your cellphone will make the ps3 look quaint, never mind your xbox 720 or pc. if you can't afford a new console every 5-10 years well... ur pretty screwed regardless.

Re:cell programming

[Ant P.]

The sarcasm went way over your head there.

Re:cell programming

[jabithew]

...fanboys who think console sales are everything.

Otherwise known as shareholders?

Re:cell programming

[iainl]

Games like Drake's Fortune, Ratchet & Clank, Killzone 2 and the Motorstorm games simply aren't being made for other platforms.

Tomb Raider: Underworld, Banjo Kazooie, Gears of War and MX vs. ATV are definitely like those games. You might not like them as much. In the case of Motorstorm, I don't like it as much. But there's really nothing unique about the game styles.

Re:cell programming

[Anonymous Coward]

Kojima said once that Metal Gear Solid IV would be impossible to do on a DVD-based platform due to the size of the game being too large. Granted, there is the possibility of a Lost Odyssey-like disc swapping scheme, but he really seemed to belive it was out of question.

Re:cell programming

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when Resident Evil 4 came out for GameCube and everyone kept saying how the graphics couldn't be done on any other system. And then it came out on ps2. And it looked pretty damn good.

Just because it isn't on another platform doesn't mean it can't be done on it. This isn't the days of Genesis and SNES comparing screenshots of Earthworm Jim seeing the obvious difference.

Re:cell programming

[donaldm]

I'd say Microsoft's only real worry for their next generation console is their media format- do they swallow their pride and go Bluray or go for a custom format? DVD isn't going to cut it next time round.

Microsoft have been saying for sometime that downloads are the way of the future however many people still like physical media and that is going to be a hard sell to wean people off CD. DVD and Blu-ray and purchase content via downloading. I personally don't think this is going to happen any time soon since even downloading a DVD via torrent can take many hours depending on your bandwidth.

Some people may have internet connections that can operate over 10Mbps and have unlimited uncapped bandwidth but the majority of people world wide don't have that or cannot afford it, so even though downloads may be the way of the future world wide we are no were near this goal. As games and media capacity gets larger downloading is becoming longer and less cost effective and that is not going to change any time soon.

Surprisingly Sony is doing quite well with people downloading content, however the media size of the downloads are relatively small as is the cost.

Re:cell programming

[Doctor_Jest]

I've heard that before... And most of the time it is marketing, but then again the PS2 is still around. So Sony's not simply chattering about long-term... they are in it for the long term. I don't see that from Microsoft. They give lip service to it sometimes as a response to Sony's announcements, but since the original XBox had such a short lifespan, no one's about to believe them at face value. It's still nebulous, so I could be pleasantly surprised about their stance, but I'm guessing I won't be. :)

And who cares if a cellphone in 10 years will look like your PC/PS3? Some people still play their Dreamcasts (myself included), so a 10 year old console that's well built is going to serve you well. Most people find out how stupid it is to be constantly keeping up with the proverbial Joneses, but those that haven't will most likely be the ones distracted by a long lifespan for the console. You're not necessarily screwed by not buying every new console that comes out, though on a console with a 5-year lifespan, you're really not as set for games as you might be on say, a PS2-length lifespan. I've got a backlog of PS2 games that I could be playing that would provide me with entertainment until I die... literally. And forget the current gen's games that I've not even rented yet. So lifespan is indeed important if you get right down to it. Sony knows that, Microsoft might know that (the jury's still out), and with the "ooh and ahh" factor becoming less and less dramatic as successive consoles go, the behemoths need to figure out how to squeeze every last drop out of their existing base. Games are what make them money, as we all know.

Re:cell programming

[Reservoir Penguin]

In theory. But in reality I seriously doubt Sony and PS3 owners will ever see a lot of CELL optimized games they are hoping to. In general a company making a console game would want it to work on both leading consoles, but since XBOX360 is already in the dominant position and has good development tools it makes sense for them to optimize the game for XBOX first and port it to the PS3 later. It would not be rational to invest time into optimizing for the CELL only to end up with code that runs poorly on the XBOX, or god forbid have two development paths. So PS3 will end up with inferior code and slower/poorer graphics which given the relative lack of games for the PS3 would not affect the game sales much.

Re:cell programming

[donaldm]

You are right about the fun factor but what looks good on a small SDTV can look awful or at best mediocre on a larger HDTV's thereby reducing the so called fun factor. A combination of detailed graphics and fun can make a game exceptional, SD graphics and a fun make an a good game however a non fun game and high or low resolution graphics still makes a game that sucks.

As for "minuscule improvements in 3d graphics" I assume you are talking about comparing SD to HD. If you live in the USA your SD display (NTSC) is 720Ã--480 compared to PAL 720Ã--576. Now compare this to HD 1280Ã--720 and 1920Ã--1080 which are significantly better than what SD resolution offers and if you cannot see the difference I suggest a good Optometrist :-)

The success of the Wii is has only benefited Nintendo and a few third party players with many games being shovel ware or PS2 ports. Most third party gaming houses are still programming for the Xbox360 and the PS3 and will continue to do so since that market is where they can make money. Personally I have yet to see many games on the Wii that make me want to buy the machine which is rather strange of me to say since I have had every single Nintendo machine from the NES.

Re:cell programming

[pegasustonans]

Er, those games aren't any more technically advanced than what's shown up on the Xbox 360.

Yeah, actually, Killzone 2 is more advanced. I'm not saying the 360 won't be able to match it, but Killzone 2 is on top at the moment.

Re:cell programming

[thalassinos]

I'd say Microsoft's only real worry for their next generation console is their media format- do they swallow their pride and go Bluray or go for a custom format? DVD isn't going to cut it next time round.

I do not see a problem with MS moving to BluRay. On the contrary, it will be good for them.

I have some friends who bought a PS3 and never bought a single game for it; they use the PS3 strictly as a movie player in their Home Theatre setup.

Like them, many people chose PS3 over the Xbox 360 because they get a BluRay player alongside a game console; if both consoles offered BluRay, Sony will loose this competitive advantage.

Re:cell programming

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really.

Sony can license themselves the BluRay tech for a lot cheaper than MS can buy it. This would force MS to have a more expensive console even with subsidies. It would also force MS to pay Sony for every Xbox that was sold, which is something that MS is never likely to do since they perceive Sony as a competitor.

If only the prices on 32 GB SDHC cards could come way way down then they could be a viable media. Come full circle from optical back to memory ala the Turbo Grafix 16.

Re:cell programming

[drewm1980]

The CUDA cuBLAS library the above poster refers to DOES allow CPU to GPU data transfer independently from the computation, allowing data re-use. The behavior the poster described is a compatibility layer for programmers who either don't know what they're doing, or don't need it done fast. CUDA's architecture has its shortcomings (NO on-chip facility for synchronization of data across cores, forcing you to go all the way to global memory), but that is not one of them.

Re:cell programming

[CronoCloud]

That is a huge mistake, they should somehow plug into Visual Studio and XCode and even more importantly, gcc toolchain.

[CronoCloud@mideel ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu : Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported
clock : 3192.000000MHz
revision : 5.1 (pvr 0070 0501)
 
processor : 1
cpu : Cell Broadband Engine, altivec supported
clock : 3192.000000MHz
revision : 5.1 (pvr 0070 0501)
 
timebase : 79800000
platform : PS3
model : SonyPS3
 
[CronoCloud@mideel ~]$ gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 4.1.2 20071124 (Red Hat 4.1.2-42)
Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

From what I've read the professional PS3 dev boxes, the equivalents to the old PS2 TOOL machines, are also Linux based. Sony themselves maintain GCC and the toolchain, IBM maintains the kernel.

Re:cell programming

[Nick Ives]

Of course, there's also the point that the XBox 360's Xenon processor is based on elements of Cell anyway.

Specifically, the Power Processing Elements of Cell. They took the easy bit of the Cell that everyone already knew how to use, used three of them and left Sony trying to convince everyone that the SPUs were a good idea.

MS is clearly going to have Blu-ray in next Xbox, they may even release a BD drive for the 360 to cement its place as a media-centre. They only took a half-hearted punt in the HD-DVD/BD format war and that's lack of confidence is the only thing that's saved Sony this generation. If 360 had used HD-DVD as its media then PS3 would've been DOA and I say that as a games-as-art wanker who loves stuff like Noby Noby Boy / Flower / Eternal Silence.

Re:cell programming

[MikeBabcock]

No, shareholders care about overall revenues and future prospects. Sony doesn't just sell consoles, like everyone else, they sell licenses for games as well. More importantly, they didn't burn their bridges and kept selling the PS2 at a massive profit and are doing fairly well with the PSP as a platform too.

Nice FUD though.

Re:cell programming

[MikeBabcock]

You haven't actually played any of those games, have you?

You didn't notice that those games render internally at a full 720p or 1080i and that the "comparable" 360 games are upscaled from 640p or lower.

Does upscaling matter? Yes. If you can't actually pull off those nice graphics at full resolution, you're not comparing apples to apples. Every game I mentioned runs at least a full 720p (although Ratchet and Clank has 8px of black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, often clipped by CRTs) and some at 1080i.

Yes, all you fanboys, the PS3 is really actually enabling the HD gaming experience it promised, and I'm enjoying it thoroughly.

Re:cell programming

[MikeBabcock]

Remember that most Xbox 360 gamers see the resolution upgrade as minuscule because their games aren't really rendering in HD.

An upscaled 540p or 640p game isn't that much higher of a resolution than an upscaled 480p game would be in the last generation.

But could the physics and AI interactions in MGS4 with battlefields of that size with that number of enemies have been done just as well last generation? Of course not.

Incidentally, MGS4 doesn't render at a typical HD resolution internally either because its creator didn't see the advantage of HD graphics. The audio on the other hand is simply incredible and requires a lot of storage space.

Re:cell programming

[MikeBabcock]

Nobody was comparing game styles, but the capabilities of the system in terms of raw power.

And aside from Gears, I have to say those games are all terrible examples of what the 360 can do, even as a huge Rare fan.

IMHO, each of the games on the PS3 I mentioned wipes the walls with the games you mentioned in terms of graphics, performance (fps/resolution) and sheer graphical and audio beauty.

Re:cell programming

[MikeBabcock]

Sony sells PS1 games on the PSN Store, XBLA has some simply ancient games for sale that would've worked on my old 386, and there's a similar set of retro games on the Wii.

People aren't against playing "old" looking or styled games, if they're good, so how "quaint" the PS3 will look isn't nearly as important as how much longevity it had as an investment. Personally, I hope they make a version of the PS3 that fits into a stereo cabinet so I can sell them to people who need a BD and network media player and don't want a "game console" at all.

I know this is hard to understand for 16-22 year olds with huge spending budgets compared to their debt load and monthly bills, but buying a $600 machine that works forever is a better investment than buying a dozen little $200 ones.

