Sony: PS3 is hard to develop for--on purpose
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Sorry, but you're too hard to develop for.
(Credit: Sony)Earlier this week, Shaun Himmerick, executive producer for "Wheelman" and employee at Midway, told the hosts of the "This Xbox Life" podcast that developing for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 couldn't be any different.
"The politically incorrect answer is that the PS3 is a huge pain in the ass," Himmerick told the hosts.
"Anyone making a game, if you're going to make it for both, just lead on the PS3 because if it works on the PS3, it'll work on 360," he said. "We had to play catch-up on the PS3 because of the memory constraints and how it renders; how it processes is just different. And it's harder on the PS3," Himmerick continued.
A slew of well-known developers have spoken out against Sony's high-power console.
Valve's Gabe Newell said in 2007--long before Sony's decline started--that the PlayStation 3 is a "waste of everyone's time." He went on to tell Edge Magazine that "investing in the Cell...gives you no long-term benefits. There's nothing there that you're going to apply to anything else. You're not going to gain anything except a hatred of the architecture they've created. I don't think it's a good solution."
A report in the Dr. Dobb's Journal tested the development process of the PlayStation 3 and found that Sony's console is "difficult to program for." The report's authors went on to explain that "software that exploits the Cell's potential requires a development effort significantly greater than traditional platforms."
I looked for some Sony supporters and found the best source of them all: Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. He can explain this and settle this once and for all, right? Think again.
In one of the most shocking and bizarre comments ever made by a company chief, Hirai, the brains behind the entire PlayStation empire, explained to the Official PlayStation Magazine in its February issue that Sony didn't want to make it easy on developers.
"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?" explained Hirai.
Huh? But his explanation didn't end there.
"So it's a kind of--I wouldn't say a double-edged sword--but it's hard to program for," Hirai continued, "and a lot of people see the negatives of it, but if you flip that around, it means the hardware has a lot more to offer."
I won't debate that the PS3 may have "a lot more to offer," but I do take issue with Sony's justification for it. What good is a powerful console, if developers don't know how to get the most out of it? I simply don't see anything positive about making things too difficult on developers.
The video game industry is unique because hardware makers rely on third parties to be successful. The more games a console has, the more likely people will want it. But if development is too challenging for third parties, I'm hard-pressed to see how that will benefit Sony at all, even though developers can do more with the console.
Developers are looking at the installed bases of consoles. realizing that Microsoft has more units in the wild. Developers want to make their games as appealing as possible to those extra 8 million people. So spending extra time (a luxury most developers don't have) on PS3 development just plain doesn't make sense.
That's precisely why I haven't seen much difference in the games offered on both consoles. Sure, some look better on the PS3, but the difference is minor, and that's the only improvement I can see. I don't think developers are taking the Sony bait and working harder at harnessing the power of Sony's console. The incremental benefit of doing so, at least if we judge by what we've seen so far, simply isn't high enough for developers to follow Sony's plan.
I'm all for powerful consoles and getting the most out of gaming machines, but I don't understand Sony's strategy. Third-party developers are key to a successful gaming generation, and Sony makes it hard on them. And in Hirai's own words, people (ostensibly, developers) are seeing "negatives in it."
That's not good.
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
anyways, i wont even sweat the sale old developers saying the ps3 is too hard to develop for. look as the ps2...i think the same people were saying that, what was it...8 years ago now? I think they do have somewhat of a point, the harder the console is to develop for, the more people start to come up w/ nice tips and tricks for making games for it. i mean, gran turismo 4 looked absolutely stunning when that came out. and that was what...year 5? same with god of war 2...i think that was another year 4-5 release. i dont think there's any other console that has even been in production that had games coming out, 5,6,7, and 8 years later that looked seriously better every year. i was looking at some screen shots for MLB the show for ps3, and they looked amazing.
http://playstation.joystiq.com/photos/mlb-09-the-show-ps2/ check out the screens, and tell me this doesn't look impressive...and for that matter, even better than anything you really find on a much newer and more expensive wii
Basically, a translation of Don and the other lazy developers is... Make the PS3 like every other piece of junk we develop for so we can just churn out our lowest common denominator cr*p and make lots of $ with at little work as possible.