Re:cell programming

[iainl]

Well, two of the games I mentioned were multiplatform, so it's hardly surprising they're not showcases for how many polygons you can throw around.

But Motorstorm isn't even as good looking as PGR3, let alone virtually any recent racing game on either platform. Killzone 2 makes me want to beat the programmers around the head with CliffyB's arm, shortly after I've ripped it off him, both it and Gears 2 are so utterly soulless in their stereotypical post-apocalyptic shades of grey and brown (see also: Resistance). Drake's Fortune just doesn't grab me at all for some reason.

But Ratchet & Clank is quite pretty, yes.

Personally, I care far more about style than poly count or texture size. But for the latter, I'm more impressed with Oblivion and Burnout Paradise (on either platform) than most of the stuff you've mentioned.

Sony still haven't learned

[iregisteredjustforth]

I work for a game developer that makes multi-platform games and our programmers hate coding for the PS3. It always makes me chuckle seeing fanboys shouting console x can do this and console y can't do that - the irony being most multi platform games are essentially clones of each other, so being unable to do something on one console means the other doesn't get it even if it could.

This is another great example of Sony thinking they are better than anyone else because they dominated the last 2 generations of consoles. In reality the PS3 is very similar to the 360 and developers essentialy see them as two sides of the same coin. Nice to see they also haven't learned the lesson of don't let you're ceo's / public figures behave like egotistical dicks yet.

The highlight

[Snowspinner]

The highlight of the article is really where he says that being difficult to program for just means that the system offers more opportunities.

I mean, if that was their goal, they should have required coding in INTERCAL.

Re:The highlight

[Anonymous Coward]

NOW thats funny

How do I program?

[aacool]

Basic question - how do I learn how to program for the PS3?

Re:How do I program?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sacrifice your first born to the Sony CEO.

Re:How do I program?

[Blakey Rat]

You prove to Sony you have enough resources to successfully complete and release at least one PS3 game, which is nearly impossible if it's your first game since they usually require a history of at least 2-3 releases. You also need enough capital to pay for the extremely expensive dev kits.

To start working on your Xbox 360 game, you need a Xbox 360, a PC, and $100. (And the $100 is optional.)

Re:How do I program?

[derrickh]

I'm not just the owner, I'm a client!
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550178/

D

Re:How do I program?

[Blakey Rat]

Congratulations! In the spirit of the thread, want to share your costs associated with the game? (I'm guessing less than $500 if you don't include the PC and Xbox.)

Re:Holy cow. to think i would ever say this in rea

[ColdWetDog]

this is the STUPIDEST thing i have EVER heard in my life

wut? Did you miss the last 8 years of the GWB administration?

Where you been?

8 million

[Rik Sweeney]

and the fact that the PS3 is already 8 million units behind the Xbox 360

Umm, the 360 had nearly a year's head start.

Re:8 million

[Kneo24]

So? The Wii came out at around the same time as the PS3. Time frame isn't necessarily important if you can market your product right.

Re:8 million

[SuiteSisterMary]

The PS2 came out after the (superior in every way, IMHO) DreamCast.

Re:8 million

[drsquare]

The Dreamcast wasn't superior in the 'playing DVDs' department.

Some facts.

[FatherOfONe]

1. The Xbox 360 was release a year before the PS3 and with that year head start it gained around 7 million users. If you trust Microsoft they sold 10 million the first year! So given that it was around 7 million units sold. The 360 and the PS3 have been selling around the same amount from launch.
2. The Wii is also hard to develop for yet it is selling at around a 2 to 3 times clip of the 360 and PS3.
3. The guy's point was that they could make a system that is easier to develop for at the cost of longevity. In short he is saying to get a 10 year lifespan Sony had to go with something like the Cell and it's 8 SPE's. It is harder to develop for than one core but the payoff over time is worth it. Developers (myself included) are being pushed now to a different style of development and the days of more GHZ every year or so are over. The days of more cores/SPE's are here to stay.

Now my opinion. Sony included a HD, BluRay and Blue Tooth in every console. This was expensive, and a high risk; specifically including BluRay. Will it pay off? Who knows, and given the depression that the U.S. is probably going to hit (given the latest budget bill), disposable income will be very tight. However, BluRay is now the defacto standard for HD movies because of the PS3. What media will the next Xbox use? What about the next Nintendo? Will it be download only? Try telling gamestop, Wallmart, and the other retailers that they won't be selling games at their stores any more... Let the nuclear war begin. Did anyone see what happened when Sony released Warhawk online and in the store?

Sony decided to go with Nvidia and include 256MB of video memory and 256MB of System RAM. In my belief this was the mistake. Then again I realize that they couldn't make a $1,000 console. If it was me I probably would have scrapped BluRay and added more RAM. I would have then kept the cost around the same, released the same time as the 360. I would have also made a version of Linux the default OS for the system.

Now all three consoles have some great games (my opinion again). Nintendo owns the kids and casuals, but their 3rd party support can't seem to crack large sales numbers. The 360 has a good user base even with the greater than 30% hardware failure rate of the system. The $200 price tag is helping the system a ton. Yet that is the problem for the future in that the $200 system is lacking a HD and thus developers can't rely on it. Sony also has a nice install base but has one HUGE problem. Price. At $400-$500 it is priced out of the market of normal people. "If" Sony gets the price down to $300 soon then they should be fine. By fine I mean they will compete nicely with the other consoles this year.

Lastly, It is apparent to me that Microsoft is a software company (30% failure rate!), Sony is a hardware company (development kits are not that good), but the hardware is the best, and Nintendo is a game company.

Re:Some facts.

[drinkypoo]

2. The Wii is also hard to develop for yet it is selling at around a 2 to 3 times clip of the 360 and PS3.

What? From what I've read, the Wii is generally considered to be easier than the PS3, yet harder than the Xbox, simply because Visual Studio is actually pretty damned good. (Just stay away from SourceSafe.) Taking advantage of the Wiimote intelligently might be hard... But they have motion-sensing capabilities on other consoles, too. Are they easier to use intelligently, somehow?

Re:Some facts.

[Dahamma]

1. The Xbox 360 was release a year before the PS3 and with that year head start it gained around 7 million users. If you trust Microsoft they sold 10 million the first year! So given that it was around 7 million units sold. The 360 and the PS3 have been selling around the same amount from launch.

Yes, and WHY was the PS3 released a year after the Xbox 360? Because it was so hard to develop for (and develop in general). Why is the Sony online service so far behind Xbox Live? (I think Home is/was 2 years behind what they originally thought!) Because it was so much harder to develop than they expected. Yeah Sony, wouldn't want to make it easy to create a usable online service too early in the product's lifecycle, you might risk making billions of dollars a year like MS has with Live...

2. The Wii is also hard to develop for yet it is selling at around a 2 to 3 times clip of the 360 and PS3.

Again, why is this? Because it's cheaper than the others. Nintendo did the opposite of Sony and kept the hardware simple - and it paid off for them with a huge sales lead.

3. The guy's point was that they could make a system that is easier to develop for at the cost of longevity. In short he is saying to get a 10 year lifespan Sony had to go with something like the Cell and it's 8 SPE's. It is harder to develop for than one core but the payoff over time is worth it.

Seems like your previous two points pretty much show that this third one is just a way of making excuses for why Sony is in 3rd place.

And where the hell does this "10 year lifespan" come from? People (Sony execs included) have already been spreading rumors about a PS4, and that it could be out as early as 2010... given the PS3 launched in Nov 2006, that's more like 4-5 years. Sure, it will still have some life for a few years after that, but a steadily declining life consisting mostly of mediocre ports of titles that look much better on the new platform...

Re:Some facts.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii is not hard to develop at all. Its the developers trying to shoehorn the Wiimote motion controls that result in crappy/slowly released games on the system. Hey I'll admit it, I like light-gun games on the Wii but they WORK. (Ghost Squad on the Wii can be "beaten" in a single day but its a blast with 4 players. And is anyone willing to sell their copy of Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles?)

Re:Some facts.

[Anonymous Coward]

And where the hell does this "10 year lifespan" come from? People (Sony execs included) have already been spreading rumors about a PS4, and that it could be out as early as 2010... given the PS3 launched in Nov 2006, that's more like 4-5 years. Sure, it will still have some life for a few years after that, but a steadily declining life consisting mostly of mediocre ports of titles that look much better on the new platform...

Perhaps you should be looking at the Playstation history. Their consoles are supported for 10 years, not necessarily their only console. They only pulled the plug on the PS1 back in '06. They're not going to pull the plug on the PS2 for another year or two, it's selling too well.

Why have only 1 segment of the market when you can have two?

Re:Some facts.

[gbarules2999]

A Wii is basically two Gamecube's duct-taped together, as far as I understand it, so the knowledge and expertize is already there. If it's overly difficult, that hasn't stopped too many games, either, unlike PS3.

Re:Some facts.

[LingNoi]

So what? I'm here to make games not dick about on the PS3. If it costs more and is harder to program for then that's unattractive to me, the developer.

Re:Some facts.

[FatherOfONe]

You seem to believe that the PS3 is difficult to develop for so nobody will ever do it. My point is that every developer will be forced to develop for these type of systems from now on and in the future. When threading came out it sucked to do but you have to do it to get things done. Also when 3d came out it sucked, but to do it you had to learn. This is nothing new, and Sony is planing on supporting the console for 10 years. More on that in the next part though...

You seem to mistake supporting a console for 10 years and having multiple consoles in the market place at the same time. Every single Sony console has had a lifespan of 10 years so far. The PS3 will be no different. Yes Sony will be talking about a PS4, and they would be stupid not to, but the PS3 will still be selling in 2011. Given the recent move to a socialist government, we may not see another console from any mfg for a long long time. It isn't unreasonable to expect Sony to keep the PS3 alive much like the PS2 now and the PS1 before it.

Nintendo... Yes they kept it simple and they flat out get games, however did anyone forget the great success of the Gamecube? Nintendo did a great job with the Wii, and I am a huge fan but the reality is that the Wii is a Gamecube 1.5 with a motion controller on it. It does well but every year that goes by HD TV's become more and more the norm and you start to hear more "It looks good for a Wii game" which really means "It looks like ass compared to Killzone2". That and Nintendo appears to hate 3rd party developers by not telling them when they are going to release massive titles. You don't see a ton of million seller 3rd party titles for the Wii that are not rated E or E10 and more specifically don't have "Wii" in the title. For a console that has 40+ million that is a bit scary but the norm for Nintendo and at this point who can argue with them?

You seem to think I make excuses for Sony being in third place. I tried to state the facts, and offered my opinion on what I would have done. The real test will be to see how the next few years go and if Sony gets the pricing under control. There are two factors that are making sales of the PS3 the same as the 360 now. The first is cost and the second is family games. To be honest without getting cost down it doesn't matter how many family games they have, so cost is the first and highest priority. Again a $300 PS3 would do wonders this year.

So Sony currently has over 20 million consoles out.
Microsoft has 28 million out.
Nintendo has over 45 million out.

Now the other numbers.
Nintendo DS and soon DSI dominate most sales every month. Nintendo is killing with this device. I am not sure but I believe there are over 80 million DS's.
Sony has the PS2 still selling well at around $100. There are around 100 million PS2s out there.
Sony has the PSP selling very well at over 50 million of them out there.

There are rumors of a PS4 with some Intel chip in it and probably an Nvidia graphics engine, but they are rumors. My prediction is that much like Nintendo the PS4 will basically be two PS3's duck taped together. Thus backward compatibility will be there and cost should be under control.

However, if there is truth in that EVERYONE hates the CELL and the current architecture of the PS3 then you will be proven correct if the PS4 is radically different. Time will tell.

Re:Some facts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just on the PS3 GPU. From what I heard and these may just be rumours, but are from good sources, is that the original design had the CELL doing everything, including what a GPU would do.

However along the development path they [Sony] realised it wasn't going to work, so Nvidia had a just a year to make a GPU for the PS3 (thus why it is less powerful than the ATI offering in the Xbox 360).

Plus why would you want your product to only get the best out of it in 5-10 years, when then consoles cycle to new versions every 4-6 years? Crazy.
Additionally they had to get it into an already existing design and as a result the GPU only got half the address width, thus only access half of the RAM on the machine, where as the CPU can access it all.

Re:Some facts.

[torkus]

First, the 360 has consistently out-sold the PS3. Not sure where you're getting your numbers from but I suggest you look it up.

MS also has much more success with their online content than the PS3.

I'm fairly sure you're wrong about Wii development - several programmers in this topic have said it was fairly easy to program or.

Do i smell some concealed fanboyism? For the record I own a PS3, not a 360 ... so a MS fanboy i'm not. However I question your logic on much of your post. The BR drive is probably the underlying reason for a conservative 25% of the PS3 sales. After all, Sony dumped TONS of money into promoting BR and signing sales agreements - and then priced the PS3 the same as every BR player on the market. That made the purchase a no-brainer and STILL the 360 out-sells the PS3.

As for calling BR the defacto standard for HD movies...it's the ONLY standard for HD movies on physical media yet DVDs *greatly* outsell BR. Online streaming exceeds BR. Pirates often don't even bother with BR anymore, a well endcoded 700MB DIVX file is by *far* the most common file format. Even movies are making the same point - the content is more important than the quality.

A PS3 for $300 isn't going to make a difference though. Not when there are already tons of sales/promos and discounts for it. Heck, sign up for a sony CC and you can knock 100 bucks off the price straight out. I've seen them discounted under $200 before. MS is starting to pick up exclusive games that used to be strictly Playstation (square enix - final fantasy) for years and years. If not for Blue-ray Sony would be in huge trouble with the PS3 right now given the economy. Heck, they are anyhow.

Re:Some facts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is a software company (30% failure rate!), Sony is a hardware company (development kits are not that good), but the hardware is the best, and Nintendo is a game company.

Very well said.

Re:Some facts.

[brkello]

No, the Wii is easy to develop for since it is essentially programming for a Gamecube which people already know how to program really well for. So hard to take anything else you say seriously since your title is "Some facts" and you already fail on point #2.

Re:Some facts.

[Carnildo]

The guy's point was that they could make a system that is easier to develop for at the cost of longevity. In short he is saying to get a 10 year lifespan Sony had to go with something like the Cell and it's 8 SPE's. It is harder to develop for than one core but the payoff over time is worth it. Developers (myself included) are being pushed now to a different style of development and the days of more GHZ every year or so are over. The days of more cores/SPE's are here to stay.

You're missing a key point here: the Xbox 360 is a traditional symmetric multiprocessing system. The techniques for programming on this sort of hardware have about half a century of development behind them, which someone targeting the 360 can leverage. In contrast, the PS3's Cell+SPEs is an asymmetric multiprocessing system. There's no institutional knowlege on how best to use it, so programmers need to figure it out as they go along.

Remember, folks...

[macraig]

... this is precisely the same (Sony) mindset that gave breech birth to Sony's rootkit DRM and Sony's pointlessly proprietary Memory Stick format, etc, etc, etc.

This is a company so irretrievably mired in proprietary thinking that it will be a miracle if it survives the coming revolution. Sony will likely wither and die rather than adapt to the emerging open source "standard". To steal a word from the Obama Revolution:

Open Source == transparency

I don't think the forces of greed can stop the revolution this time. Either ya get on board this love train or get left behind! Are ya listening, Sony?

Re:Remember, folks...

[Dahamma]

A friend of mine summarized Sony's need to come up with said pointlessly proprietary formats pretty well:

"Some motherfuckers always trying to ice skate uphill..."

Re:Remember, folks...

[Kenshin]

Sony will likely wither and die rather than adapt to the emerging open source "standard".

All video game consoles are closed source. Not just Sony.

I don't think the forces of greed can stop the revolution this time. Either ya get on board this love train or get left behind!

Right as soon as you produce a quality open-source game console (console, as in living room, not PC), make it a STANDARD (not 50 different controllers and configurations), and have enough marketing power to get kids and (non-basement) developers interested.

Re:Remember, folks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Those aren't relevant examples, as each division of Sony operates mostly independently. The PS3 is the most standards capable console on the market.

The PS3 supports atrac and mp3, mp4, avi/divx, most image formats, standard FAT filesystem, uses a standard laptop hard drive, uses standard USB ports for drive and controller connections, supports running linux, some versions have memory stick slots, but also include SD and CF slots too. The controllers are standard Bluetooth connections.

Nothing on the 360 is more than marginally better, and they're much worse about format lock in.

Re:Remember, folks...

[CronoCloud]

Sony will likely wither and die rather than adapt to the emerging open source "standard".

That's funny, since every PS3 (and PSP) has a notice in the About PS3 section of the XMB mentioning Eric S. Raymond and libungif. They've more than adapted, Sony themselves use open source software. PS2 dev boxes use Linux, and so do the PS3 ones. Every PS3 is fully capable of running Linux as a supported feature. Sony tells you how to do it. Sony has been quoted in an interview stating, "It was fully intended that you, a PS3 owner, could play games, watch movies, view photos, listen to music, and run a full-featured Linux operating system that transforms your PS3 into a home computer." Sony is far far friendlier to the open source movement that Microsoft or Nintendo are.

Re:Remember, folks...

[macraig]

Sony isn't actually participating in the open source lifestyle, they're merely dancing around the margins so they can profit from it... like companies that like to crow about how they're "going green". It's just marketing. Sony itself is about as open source as a magician's bag of tricks. I refer you back to the original quoted comment in TFA....

One word:

[Steauengeglase]

Exclusives.

You thought the PS3 was hard? Try a mobile

[Anonymous Coward]

Try programming for the iPhone or Android, and you'll see how quickly things become hard to program.

See in C, you just do stuff, but OBJC you have to do stuff and tell sub processes to do stuff. And your app dies the second the user gets a phone call, etc.

In Java (which is the android) you have... um xml and Java, and... what the hell is it doing??? Good god most of the SDK has no documentation. I was happy to run back to the iPhone.

I would have been much happier to program either of these devices in straight C, but because both of the devices have to run threaded and behave well with other applications, nope, can't monopolize the resources. :p

Re:You thought the PS3 was hard? Try a mobile

[xwin]

This is precisely why PS3 is struggling. Developers cant write good code anymore for multitude of reasons. Some can't because they have no time, some because they plain stupid, some because they learned to program on Windows or Linux where you have almost unlimited memory. PS3 is typical embedded system with lots of constraints and funky hardware that needs special care. From DDJ article and it appears that PS3 will never be successful. To get efficient execution one has to turn 70 line program in to 1200 line one, increasing number of bugs and code size in the process. As a result you get 30% efficiency out of the chip?! You have to hand optimize for simd and dual issue because compiler will not. All while trying to compete with other consoles and trying to put out new game for Christmas. It may be fine in a research settings, where all you want is to optimize one algorithm, but it will not work for a game company. So as a result they only try to make game on PS3 to look as good as xbox game does. There is no incentives to make it any better. PS3 may be the most powerful game console but its power will always be underutilized.

platform longevity?

[ConfusedVorlon]

perhaps I'm misreading this - but it seems to me he is saying something about how the 'hardness' will mean developers take a while to figure out how to use the platform - and therefore, games will get better over time on the same platform.

e.g. if developers could use all the power easily now, then they would release 100qual (arbitary units of quality) games now, and would still be releasing 100qual games in 10 years.

With the 'hardness' of the platform, we get 50qual games now, 55qual next year and so on, so the platform doesn't start to look dated until 10 years from now.

still sounds crazy to me - but an interesting (post?)justification

Maybe he was drunk

[Alcoholist]

It makes responding to all those nitwit questions from reporters so much more fun.

this policy could have made sense

[Sir_Sri]

Basic ides: If the PS3 is sufficently unique it won't be worth the effort to port it to other consoles. A future looking architecture is a many core system, and we can continue, with the PS4 to use a better version of said new architecture.

Bad assumption: All of the PS2 devs who were exclusive would stay that way.

Bad business: Not paying for exclusives. If sony had opened up the wallet and left the 360 with Halo as it's only real platform exclusive the PS3 would be doing much better. Losing FF13 and GTA (as exclusives) was a really bad move on their part, there are other titles too.

Bad technology: The PS3 is marginally more powerful than the 360, but in the wrong area. nVIDIA is mostly right on this, any half decent CPU is fast enough for whatever you want to do. The Cell is an expensive CPU design, which even fully utilized doesn't add a whole lot to the gameplay experience. The conole also launched a year after the 360, it should have been significantly more powerful. Sony would have made their lives much easier if they had put 2GiB of memory in the system and a variant on the 8800 rather than 7800, then a game written for the PS3 would in some respects be clearly better than its 360 counterpart. Developers would be able to easily exploit some of that power (notably RAM), and customers would see a real tangible benefit.

Other bad technical: The hard drive used is a notebook drive. This adds no functionality, but increases cost. One can argue blu-ray until you're blu in the face, it at least adds functionality, and IMO is a big contributor to why blu ray won the format war. But the hard drive...just wtf? Stripping BC from later consoles was really bad too. I just got Killzone2, in anticipation I went and played through Killzone 1 again, to get a feel for the world again. Try doing that on a new PS3

Where to go in future: Sony needs to launch a PS4 the moment dx11 is finalized, and hope MS isn't doing the same. A PS4 with 28 cell processor, 4 GiB of ram and a directx11 compatible video card. It would be fully BC with the current PS3, relatively easy to develop for when going from the PS3 development, and be so clearly better than the Xbox360. MS has a problem, their architecture died and became the Cell. They could go back to intel/AMD (like the xbox) but that pretty much tosses BC. They have the clear advantage in dev tools and being behind a lot of DX11. But then is the Xbox3 going to be "Now with the cell and blu ray"? That's not going to make for good marketting. If they go the "Now with an intel CPU" route they're back to competing with themselves on the PC. MS also has a harder time justifying a new console, they're sort of winning, but not making much money. Making another huge investment in console R&D in that position would be unpopular. Sony is losing, they want to stop losing, that justifies more money.