Sounds like the old M$ vs Mac developer story as well. Sony is smart enough to realize you don't need a zillion cr*p titles... you just need a certain number of excellent ones from developers innovative enough to think their way past a spreadsheet.
You are assuming that Don actually knows anything about software or hardware.
First, to get good games, developers need to put in extra effort (than the ones doing cookie-cutter stuff). Making a hum-ho system without extra capabilities just makes that more likely to happen. Maybe Sony wants good stuff developed for the PS3 and doesn't care so much that all the cr*p gets ported over from the lazy developers.
PS3 sales might be lagging a bit, but I'm not sure what this has to do with the quality of the product and games. Do you only buy the most popular stuff? It's kind of like the M$ vs. Apple argument. I buy a computer because it is the best at what I want it to do, not because it is winning a popularity contest. The only reason popularity is important, is so that titles get developed. PS3 has PLENTY of market share for that to happen.
So, I guess my question to you is..... what is wrong with the current PS3? I think Sony, through designing a superior product, is hoping to further spur gaming to something new. Now they just have to drag the developers, kicking and screaming, along into the future. All you have to do is look at some of the titles developed for the PS3 exclusively to see what can be done. If it was so hard... how did those developers manage?
"So, I guess my question to you is..... what is wrong with the current PS3?"
Needs about twice as much memory. Other than that, it is great.
The fan. I love my ps3, games and blue-ray in one machine?great, but I hate the fan noise. Mine is quiet for the first 10 or 15 minutes of use, then the fan kicks in and greatly diminishes the experience. I have a great home theater set up and having the noisy fan kick in sucks. The unit sits vertically is in a large closet right now next to the TV in my bedroom so it gets plenty of ventilation. Even with the closet door closed it's like watching TV while someone uses a hair dryer in the next room.
@ mouseclick - first, xboxes aren't $100 to $200 less. For a similarly equipped unit (to the base PS3), the xbox costs about the same (the Elite model)... the others don't compare.... and even the Elite doesn't have the BluRay player of the PS3 plus some of its other hardware. Also, in typical M$ fashion, they hit you with extra charges for their 'service'... so your total cost over a few years of play is considerably higher than a PS3.
Remember, that the PS2 lost money as well when the console was first released. This time is a bit more drastic.. and you're right about the economy concerns. However, Sony couldn't have known about the economy when designing the PS3, and while the progression to making profit might be slower this time, I'm sure they will eventually get there. The real profit for this kind of thing is typically in the software... similar with computers.
Kinda ironic, too... Sega Saturn's library suffered largely due to the complexity of developing on their platform, compared to the much more developer-friendly Playstation. Now, Sony's got the nightmare platform, and the historically overbearing Nintendo and corporate monolith Microsoft are the developer-friendly platforms? Whoda thunk it?
If my response was insulting in any way... it was so because there is truth to it (maybe they aren't talented enough to develop a good title for the PS3.... notice I did say 'assuming' not that they weren't talented.... in that case they were just silly for listening to a stupid publisher). And, if what they wrote is their way of thinking, telling them to wake up is reality, not as much insult as advice.
PS3=best titles? No
Does it have Halo: no
does it have Crysis: No
whoops!
AdelheidBernstein
offered an insight into the industry,
are you a dev steve? if not, kindly stop your fanboyism
Not another Halo Fanboy. For the nth time Halo is not that perfect FPS that no other game can be mentioned in the same breath. How the fanboys can get all giddy with playing a FPS with the freaking controller is beyond me. Even ignoring that, Halo is repetitive, and 2 and 3 just reinforce that.
And Crysis did NOT come out on the 360 either. The game got mediocre review all around because it's viewed as the way to get the developer to show off their technical prowess, and little else. Not like anyone who owns a PS3 is missing much anyway...
Yes 360 has some great games( Lost Odyssey comes to mind), but just because PS3 doesn't have Halo and Crysis doesn't mean squat to a lot of gamers. Not everyone likes another freaking rehash of the tired-o FPS, especially having to endure it using a controller.
If you actually want to see new, innovative games, that are not simply new stories, implementing the most recent state-of-the-art graphics engine, well-known, easy-to-program platforms are your best bet.
Miniclips.com has more original titles than the entirey PS3-portfolio. The PS3 has only even attempted to impress in terms of graphics. And now, these great programmers can spend the next couple of years attempting to reduce CPU stall cycles by another 2% to allow for a few more polygons, thereby allowing Killzone 3 to look slightly better than Killzone 2 (but with the same seen-before gameplay)..