Re:this policy could have made sense

[Rayonic]

MS has a problem, their architecture died and became the Cell.

The PowerPC architecture is dead? Has Netcraft confirmed this?

He's a CEO...

[billybob_jcv]

...and you expect him to answer a question about a development environment? Riiiiiight...

Sony couldn't have got it more wrong

[Zooperman]

An asinine observation like this shows just how out of touch Sony really are. The initial arguments over which console hardware was "better" came down to the same thing it always has: seeing is believing. And Sony's claims of having superior hardware to the XBox360 rang hollow when the actual games look and play only "as good" as their 360 counterparts (or actually WORSE in many cases). Honestly, which game do you think showcases its console's strengths? Resistance, or Gears Of War?

Sony has some serious damage control to do here, and they had better wake up and smell the ashes. They have given up nearly all the game exclusivity deals that normally would have driven a nail into the coffin of any competitor (even Microsoft). Final Fantasy XIII is coming to both platforms. They lost Tekken. Even the bread and butter of the PS2 days, Grand Theft Auto, is superior on the 360 for many reasons. Overall the evolution of game development for PS3 has not come along like they expected and still lags behind its older, cheaper rival.

Sony had better lose the corporate arrogance and start helping their developers, cut their prices and start landing some console exclusives, or they're going to lose the whole show. The only thing that has kept them in the game has been the phenomenal success of the Wii (not considered by me to be a "next generation" platform), along with the XBox "red-ring-of-death" disaster that has created the perception among buyers that the console is unreliable. Otherwise this war would be over.

debugging

[igomaniac]

There is no doubt that multi-core, multi-cpu programming is the future, but at the moment the tools are bascially crap. At least with CUDA there's a programming paradigm that's actually usable, but there is still no way to debug your program. Well, you can run in emulation mode, but your code will run so slow it never gets to the point where the bug occurs -- and anyway if you have a non-trivial bug it won't behave the same. And CUDA has the _best_ of these next generation toolchains. Until you have real debugging and profiling capabilities, even the best programmers won't be able to reach the level of productivity they can on more mature platforms...

It was hard to design ...

[Ihlosi]

... so it should be hard to program. Ha ha ha.

Re:It was hard to design ...

[Blakey Rat]

Hehe. Futurama, in the episode with Fry's 4-minute-long TV drama:

"It took an hour for me to write! I thought it'd take an hour to read!"

Is the PS3 hard to programme

[DrXym]

I've read quite a few articles on SPU programming and even messed around a bit in YDL. It doesn't strike me as especially hard at all. In fact, anyone who is clued into multi-threaded programming, or into shader programming shouldn't have any trouble whatsoever figuring it out. I would hope that most games developers these days would be competent enough to work it through. The PS3 SDK toolchain is also GNU based so it might be "hard" if you lived your life in DevStudio, but in itself its not hard. It seems to me as bizarre to claim its hard as claiming Linux is hard because it uses different APIs and tools from MS Windows.

The key to proper multi-platform development is proper abstraction. e.g. QT supports multiple platforms with minimal differences, and something like 95% of Firefox code is common to all platforms. Hard coding to one particular platform is just asking for trouble.

But it's still a weird comment from Sony. Maybe the guy is talking about their general behaviour of setting very stringent system requirements at launch and then loosening them up over time. For example when the PS3 first landed the OS reserved itself something highly conservative such as 90Mb of runtime memory. But with each subsequent release they freed up more and more space so games have more and more to play with. Likewise the PSP locked down the higher clock speeds but unlocked them later.

Re:Is the PS3 hard to programme

[Anonymous Coward]

Messing around a bit and developing a AAA multimillion dollar game are two completely different things, and I don't really get why the fuck you're talking about QT.

Please take your head out your ass and realise that it's pretty difficult to launch a title. Making it difficult to program on a certain console just makes me want to avoid it like the plague. I'm here to write games and make money, not to fuck around on some black box.

Re:Is the PS3 hard to programme

[DrXym]

I conclude from your ignorant comments that have zero experience of cross-platform development. For if you did you would instantly recognize why I cited QT.

As you are a bit slow on the uptake, I will elaborate. QT is an abstraction layer for developing GUI applications. If you program a GUI to QT's APIs then porting from Windows to Linux to OS X in any combination is relatively trivial. Even though each platform has vastly different native APIs. Even if the app uses custom widgets (say for some complex rendering), porting is confined to just that specific code not the general mass of the application. Abstraction means the details of each platform are largely hidden. Mozilla uses abstraction to share the vast majority of its code across platforms.

Likewise with game programming. It is no different from any other kind of programming. It goes through requirements, technical specifications, development, QA testing, bug fixing and release. Abstraction is as critical to proper cross-platform game development as it is to other ventures. Furthermore, any game company with any sense will license or develop reusable middleware APIs that keep the hardware as hidden as possible for subsequent titles. The more platform neutral code and the more reusable components with suitable abstraction that is used, the cheaper, easier to develop and the higher quality of the end product.

And yes messing around is quite sufficient for me to conclude that SPU programming is straightforward. It's a cross-between multi-threading, shader programming and a bit of high level assembly thrown in. All of which any competent game programmer should already have plenty of experience. The hardest part of SPU programming is nothing to do with the hardware, but in ensuring the game is designed up front to take advantage of them. That means ensuring animation, shading, physics, collision detection, decompression, sound mixing etc. are sufficiently abstract that the general body of code doesn't care one way or another if the underlying implementation is running on a PS3 or a 360, and then setting about writing optimized versions of these systems for each platform. And then reusing them for the next game.

In summary, grow the hell up.

This was obvious way before this comment

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't take long using the dev kit to realize what Sony's approach to the situation is. I'd place their blunders in two categories: 1) not taking time to make sure developers can work, and 2) intentionally working directly against the developers.

Here are some examples for #1:

Basic dev tool approach: SN Systems extended Visual Studio in the wrong way. Rather than integrate with the project system's existing property pages to control things like compiler and linker options, they added new menu options that open different dialogs that look/work the same. Rather than integrate with Visual Studio's debugging interface, launching the debugger brings up ProDG, a debugging environment reminiscent of early Code Warrior that feels like it's purpose in life is to slow you down. Both of these are places where their tools *could* have been more straightforward to use, but they just didn't make it happen.

Documentation: Sony's documentation, while existent, falls FAR short of Microsoft's documentation for the 360. In particular, pre/post conditions and a statement of valid parameters is largely missing. If a system call returns that an invalid parameter was passed to the function, you're figuring out all on your own what it was and why.

Example of #2:

Say you have a PS3 dev kit on your desk. Obviously only 1 person can debug on it at a time, so it's by nature a hardware dongle. This isn't good enough for SN Systems. If you don't have an active link to your on-site licensing server, ProDG won't open. If you stop the License Manager tray application, your tools close. If your license server is at a branch office and your VPN goes down, you're SOL on debugging. Sony has taught us well that their licensing policies are built to inflict pain, and they never let us down. For this, **** you Sony, may your licensing team burn in hell.

The Cell is just different

[loufoque]

The Cell is not harder, it is just different.

The traditional way to code games is to have a CPU, that handles general-purpose game logic, and a GPU, which is a processor specialized in floating point vector operations, to handle the rendering.
The thing is that typically, you cannot really use the GPU to do what you want, since most platforms only allow you to use it for rendering. CUDA and friends are trying to change that, but that GPUs are closed hardware which you can only use for rendering with a fixed pipeline remains true.

And here comes the Cell. The Cell is an open architecture (unlike GPUs) for floating point vector operations.
Basically, a Cell is like an easy-to-use GPU, except you are truly free to program it the way you want.
There are OpenGL drivers for the Cell that exist, but they're still experimental since quite academic. The PS3 SDK runs OpenGL on a separate GPU, mostly because nVidia has more experience in implementing an OpenGL stack.

But the real advantage of the Cell is in doing rendering in a different way than the traditional OpenGL fixed pipeline.
Real-time raytracers, voxel-based engines, etc. become possible on the Cell. Or at least they would if people spent the time and budget on it.

It is also easier to accelerate physics and everything on the Cell, even though some ports of physics engines to GPUs exist.

The problem with the Cell is that it is really a research topic, and that it is not able to compete with the work GPUs sellers have done at the moment.

Re:The Cell is just different

[cube135]

Yes, the Cell is powerful, but you fail to consider that graphics are only one part of what goes into a game. AI, sound, user input, and network operations also need to be considered. Given that, in a normal system architecture, a general purpose CPU handles all of that, and sends off instructions to a specialized GPU, the Cell architecture is radically different from what people are used to. That's what makes it hard.

I sincerely doubt that there are many(if any!) developers programming directly to the Cell processor. They're probably programming to Sony's SDK, which is, reportedly, very difficult to work with.

Invest in the pandora

[AndrewR81]

I was going to buy a PS3, but why should I support a company that discourages me from using my hardware how I want?

The open pandora system looks like a much better place to spend my money. An open source handheld gaming system, yes, it can work: http://openpandora.org/

Re:Invest in the pandora

[boyter]

The PS3 is the most open console on the market right now. Not only can you install alternate OS's you can develop for it without having to buy a license or even run Windows (looking at you Xbox + Visual Studio). Yes the video is locked down, but you can somewhat understand their point of view there (although personally I disagree with it). But anyway saying Sony dosnt let you use the hardware as you want is asinine.

Re:Invest in the pandora

[Gizzmonic]

You and the ten other guys who care more about "openness" than playing fun games have a good time. Maybe they'll port Minesweeper to it one of these days.

The Atari Jaguar had this problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

they included a Motorola 68k that was suppose to be used for input handling. Programmers ended up using it to port their Genesis code directly to the Jaguar and the console became a Sega Genesis with a bigger color palette.

No, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think he's that dumb. But he does know that if he says "Oh, and BTW, in 2-3 years, we'll come out with the PS4, he might as well just shut down the gaming division. He'll have to drop the price of the PS3 to $149 just to get people to consider it.

What the...?

[Bootarn]

We don't provide the "easy to program for" console that (developers) want, because "easy to program for" means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do

I must've woken up in some sort of parallel universe where everybody's really, really stupid.

Back in the good old days, developers worked hard pushing the limits of what the machine could do. The Atari ST is a great example. With its Motorola 68000 CPU and somewhat limited graphics modes, developers were still able to produce very fast and pretty games. Developers soon figured out how to trick the hardware to remove the screen borders (using overscan), and use those for graphics as well instead of for just a single colour.

My point is, developers need to take advantage of what the hardware can do, in order to develop games that push the limits of what is achievable on a certain platform. Sony's approach is to disable the possibilities of doing this, and I'm surprised the developers haven't all left the PS3 as a development platform altogether.

You'd think they'd have learned by now...

[shoptroll]

Sony executive inserts shoe into mouth. Story at 11?

Just spin control

[Animats]

Definitely spin control. I remember when SCEA had to gut their research department to put all their smart people on trying to get the PS3 to do something useful.

The fundamental problem with the PS3 is that each Cell CPU only has 256K of local memory. That's not enough for a frame, not enough for the local geometry, and not enough to really get anything done. This forces you to treat the Cell processors like DSPs, pumping a sequential stream of data in one end and out the other. The Cell CPUs can sort of "random access" main memory, but that's not cached and really slow, so you don't do it much. Most accesses to main memory from a Cell are bulk DMA-like (channels, really) sequential transfers. So the whole game has to be architected as an sequential assembly-line operation, with as little cross-coupling as possible. The audio guys love this, because their problem works that way, and they get a dedicated CPU on which to do their transforms. Everybody else hates it.

If each Cell had, say, 16MB, it would be a whole different ball game.

In many PS3 games, the main PowerPC chip and the nVidia graphics chip are doing most of the work, while the Cell processors are performing output-end functions that don't feed into the game engine, like audio, particles, and such.

Re:Just spin control

[TrekkieGod]

The fundamental problem with the PS3 is that each Cell CPU only has 256K of local memory...This forces you to treat the Cell processors like DSPs, pumping a sequential stream of data in one end and out the other.

That's how they're meant to work, that's not a mistake, and it's most certainly not a problem. There's a powerpc as the core of the cell, which can be used for actual non-dsp work.

The fundamental problem with the PS3 is a lack of an easy to use SDK that abstracts the above complexity and makes it easy to program for. The hardware is completely fine, they're just not providing the developers with the tools they need.

20 million a big number?

[L-Train8]

There were 20 million GameCubes sold.

Re:20 million a big number?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact in Japan the GameCube was quite succesful; the ps3 lifecycle will be about 8 years (like those of ps2 and ps1) so it'll sell enough.

For comparison with the last gen: ps2 130+ million, xobx 24, gamecube 22, dreamcast 11. No the ps3 isn't doing that bad compared to xbox360.

Its 2009 and screenshots still don't work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sony is up to SDK 260 (2.6) and the developer screenshot function still doesn't work.

And every other version of their debugger is broken. The 250 (2.5) debugger can't view C++ class data. They fixed it, but this has been going on for three years, so you can expect it to be broken again in the 270 (2.7) SDK.

IMHO this is elementary

[McNihil]

SONY is a hardware company first and foremost. Why would they want to release a sub par SDKs or OS much like Microsoft is doing.

Innovation comes from the code monkeys that actually are close to the hardware not the ones that are on the other side of the spectrum making things look pretty.

If we need easy of programming we could all use the Quake4SDK or the like... will the end product be better than the original? VERY VERY Doubtful... its like making a movie where non of the original team is present but just the formula.

To me SDK == Formula

And I personally wouldn't want PS3 just to be a formula so yes I am on the SONY honchos side.

This is really old news

[seventhevening]

This is really old news. I think he made these comments back in January. If he made them again, it's hardly news. While I don't totally agree with Sony on this issue, I can see advantages of a harder to develop for console. The PS3 has nearly no shovelware, while the Wii's game library, while massive, is mostly shovelware, since it's so easy and cheap to develop for.

It's called "Pulling a Sony"

[pecosdave]

Let's look at the history of Sony "Pulling Sony's"

1. MD - Mini Disk - My favorite. The MD was superior to the compact disk in nearly every way. On top of that it came out when it could have dented the CD market - unfortunately they did the same thing they did with Beta. Instead of licensing the tech to competitors cheaply the held it close to their chests and charged a fortune - until about a year after it was to late to make a difference. It failed.

2. Beta - I put this below MD because it had more success. Beta was superior to VHS in quality, was better respected among professionals, and was on the market at the right time to defeat VHS, and was even used by early adopters before VHS. But they kept it close to their chest, wouldn't allow competitors to manufacture units until a year or two after it was to late.

3. Atrac - Technology we didn't need to compete with better technology that already exist. This one exist for the sole purpose of establishing "the Sony way of doing it" (as though we need proprietary anything) and more importantly to push DRM on us. After a couple of years of dismal Atrac playing Walkmans sales, they finally started supporting a couple of more common formats.

4. Memory Stick - Sony makes really really awesome hardware - there's no doubt. There's no other way they could stay in business after pulling so many Sony's if they didn't. Memory stick is just another one of those things. Nobody but Sony really uses it, the world wants SD, Sony gives you Memory Stick. Why? Oh yeah, DRM again. Sony finally started supporting SD and Memory Stick on many of their cameras due to massive demand, but they still embrace their proprietary stuff in favor of being proprietary. They want to be like Apple when it comes to proprietary methods, but oddly Apple is more open when than Sony when it comes to compatibility. BTW, the Apple stores in the mall are always full when the Sony stores are half assed.

5. PSP - a REALLY awesome gaming platform on a handheld with massive untapped potential. Sony REFUSES to tap the potential of the PSP. So people hack them. What have the hackers done? Turned it into a universal infrared remote control (1000 only), an external secondary monitor for Windows, an ebook reader, a graphical MythTV remote (1000 and 2000), an iTunes remote, AND de-UMDed it to make it much more useful and portable? Sony's response? Release the nearly unhackable 3000 among firmware updates to do everything they can to leave that potential untapped. They wonder why sales aren't what they wanted them to be.

6. PS3 - I'll leave this article to explain that one.

Honorable mention:
Blu-ray - arguably Blu-ray is a sucess (despite less than expected sales - which should only climb). Initially Sony approached this better then they have most endeavors, by co-operating with competitors a bit more. It was good, better than HDDVD but it failed to smack HDDVD down. I blame cost. My personal prediction was that the dual HD/Blu-ray players would become ubiquitous making the winner a moot point - I was wrong. Mostly because Sony BRIBED the competition. For Blu-ray to actually suceed price is going to have to be addressed. There's little reason to buy an Adam Sandler movie on Blu-Ray for $30 when the DVD version can be had for $14. (Battle) Star Anything, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, yeah, I'll shell out for Blu-Ray, but your average drama or chick flick?

When Sony learns to wear pants they'll be an unstoppable force.

Re:It's called "Pulling a Sony"

[cheesybagel]

So you think MD was superior, then diss ATRAC? ATRAC was the sound codec used in MD, because MD had way less storage space than a CD, sound had to be compressed somehow to fit an hour's worth of sound in it. Their problem was not having ATRAC support in their Walkman, the problem was not having MP3 support.

Re:It's called "Pulling a Sony"

[MemoryDragon]

The crippling thing was for both dat and md that it had no digital out and sony was way late to the game for the 3.5 inch floppy disk replacement.
No digital out was unberabale at the moment the first cheap cdr drives came out, and as a floppy disk replacement they were way too late and too expensive, first Iomega wept their floors with their miserable drives which however were cheap and could be bought around the corner and later CD rewritables wept the last remnants of the mini disk away and later cheap mp3 players put the final nail into its coffin. It took sony however several years to realize that MP3 has won and then it was too late, the walkman brand was dead and wiped out by Apple (The iPod came before Sony stopped crippeling MP3 in their players)

Well the last stund they did was to remove PS2 backward compatibility from the PS3 basically smacking 110 mio potential customers in the head with a grin and the words "We make you our bitch, suck it down" :-)

If I had that install base, I would probably spend a fortune to give those users a reason to upgrade. Well Sony didnt!

Re:It's called "Pulling a Sony"

[cheesybagel]

Actually, DAT initially had digital out. They removed that from DAT due to pressures from you can guess who: the music recording industry. After that you could only get DAT with digital out if you bought expensive studio level equipment. There DAT was a success, but never in the consumer market. It was also taxed to hell.

As for removing PS2 compatibility from the PS3, that was a cost cutting move since they still are bleeding money from every hardware sale. They removed the Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer GPU (basically every PS3 used to include near complete PS2 hardware inside). As bad as it is to lose features, it is worse to go bankrupt.

Stop buying games now!

[SpinyNorman]

so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?

Apparently Sony believe they've kept the PS3 hard enough to learn to develop for that the learning curve stretches out 9 1/2 years, so that ever-more interesting titles appear during the console's lifetime.

The obvious conclusion is that any PS3 titles put out much before the 9 1/2 years are up don't fully utilize the hardware, and buyers should therefore hold off purchasing! The PS3 itself is also apparently a waste of money since it's been deliberately handicapped to essentially be overpowered/underutilized (& hence overpriced) for the bulk of it's lifetime!

Maybe TV manufacturers could follow Sony's lead - make it so damn difficult to change channel that your're still discovering new channels 10 years after you bought the set! It'd make life more interesting for cars too - rather than the boredom of right away knowing everything your car can do, wouldn't it be more interesting it it took 5 years to learn how to use the brakes! :-)

I've got a feeling Sony were inspired by women on this one!

Experience?

[failedlogic]

Here's the problem with Marketing: They spent *so* much time focusing on graphics capabilities that they forgot about the gamers and the programmers. Making a difficult to program console doesn't win gamers over - especially if there's a premium to pay for the console. It just means to gamers that there might be less games. To developers it seems Sony is trying to force them to create more exclusives. If the X360 is 100% DirectX then you instantly get two platforms to develop for (e.g. PC) which surprises me that aren't a few more games that aren't X360 + PC on release.

There's lot of great games out there that would explain why people use Emulators for NES up to PS2 and Neogeo, CPS3 etc. Nobody cares about the graphics, everybody cares about the experience. It seems with BluRay - you could cram a TON of content - of a lower quality graphic game then some ultra-hi res monster. I've seen demos of the PS3 and X360 games. I'm not sure 20 years from now people are going to say --- I want an abandonware version of _____ game!

I still have some favorite games that are on the SNES (Actraiser, Battletoads ... ;) ) and on the PC - Wing Commander, all the Sierra Adventure games. IMO, the cutest funnest game I've ever played is Mario Sunshine. It can also be extremely difficult on the bonus levels (getting all the stars). Story wise and environment wise, the greatest game, to me, is MGS 3. Its such an immersive experience. The graphics aren't important.

If all the developers did was refresh some of the older games' graphics, new story etc, the reduced development time could lead to longer game play, re-playability or more story development.