What's wrong with the PS3 you ask repeatedly? Well, how did you manage to get this far without noticing the issue at heart? It's hard to program for!
You only want your 10 great titles? There's 10 great titles for Xbox360. Heck, there's 10 great titles for Game Boy classic!
There's 100's of great games for PC though, since it's so accessible.
Quite simply, the only hard thing with Cell IS Timing.
I've looked over it, i've played around with virtual environments, it isn't *that* hard.
People who have gotten over the initial hurdles of Cell have came back and said they loved the thing and that it was easy.
There is a slight initial hurdle, no denying it, mainly to do with the jump from PPE to SPE, and jobs, but once that is done, it is just back to the same old timing problems.
If anything, i'd say Cell is even easier than Emotion Engine, i still can't get my head around that, due to it requiring Assembly, which i just haven't gotten around to learning yet.
Also, i laugh at Gabe, who even listens to him any more?
Coming from Valve, who created Source, possibly the worst engine ever, the amount of bugs in that thing boggles the mind... optimization sure isn't known around Valve... (don't even get me started on Hammer)
To summarize: PS3 > PS2 in development.
I do find what you say you find difficult to be confusing considering Assembly isn't difficult at all, just very long and tedious ( a += b on a PC is four instructions on its own including memory transfer). Comparatively, handling seven simultaneous threads in an optimal "no thread is waiting for any other longer than is absolutely necessary" fashion is much more complicated.
Cell can be programmed with using higher level languages. And since optimization in compilers has been improved massively over the years, the differences between them are growing very small.
But yes, i must admit, it can be a headache to get timing right, it always is.
Although i'd still rather be given a challenge than have something handed to me and end up producing something that just looks like everything else (specifically speaking about UE3 here, so many people used it and never even bothered adding to it...)
Sony were a bit at fault though, even though they did have the devkits out before release, it wasn't enough time, and considering it was a massive architecture change, even worse on them.
Then when you consider MS, they are a software company, they know how to do all the SDK stuff, they know some tricks. Sony will learn... or fail, hopefully not fail though, because then it would be Nintendo and MS, less competition = bad times.
The situation with the PS3 is a bit like having had some more proficient programmers write the classes while the juniors just used them and now everyone, including the newest junior, is having to write their own classes. Maybe give them a few more years experience and they'd be able to hack it but the phrase 'baptism of fire' seems appropriate.
One of the strengths of a good SDK (and one of the reasons I've always loved C/C++) is that it's made supremely easy on the surface but when you do need to get into the guts of it you can. Sony failed on this in the previous incarnation with the requirement for Assembly (being able to use it inline when I want is great, having it forced on me is just unpleasant). Whether they've failed again is not something I can judge but profiling and performance measurement tools have a lot of impact on this and I can't help but wonder if the tools available are not lacking in some way.
I was a big Sony guy, and after a year of nothing but the PS3 I couldn't take it anymore... the exclusives are far and few between and quite frankly aren't anything that stands above the 360. The online isn't comparable to LIVE by a long shot and the 360 has Netflix and more HD movies in their own movie service.....
I keep my PS3 for bluray and the occasional exclusive, that's it.
Seriously - developing for the PS3 is a waste. Harder to develop to get a "better" game. Social integration - just better on the 360. Interface on the 360 = better. Another point... develop for 360 - get a whole market for the PC... It just makes better sense here if you are a developer.
I'll give the 360 the edge in games. But given everthing else, I'm just not interested in wasting my time or money on the Xbox franchise anymore. The PS3 is not the greatest console. Sony is too corporate beancounter in their mentality to actually let it live up to it's potential. It's just better than the competition. That doesn't take much.
Sega could make a comeback in this environment.
As for games.... again, is more better? Sure there are more titles for the Xbox, but I'd argue with better.
I'm no programmer, no developer or any other software engineer, but release a new, easier toolset, so more of the software does the hardwork for the developers.
Think of today's operating systems, all we do is click, drag and drop with the mouse, but immense data is being processed every second beneath the software layers. (I was speaking allegorically, I'm sure the current toolkits include clicking, dragging and dropping too). Try to accomplish that sense of comfort for the developers and more awesome games will come easily.
Am I simplifying things too much?
But i do agree with your statement on making it do the hardwork.
Generally, from what i have heard and seen, most base engines tend to follow certain rules, regardless of architecture.
Have that already done to save developer headaches, then more will flow towards developing.
Sadly, just like all industries, people just want things to be done, routine, no experimentation, nothing, just do it and get it out. Sad times...
The economic crisis was caused by short-term thinking in the markets, businesses, government, and average person. Unless that kind of thinking is corrected, they can spend as much 'stimulus' as they want and it will only be a band-aid lifting us for an even higher fall when it happens.
do you even program? I know how to code for PC, not for console, but it should be similar
ease of use, least to greatest on the computer
x86asm-c-c++
code for hello world in c++
#include <iostream>
int main() {
std::cout<< "hello world";
}
in asm
section .text
global _start
_start:
mov edx,len ;third argument: message length
mov ecx,msg ;second argument: pointer to message to write
mov ebx,1 ;first argument: file handle (stdout)
mov eax,4 ;system call number (sys_write)
int 0x80 ;call kernel
;and exit
mov ebx,0
mov eax,1
int 0x80
section .data
msg db "Hello, world!",0xa
len equ $ - msg
that much longer, if it doesn't assemble/work right, remember that I'm writing this really quickly
I'm assuming that Sony requires devs to write games in some form of asm or something equally hard
I remember when C, and the others came out. It was best described as "If you take the worst parts of COBOL, ForTran, and Assembly what you would get was C!" A much better programming language was PL/I. The problem was it was conceived, developed and sponsored by IBM. Since it was IBM it was used on IBM operating systems. Programming languages back then were sponsored by the government not companies. As such it didn't get the accolades that it should have. If PL/I had been a government proposed and sponsored language as all those accepted in its day PL/I would be what you would be utilizing today instead of C due to its ease of use. But due to its limited availablity it is now only utilized in ever smaller growing circles.
For those of you needing interpretation here. Microsoft is now the government and IBM is being played by SONY here. Microsoft has the power to sponsor, conceive and promote whatever they want, at least at this time.
I have taught programmers in my 30+ year career of making my living writting PL/I, ForTran and Assembly. Like my personal focus, I tried to teach them how to program with a proficiency aimed at use and not at speed of programming. Most programmers rebeled at the idea of writing five lines of code to save the smallest fractions of a second others saw the wisdom in it. Those that saw the wisdom in it, ended up writting code for real time programs that really had to work in real time in military applications like oh say jets streaking along at a real Mach 3. Those that didn't wrote code for paychecks, 1040s and other single focus tasks that didn't require that abstract type of thinking.
The point is some of the developers probably are lazy. Some are afraid of the challenge. Still others are learning new things that make them more valuable in a time of economic crisis. I want to keep the guys that are learning the new things because when the crisis is over I want my game company to be poised not for today but for the future.
Speed the real killer in programming.
Exactly! And this is primarily what is being complained about here.... Sony didn't go with the M$ 'standards'. If it weren't for the Xbox, these same developers would be happily developing for and raving about the capabilities of the PS3. They don't want to develop for the PS3, they want to port.
It's well known that ever increasing competition drives the best of games companies to excel on the consoles and even with the easiest development kits it takes a good five years for any company to know the hardware well enough to really be able to pull off something spectacular (with the exception of the Wii which is almost identical to the GameCube).
Only a complete idiot would genuinely believe that making console development harder is a good thing.
Thankyou Mr. Hirai. You have officially turned the PS3 into the Caviar of the developers world. You know, Caviar, the disgusting fish eggs that upper middle-class idiots buy and eat to impress other upper middle-class idiots because some genius with a lot of byproduct to get rid of managed to seed the idea that only a philistine could not appreciate them? "Oh, they're hideous, but so expensive, it must just be my uncultured tongue. I can't possibly admit that I'm uncultured."
I can see it now, The Caviar of Consoles!
:)
"The politically incorrect answer is that the PS3 is a huge pain in the ***."