I prefer to play a game than watch a movie sometimes. Give me a long-enough immersive experience and I don't mind paying $100 for a game. IMO in that sense, MSG3 was my best investment ever.

A Real Console Developer Speaks

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Cell processor is, well, odd."

Of all the idiotic crap being spouted by little kids this single stupid statement stands out as a perfect example of just what a giant cesspool of bullshit this supposedly technical discussion board is.

Cell is EXACTLY like what every console developer is intimately familiar with, the EE from the PS2. Surprising isn't it? Engines for the PS3 are written almost exactly like engines for the PS2.

EE -> PPU
VUs -> SPUs
GS -> RSX

If you can't see something as trivial and absolutely junior level of engineering of console development then the rest of your inane blather about console development methods and tools is not even worth correcting.

Keep filling your head with bullshit from beyond3d and arstechnica or where ever you kids love to read this 'hard teh program' bullshit. Knock yourselves out with your long winded diatribes about crap you have no clue about. Equally clueless little kids like you did the same back in the PS2 days.

After 9 years since the PS2 launched you would think the fanboys like you would move on to some FUD that actually works...

 

Re:Holy cow. to think i would ever say this in rea

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting for GWB?

More proof.

[Dr.Boje]

This is just more proof of how inept Sony has become. They've completely lost touch with their user base and at this point it appears that they are just trying to squeeze every last cent out that they can. Remember the days when games were abundant and didn't consist of 99% dog shit?

Re:More proof.

[Rod Beauvex]

*points to the ET Atari debacle* I personally don't.

Re:More proof.

[Dr.Boje]

Remember the days when games were abundant and didn't consist of 99% dog shit?

*points to the ET Atari debacle* I personally don't.

Look! It's Mr. Historian and his painfully irrelevant historical reference!

Mr. Historian, as you may or may not know, the "ET Atari debacle" is obviously NOT what I am referring to when I mention a period of time during which video games flourished. For you to bring this up in reply to my comment makes me think you are either unaware of a time period where video games flourished or you believe the "ET Atari debacle" is representative of the overall quality and abundance of video games throughout history. Either way, you're retarded.

You know, I have to hand it to you, Mr. Historian. You thought you were pretty clever in mentioning the "ET Atari debacle", as if nobody's ever heard of it, and that you'd sound smart by doing so. By mentioning this event, you hoped it would somehow invalidate my rhetorical question. Unfortunately, you failed miserably and that is why I am writing this post. You see, by answering "no" to my rhetorical question and pointing out the "ET Atari debacle" as your reasoning, you effectively used that one period of time as evidence that there was never a time when video games thrived. You basically disagreed that there was ever a point in time during which video games thrived and, in fact, claimed that the "ET Atari debacle" is proof. That's just... amazing. Amazingly stupid.

Next time, instead of disagreeing with a person and providing some ancient event as a reference, try to, you know, contribute to the discussion. Otherwise, just don't post anything.

P.S. To the Sony fanboys who modded grandparent "flamebait" -- the truth hurts, doesn't it?

Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[fm6]

This reminds me a lot of some nonsense Charles Petzold wrote in an early edition of "Programming Windows". As you'd expect, he starts with a "hello world" example. One expects such a basic program to be maybe a half-dozen lines, with only a line or two of logic, and the rest syntactic sugar. But Petzold's example covers almost two pages and is extremely dense and complicated code. And while this example is a little less elegant than it could be, there's not actually a lot you can do to make it shorter. He explains this by claiming that the Windows API is extremely powerful, and you can't have power without complexity.

Obvious nonsense. Powerful development environments hide the complexity behind simple idioms. The real problem is that the developers who created the Windows APIs simply didn't bother to think through the use cases that programmers would have to deal with. (To be fair, early Mac and X Window APIs were even worse.) Petzold, out of loyalty to the environment he's documenting, rationalizes this problem away.

Hirai is sort of making the same argument, but only as an afterthought. His main argument is a sort of reverse conspiracy theory, that making the platform hard to program for will has some weird positive benefit. Not clear what he thinks that benefit is — he probably doesn't know himself! In any case, he's just doing a lame "we meant to do that" rationalization.

Re:Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[pecosdave]

EARLY Windows APIs? Wasn't Windows 1.x more or less a "start up a DOS program" interface and a clipboard?

Re:Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[fm6]

To me "early" means 3.0, the first version of Windows that had a serious feature set, and that was widely adopted. But I believe that the code example I was talking about goes back to 2.0 at least.

I did once glance at the 1.0 version of Petzold's book. Didn't check out the "hello world" example, but it's interesting to note that in this version, Windows is described as a "Presentation Manager" for PC-DOS! This fits in with the original joint Microsoft-IBM plan to abandon DOS once a real OS had been created. (In OS/2, the "Presentation Manager" is the GUI subsystem.) So perhaps the 1.0 feature set reflects the assumption that Windows was just lipstick on a pig, not the complete new animal.

Re:Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

This is getting away from the topic under discussion, but I disagree with parent's characterization of Petzold's Windows programming book. I realize that many people on this site are too young to have had extensive experience with native Win32 development.

The Win32 API that Petzold describes was/is Microsoft's counterpart to the Unix system call interface (perhaps augmented with Xlib to make a more nearly apples-to-apples comparison). It is powerful but somewhat low-level, and practically begs for wrapper libraries to provide a more convenient interface for applications developers. So Borland came up with OWL and Microsoft came up with MFC for Windows; meanwhile we have GTK+ and Qt for Xlib.

But Petzold didn't want to write about OWL or MFC; he wanted to write about Win32. He reasoned that once you understand the portions of Win32 commonly used in GUI development, you would be be in a much better position to learn the higher level frameworks. OTOH trying to learn MFC without understanding Win32, leads to a somewhat incomplete proficiency; this is partly because MFC is so clumsy, but also because Win32 (or any native GUI framework) is complex.

BTW Petzold was/is a damn good writer. His several-times-revised book on Win32 was by consensus the "bible" during its day - not so sure whether he still wears the crown for his .Net titles.

Re:Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[Mr2001]

This reminds me a lot of some nonsense Charles Petzold wrote in an early edition of "Programming Windows". As you'd expect, he starts with a "hello world" example. One expects such a basic program to be maybe a half-dozen lines, with only a line or two of logic, and the rest syntactic sugar. But Petzold's example covers almost two pages and is extremely dense and complicated code. And while this example is a little less elegant than it could be, there's not actually a lot you can do to make it shorter.

Heh, I remember that example. That's the reason why I gave up on Windows programming until VB (and later Delphi and .NET) came out.

Re:Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[againjj]

Obvious nonsense. Powerful development environments hide the complexity behind simple idioms. The real problem is that the developers who created the Windows APIs simply didn't bother to think through the use cases that programmers would have to deal with. (To be fair, early Mac and X Window APIs were even worse.)

Hardly. A Mac program that did nothing but throw up a dialog that said "Hello World" with a button that quit is two lines, one to init Quickdraw and one to pop up the dialog. The reason you couldn't do this in Windows was that the Mac had a powerful resource model from the very beginning and APIs that used them. Only if you didn't use resources did the code look as nasty as the Windows version.

Re:Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[fm6]

You can do that in Windows 3.0 too. Perhaps Petzold should have used that as an initial example.

Or not. No real world GUI application just does one thing and exits. If you want your "hello world" example to be a basic program you can build on, it has to be a program that knows about events, even if the only event it handles is "program start".

Easy in modern APIs, painfully complicated in early ones. It was a real Rube Goldberg affair in Windows 3.0, but at least the event loop was built into the API. I seem to recall that early Mac developers had to code the event loop themselves! Which is why I snicker whenever I'm reminded of Apple's corporate address.

Re:Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[MemoryDragon]

Well opening a dialog was something along the lines of the showDialog function, the problem was when you had to do more than doing a dialog you ran into an oo api with c but with the creators did only have half a clue what makes oo so great and did not hide anything but forced you into pushing lots of defaults and then initializing the request queue yourself etc.... Microsoft is hardly to blame there they just copied the apple code over in the early 80s (which of course still is a rumour since apple failed to have the windows 3.0 code opened in the court trial)

Re:Reverse Conspiracy Theory

[MemoryDragon]

Afair in windows it was an endless loop which had to dispatch the events, but it has been a long time!
So basically you had to program the loop yourself. There are rumourse that the first versions of windows had lots of apple code in it, which Apple failed to prove since they could not get the jugde to order Microsoft to open the code for them in the court trial!
Anyway the win32 api is really nothing anybody should be proud of, on the contrary!

PS2 compatibility

[imevil]

Actually most of the PS3 games take advantage of the PS2 emulation -- not that they would run on a PS2, of course.

The PS3 appears having only 6 SPUs when the Cell really has 8. The 7th is used as a hypervisor to run PS2 games efficiently and the 8th is "disabled". The hypervisor is what saves games developers -- they can take the shortcut but are not fully using the GFlops. But: consoles get sold, and part of this money is invested in developing new chips which are not only used in newer consoles but also in supercomputers like this one.

You know- This happens a lot

[moniker127]

It is subconscious a lot of the time- but this happens a LOT in the industry. You'd be surprised. I mean- programming is for programmers- why would it have to be easy 99% of the time? (Note- this is the view point of the people i'm talking about- not mine)

Re:Just when you think they can't make things wors

[Anonymous Coward]

No, google gets it; Java and open source. Apple is just lucky that even though they are more evil than Microsoft everybody adores them. Having to program on a mac, in objective-C, and being required to sell through Apple is awful yet they get away with it since they dominate the market share.

Intentional restriction of a purchase?

[nurb432]

So you are telling me that i bought a product, but the vendor is *intentionally* preventing me from fully utilizing it?

Doesn't sound too legal to me.

Re:Intentional restriction of a purchase?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are telling me that i bought a product, but the vendor is *intentionally* preventing me from fully utilizing it?

No, it's like Sony gave you a car with a manual transmission. It's harder to use, but once you get the hang of it your mileage will be better.

Doesn't sound too legal to me.

You don't sound too bright to me.

Obama Revolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I just wasn't paying attention in January, but I thought that was a peaceful transfer of power...

Department of Sony

[conureman]

No, you want room 12A, just along the corridor.

Really stupid headline

[tgibbs]

This seems to be a particularly idiotic attempt to "spin" what was actually said. There is nothing at all in the statement about Sony intentionally introducing programming obstacles.

It is quite obvious that Hirai was explaining why Sony chose a powerful, if more difficult to program for, multiprocessor architecture over a simpler, less powerful architecture. Sony wanted a platform that would have enough power to sustain itself for 10 years. So they did not consider it to be a major detriment that developers would not immediately be able to unlock to full power of the architecture, because much of that power was intended to allow the console "room to grow."

Re:Really stupid headline

[Spit]

That doesn't make it any smarter. How about a simpler commodity design which is scalable and backwards compatible, like Nintendo's.

Sony admits failure with complex bullshit too. :P

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

This is Sony's way of saying "yeah we fucked up"

Sony will never admit it. Kaz Hirai actually said this probably a month ago. I'm surprised it just made Slashdot now.

Kaz is a nut. He's said a few other insane things in the past.

The Playstation 3 is a failure at being "The worlds most powerful gaming console". Microsoft's Xbox 360 has more available ram, a better gpu, and all of the multi platform games run better and at higher resolutions on the 360, and the PS3 versions run lower resolution, scaled back effects etc.

Street Fighter IV is the latest game that shows just how lame the Ps3 is. Its running at 720p with 2xAA on the 360, and on the Ps3 its running at a resolution slightly lower than 720p, without anti aliasing and its missing some small details here and there.

The same thing with Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed, Devil May Cry, Grand Theft Auto 4...

The list goes on. The PS3 has consistantly had the worst version of multi platform games due to Sony's ingenious excuse of "making the console hard to develope for on purpose"

YEah right. Sony fucked up, and we know that by the very fact that in development, Sony intended the Cell processor to do all of the GPU functions, and then when it couldnt, they called up Nvidia for a bandaid, and hacked a nv 7900 into Sony's ass backwards architecture.

BTW when will console makers realize that we need MORE RAM, not bare minimum ram?

I actually still love my PS3. Its a great Blu-Ray player, excellent Media player, and Metal Gear Solid 4, Little Big Planet, Uncharted, MLB The Show 08, Hot Shots Golf, and Heavenly Sword... are some incredible games.

The PS3 is a valid platform, but for all the hype and bullshit and money that Sony through at the PS3... Technically its inferior to the 360 in every way.

Re:Just when you think they can't make things wors

[idlemachine]

They need a VERY low cost PS3 developer boot camp to teach the tricks of the console and to encourage developers to write more games.

Then who is currently teaching all these small company developers who are churning out fun and awesome-looking games for the Playstation Store?

Or did they just do the necessary reading/experimenting while the other devs where busy whining?

Re:Just when you think they can't make things wors

[olddotter]

Since I opted for the Wii instead of a PS3, I don't know about those small games. Smart developers will always figure it out. But smart business minded developers will go to biggest bang for the buck.

Poor developer support.

[clickclickdrone]

From what I've been told by various developers, there is a huge gulf between MS and Sony when it comes to developer support. If you call them with a problem, MS get back later that day with the solution, often code samples. Sony email you back 3 weeks later and say 'It's in the manuals'.

Re:Poor developer support.

[CronoCloud]

How appropriate, the PS3 runs Linux and you say they tell devs "It's in the manuals" RTFM indeed.

Sony blew it!

[Anonymous Coward]

When PS3 first came out I energained the idea of buying one. Not so much for gaming as for a multimedia PC, gaming just isn't a strong focus on my part. In any event it became apparent, after a few reviews and other negative things, that Sony really didn't want my money.

First, the idea that it would function as a BluRay player was a consideration. The problem with that is that playback took awhile to firm up and later BluRay never really took off in the market. Some of the DRM controls where very bothersome too, especially region codes. In the end buying a PS3 for BluRay play back was not a motivator.

Considering I'm no a big gamer, easy and general availability of games is important. Finding games for your console shoulnt be a shopping exercise. The interest simply isn't strong enough to have me waiting in line at a store for a release that is already months old on other platforms. It may be counter intuitive but as a casual gamer having a large selection of titles that can be found both used and new is important. If nothing else it keeps the price low on things you may not use much.

Contrary to the opinions expressed here by both the Sony quotes and the various commenters Cell does not have legs. As far as I can see there will be very few games that actually leverage it. The problem is mapping all those vector units on to the programming challenge at hand. Especially considering how the hardware is arrainged and accessed. Yeah they are very powerful processors and given the right problem can be hard to beat, but are those the sorts of problems that one sees in games. Apparently not because there does seem to be a big adoption rate, of the hardware, by the developer community. Let's face it they have had the time.

Linux! As has been pointed out by others Sony has some sort of freakish control problem that they apparently get their jollies from. This can be seen in their willingness to have Linux be installable but yet not providing for a driver set for the GPU. That was pretty stupid right there but Sony went far beyound the call of duty here and and implemented controls with respect to accessing that GPU from within Linux. Mind you I'm not expecting to run Linix full time here but when I do I want to be able to leverage that machine fully. This really pissed me off and is the primary factor in avoiding PS3 hardware today. I also agree with others that have said that Linux should have been made the machines primary OS.

All in all I do believe this excutive was full of horse crap when he spoke. Cell has never been what it was promoted to be and most games suck on it. Yeah a bit blunt but it highlights that games are not improving at that great of a rate on Cell and likely never will.

Dave

Re:Sony blew it!

[Gizzmonic]

This can be seen in their willingness to have Linux be installable but yet not providing for a driver set for the GPU. That was pretty stupid right there but Sony went far beyound the call of duty here and and implemented controls with respect to accessing that GPU from within Linux. Mind you I'm not expecting to run Linix full time here but when I do I want to be able to leverage that machine fully. This really pissed me off and is the primary factor in avoiding PS3 hardware today. I also agree with others that have said that Linux should have been made the machines primary OS.

Sony doesn't want people using the Linux environment as a cheap dev kit. There's a very good reason for that from a consumer standpoint as well. It's bad enough that many games require 4+ GB of hard drive space on the machine, can you imagine if they started requiring Linux? Too confusing for consumers. Annd...savvy programmers can use the SPUs to do a lot of cool graphic stuff in Linux anyway.

Oh the Irony!

[blueZhift]

In light of Karzai's statements, it is rather ironic that the original Playstation was a popular platform because it was relatively easy to develop for! Much easier than the dual processor horror that was Saturn, and not constrained by the outdated cartridge system of the N64. Oh well, maybe it was just a fluke.

Re:Oh the Irony!

[tyrantking31]

You're exactly right. Programming for the N64 was nearly impossible. No independent developers could match Super Mario 64 and they quickly fell away from Nintendo and turned to Sony's Playstation. If you look at the history, the Super Nintendo's main competition was the Sega Genesis. With the introduction of the N64, Nintendo should have owned that generation with no new Sega on the market. Instead, Nintendo made an impossible to program for system and Sony pounced. As a nintendo turned xbox 360 fanboy, I'm loving the PS3's failure.

xbox sucks because the games are good? wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the basic argument here is that: Xbox 360's games are taking the console to the limits, so the games are great now but will be shit in the future so the console is shit. PS3 is taking its time with the quality of games. Sure, they are crap now but just wait until the new lot come out that take full advantage of the hardware! I've also heard that Duke Nukem Forever is going to be a PS3 exclusive!!!!

So the basic argument on slashdot is that the xbox sucks because the games are good and the ps3 has shit games but is brilliant because it has potential for better games in the future? That logic is, well, retarded.

It is never going to happen. Sony is going to do a Nintendo in regard to what they did with the gamecube and wii, and release a slightly changed PS3, say its a PS4, sell it at a lower price and make it fully backwards compatible with the PS3.

I just think that its funny that the only criticism of the xbox here is that the games are good but there is no potential for better games. Who cares? By then the next generation of consoles will be out.

what makes something hard to program...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumb devs!

Wrong design for games

[Namarrgon]

The fundamental problem with the PS3 is that it's a game console.

If it was actually a media processor, the hardware would be perfectly suited. The Cell just isn't a good fit for the class of problems that games fall into.

Perhaps this is why Sony were pushing it so hard as a media gateway for your living room, rather than something you can play games with.

Re:Wrong design for games

[TrekkieGod]

If it was actually a media processor, the hardware would be perfectly suited. The Cell just isn't a good fit for the class of problems that games fall into.

I don't understand what you mean. Games fall into the category of media. They have all the same requirements as displaying a movie and a few additional requirements, which is why there's an nvidia gpu there.

The hardware in the PS3 isn't less suited for games than the processors in the xbox 360. They both have general purpose processors (in fact, they're both powerpc's, essentially), they both have gpu's. The Cell has some additional stuff around the powerpc core that helps with the other stuff, like audio, physics, etc. That stuff can certainly be done in a general purpose processor, but spu's are better suited for some of that work.

If you examine games in both platforms, they're roughly on par, in terms of graphics quality. There aren't any developers complaining that the PS3's hardware is unsuited for games. They're all just complaining that the development tools suck, and rightly so. Microsoft has invested pretty heavily into making developer's lives easier, which Sony is finding insane excuses to justify why their development tools blow.

Re:Wrong design for games

[Namarrgon]

Games fall into the category of media.

Not in this sense, as games aren't just streams of data; they're generated on the fly.

GPU, certainly useful. PPU, yep. SPUs, not so much. They're great for stream processing of audio (also video codecs), occasionally helpful for physics, not so much for AI or control. They'd also be great for vertex and pixel processing (as originally intended), but Sony later added a GPU which does all that. The SPUs' limited memory access makes them hard to use for much, other than streaming.

Developers will probably find more uses for them, in time. Until then, the SPUs are often under-utilised, leaving developers with a single PowerPC core to do the bulk of the game work (compared to 3 PPC cores on the 360). That, plus the 50/50 ram split between CPU and GPU, is largely what's causing late nights for developers (at least on the hardware side).

On the capacity to upstage...

[JoCat]

The easier it is to develop for a system, the easier it is to push that system's limits.

Sony finds really... err... "special" executives..

[dniq]

How in a world can a gaming console, which was obsolete even before it got released, last _10 years_??? I mean, really? 256 mb of RAM + 256 mb of VRAM, no hardware scaling, slow BD drive. And last time I checked, the PS3 OS memory footprint was something like 52 megabytes - that's out of 256! I REALLY hope it got better since then, but XBOX 360 OS, for example, takes only 32 megabytes.

Now, with the current state of things, consoles are already WAY behind PC in terms of power. So I'm guessing that in 10 years (8 years now, if I'm not mistaken), PC gaming will be so far ahead - either 360 or PS3 will look like something from the Paleozoic.

And besides, Sony's focus is really somewhere in a completely different universe - they add all irrelevant features to the PS3, trying to make it everything except the one thing that matters: a gaming machine. Its PSN still lacks basic features that Xbox Live has had for years (system-wide mute, player preference/avoidance system, way to report bad behavior etc.) But at least we have Life with Playstation, which probably nobody uses, and Photo Gallery, and Web browser, which doesn't work on probably 80% of web sites...

So, I guess, there's a very good chance that PS3 will only remain as a BD player. If BD lasts that long, that is.

Gee...I don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe make good f***ing games.

Microsoft Sues Sony CE because...

[Gallomimia]

Sony has stolen Microsoft's difficult development strategy and it's patented. So strange to see this story after half a decade of seeing the windows environment be so blunt and difficult to work with compared to its competitors. DLL this and install-wizard that. Apparently Sony felt Xbox should follow suit but it's nice to see for a change that the software giant is trying to make it easy for developers for a change. Not that I'm cheering for M$... just that it's good for the industry.

Re:Just when you think they can't make things wors

[Anonymous Coward]

then it wouldn't be the console with the most FLOPS."

But it is already the one with the biggest flop

Simply not true.

[bhpaddock]

You seem to be missing the point. It's not just hard to "take full advantage" of the PS3, it's hard to make the damn thing work at all.

You mentioned HDR, something that Xbox developers take for granted since they have 3 different ways of doing it, all which are easy and which given them different performance / quality trade-offs.

Not only is it *harder* to do HDR on the PS3, but the PS3 simply doesn't have the memory bandwidth to accommodate HDR without sacrificing in several other areas (resolution, FSAA, texture size and filtering, etc). Whereas the 360 allows you to balance out the resolution, level of HDR, level of FSAA, texture size, etc - the PS3 lets you pick one. Because if you want 1080p there's no way in hell you're getting any HDR, FSAA, or anything else that requires memory bandwidth.

That's why games look and run better on the 360. Even in the rare cases where one aspect (like, say, HDR) looks a little better on the PS3, it always sacrifices in other areas, resulting in a better experience on the 360. Even if you could eek out some minuscule visual advantage from the PS3 (good luck), no one is going to care. That's not why people buy games.

Re:Waaa!!! An Actual Dreamcast Fanboy!!! LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, ha ha ha. laff @ dreamcast luzer! sony never lies. EVER! dual hdmi output full 1080p on the PS3 I does it all the time.

annoying speculation without any facts

[Teriblows]

"He's right. Look at killzone 2 that just came out. Everyone who does reviews is saying this is the best visual console game to date. They took advantage of _most_ of ps3's power but not all. There is still technically more hardware to use so one could make the case there are better games to come." says who? wheres the proof there are no bottle necks, wheres the proof that killzone 2 isn't maxing out the gpus capabilities. i guess it doesn't matter to sony since if they sell you on their magic marketing, ur stuck regardless. what facts remain are these, both systems have the same amount of ram and the same generation gpus. i dont see how the difference can be that great when such bottlenecks are in play.

Re:Sony admits failure with complex bullshit too.

[Teriblows]

yup gta iv screen shot comparison, the ps3 looks less crisp. runs at a slightly lower resolution. you've already listed plenty others, this is the power of the cell processor:P being bested by a 360:P

Not just the PS3

[DaveDerrick]

Sony have been making Homebrew defeating firmware "upgrades" ever since the PSP was launched. They simply dont want developers releasing anything they dont have control over. Microsoft get sued over their "Monopoly" of windows by making it difficult for the competition, Sony are MUCH worse & get away with it. I sold my PSP & will never buy Sony again, they have such disdain for their users/developers.

Re:Not just the PS3

[MemoryDragon]

Microsoft: Where do you want me to push you today...
Sony: Shut the fuck up and let me push you into the direction I want you to go today...

Re:Not just the PS3

[MemoryDragon]

I forgot:
Apple: I will push you no matter what, but with style and charge you a fortune for the pole I will use to achieve my job

hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Make Excellent Console with the best hardware
2) Make it hard to develop for
3) ...
4) Profit!
5) Also, fuck you!

writing keyboard inputs isnt rocket science

[cheekyboy]

Surely mapping inputs from KB to event triggers that call functions to inc/dec values that the gamepad uses isnt hard.

Its more likely due to bad raw GPU code, the cpu stuff is trivial and should already have been done in an engine or proper api layer. Games are just big data grid displays, with massive ram based databases moving about. (no sql)

Id say its due to stupid code not checking pointers for nulls or bad ptr types that look like '4 chars of ascii' or odd addresses.

A game developers opinion

[LordZardoz]

I remember an answer I got to a question about why the PS2 was such a pain in the ass to work with. I suspect that the answer for that applies to the PS3 as well.

The PS1 (which was professionally just before my time) apparently had a library that was easy to work with. After a while, developers kept asking Sony how to do X with the dev libraries, and the answer was generally 'you cannot do that with those libraries'. The best of those developers then just did it the hard way, writing assembly level functions to let them do things that the hardware could do but that the dev libs at the time did not allow for.

This taught Sony that the developers did not want easy to use libraries. They just wanted to have all possible functionality exposed and documented well enough to work with.

The X-Box was designed by a software company that specialized in writing non trivial software applications. So on that platform, you have a great set of developer tools. The PS3 was designed by some very smart hardware engineers. This gives you some great hardware, but its not exactly easy to work with.

END COMMUNICATION

just my opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

the fact is no matter how hard or easy it is to develop on one console or another at least all three companies can say 1 thing...."we got your money" i have all 3 systems and yes my 360 is the console of choice. but what we have to remember is that the ps3 is stil young its big its bulky its like the fat sister of the girl your trying to get. you tolerate her for a little while but never notice her. but when she goes to fat camp and loses a few hundred pounds you'll see that she is actually the one you want to have that all night hot sweaty lan party with lol

Sony strikes again

[kronchev]

This is horrible and highlights what a backwards and, frankly, stupid company Sony has become. They have some of the greatest hardware but refuse to take into consideration either the consumer or apparently the programmer now.

I remember hearing a lot of pre-grumbling from developers that Cell was going to be difficult to develop for, and it looks like that has come true. And to those who say, "so what, they should work harder," consider this: if it's too annoying, what's to stop them from switching development to the 360? Practically nothing. Getting better quality games out faster is better for developers than wrestling and having a bit prettier graphics with twice the development cycle.

And to those of you saying that's not what his comment says, look at it again

"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that (developers) want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?"

That seriously looks like he is suggesting, in fact I think he's outright stating, that they didn't want the best games to come out initially. Thus, there is all possibility that they made things intentionally difficult because they think developers will cater to THEM, that they'll struggle at first and put out initially poor games before "getting a hang of it" and coming out with the best at the end. That is incredibly pig-headed, business-poor, and shows that Sony really doesn't understand how the gaming industry works. People buy the console that has the best games, not the one that might. If PS3 released with the best games the system will ever have, they might have sold more PS3 units than PS2.

Re:Sony strikes again

[tyrantking31]

"People buy the console that has the best games, not the one that might." So is the Nintendo Wii the exception that proves this rule? Because I'm pretty sure Nintendo quit trying to make good games after the Wii launched.

Re:Sony strikes again

[MemoryDragon]

Actually no, last year they brought out disaster day of crisis one of those excellent games no one played!

multi-core makes it hard

[simplerThanPossible]

PS3's Cell is multi-core, which makes it fundamentally hard to program for.

It's failure may foreshadow the failure of multi-core, and instead we go low-power (Wii, eee PC netbooks); or specialized silicon (XBox, GPU, physics co-processor).

Re:Waaa!!! An Actual Dreamcast Fanboy!!! LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

This troll is so old, my grandma thought you were lame for posting it.

Ah Sony.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to love sony. Still have my ps1, still have my many broken ps2's (wich broke more commonly than xbox 360s btw at least for me) have a psp. But this is just retarded. On an open source platform this might induce higher "quality control", but the main difference here is that its not an open platform. Remember those little "Nintendo Seal of Approval" things on the old NES games. Games still have to go through that before Sony or MS allow the game to be stamped with the DRM info that allows the respective console to read the disc and verify it as a legitimate game. All this is doing is putting more time and effort to create the same end product. Or the same time and effort to create an inferior product.

Best example of this

[jgtg32a]

Zone of Enders was realeased damn near launch.

ZOE2 came out about a year before the PS3, and it looks incredible.

Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no correlation between "power" and "hard to develop for".

If it's hard to program for it's because of a flawed architecture or a bad API or both.

Sony, Here is your sign

[aldeav]

Stupid is as stupid does! I remember years back when Texas Instruments came out with their color PC
(that was so long ago, I forget what it was called)
they charged third party developers $50,000.00 for
the privilege of writing software for it. Sony,
please stand up and accept your sign. Like I said,
stupid is as stupid does.

Sega Saturn

[Fifth Earth]

Sega pulled this, deliberately or not, with the Sega Saturn. It was really a pretty powerful piece of hardware, but it's massively parallel architecture and shitty development tools meant it was very hard to work with. Some titles actually ignored entire processors on the motherboard simply because it was too much trouble to integrate them into the code.

Granted this was not the only problem with the Saturn--Sega of America's president also had the business sense of a ponzi scheme victim, but still.

Mod Parent UP

[BCGlorfindel]

"The Cell processor is, well, odd."

Of all the idiotic crap being spouted by little kids this single stupid statement stands out as a perfect example of just what a giant cesspool of bullshit this supposedly technical discussion board is.

Cell is EXACTLY like what every console developer is intimately familiar with, the EE from the PS2. Surprising isn't it? Engines for the PS3 are written almost exactly like engines for the PS2.

This is exactly what I came to reply to myself but you beat me to it. Sorry I don't have mod points to mod you up. I don't see how somebody that's even remotely familiar with console development could say some of the things the grand parent did.

Re:Mod Parent UP

[CronoCloud]

I've said many times that the PS3 take concepts introduced in the PS2 to the "next level". On the Dev level the Cell takes the EE's VU's to the next level. On a consumer level almost every thing the PS3 does, the PS2 did in Japan, the BBN acting as a sort of test market for the PS3's web browser/multimedia features/PSN.

Typical Sony

[ravyne]

In other words, make the system so strange that, initially, devs are totally gimped and over the next decade they'll eventually stumble onto the best-practices, thereby giving the illusion of progress and quieting the masses calls for new hardware. I, for one, would rather have amazing games from the beginning, but getting anything right the first time is clearly not Sony's business model.

In all seriousness though, Sony's platforms have traditionally been the problem-child of each generation with respect to development, except for the original PlayStation, which was downright friendly compared to the Saturn (which was the PS3 of its generation.)

The problem Sony is beginning to see is that early adoption pays compounding interest as the console ages, and to get that early adoption you need impressive games early on, and with relative frequency. They didn't have a real system seller until MGS4, what, 2 years after launch? You also need to be the go-to platform for cross-platform titles, which they have clearly lost out on... In the past, exclusives like Final Fantasy and GTA might have helped shore up the user base, but the economics of game production today don't support exclusivity unless the developer has a vested interest in the success of a particular platform.

Its not that they've put the cart in front of the horse, a strategy that worked out just as planned in the PS2, its that they've put the cart too far in front of the horse.

You use multiple registered accounts here loser

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1147437&cid=27056793 your keeping multiple registered accounts here to mod yourself up with and to harass others with as you have here all week (inclusive of using anonymous coward submissions on your part) don't look too good for you though. That's so sad man, what is wrong with you? Doing it is one thing, but, being stupid enough to get caught admitting it?? Totally stupid and low also. Grow up.