I'm really not sure what to make of Hirai's comment. I know that Gears of War one only used one of the three cores in the 360, and I don't know how far they've come since then.
yes, most games are optimized for 360 and simply ported to PS3 and scaled up for PC
And really, what the other commenters were taking about wasn't resolution as much as additional texture detail, expanded content, and so forth.
a $130 to $150 card would beat the crap out of any console
and I can build a PC that kicks console butt for $500
@ pithenumber - I'd like to see your parts list... I don't believe it. Plus, a PS3 or xbox is only about $400. I think the graphics card and equivalent CPU power would cost you that much alone.
The only problem was that they didn't take the current video game software architectures and programming patterns into account. So, instead of producing an architecture that supported the existing ways that developers knew how to code games, they addressed the problem by creating entirely different models of game programming. These new models are documented in IBM white papers on the cell technology.
Thing is, nobody wants to change the way they think about developing games, and many people still try to develop games using their past models. When they use their existing development patterns on the PS3, they are essentially leaving huge performance gains on the table.
And, if you're trying to do a cross-platform game, forget about it. For top performance, the PS3 really requires that you structure your program design of your game differently from the Xbox and Wii. The same techniques used on one family are not applicable to the other if you want to get maximum performance on every platform.
So, the developers say that the PS3 platform is too hard and the hardware engineers say that the developers need to think and program differently.
Who is right? Well, if the PS3 was the only game console in town, developers would be forced to learn a whole new way of game development. It would be the price of entry into the market. And it's probably what the cell processor engineers were counting on. But you currently have a situation where the two market leading consoles (Wii and Xbox) use the older model of programming, and developers don't want to learn a new way of doing things if they don't have to, and their existing game engine libraries work fine, so no one wants to change. And you can't blame them because there is actually greater financial incentive to stay with the current model.
by swiggins February 28, 2009 3:55 PM PST
I was a big Sony guy, and after a year of nothing but the PS3 I couldn't take it anymore... the exclusives are far and few between and quite frankly aren't anything that stands above the 360. The online isn't comparable to LIVE by a long shot and the 360 has Netflix and more HD movies in their own movie service.....
I keep my PS3 for bluray and the occasional exclusive, that's it.
It is clear those that think what the Sony CEO said as being 'wise' are indeed misinformed or lacking any form of business acumen. Even if what he said was good from an 'innovation' point of view (which i disagree with purely because it relies on a 'good' game being pased on good graphics which is simply not the case - simplicity always allows for more creativity as the attention is properly focused on what matters most. Tech is not what matters most) it is NOT good from a public perception point of view and as the representative of the organisation he is doing them a disservice.
In addition, really, why would you honestly believe Sony gives a crap about innovation? It is Sony!! My god, this is one of the worst organisations ethically in the world. The CEO was being honest for the first time in a long while - they made the PS3 hard to develop for for one reason: to stop 3rd parties developing for it easily. This way they can monopolise some games but also force 3rd party organisations to be pressured into inadequate terms and conditions.
I agree with you that just having better graphics doesn't make for a good game. But, I hope you would also admit that just putting new characters in another FPS engine with some different environment textures doesn't make a good game either. I can't stress enough how many of the 'popular' titles (which are often by the big studios, on multi-platforms.... and probably the ones complaining here...) are pretty dismal. Also, I don't think it is a bad thing that Sony wants to keep some quality control on the games for the PS3. If you have a great system but a lot of garbage content for it, it doesn't make it look good. But, I think that is a bit aside from what is being talked about in this article.
My concern is relating to a) Sony being an innovative/"good" organisation - they are just as "evil" as M$ (i am loathed to use good/evil at the risk of using value terms, but you get the idea); b) classing good games as just being pretty (as it can actually cause the above problem you so rightly pointed out - oo it is a new game - my response, no it is shinier but not at all new); and c) the business argument that the article was pointing out. The article talked about this not making business sense, and the CEO's comment did not make good business sense for reasons I've mentioned in other posts and won't bore you with again as you clearly understand where I'm coming from (not being patronising/sarcastic here, your responses are obviously thought out).
Hard to Code does not equal More Capability.
If you want to talk about lazy developers, then talk about the developers behind the coding platforms, who COULD make the basic guts of the hardware more easily accessible (that is make the platform easier to code for), but haven't.
The Atari 2600 was a relatively easy machine to code for. And yet, even at the twilight of it's life programmers were developing new and innovative ways to push the maximum of the machines capabilities.
@ medezark - "There's a difference between having a platform which is difficult to progran, and having a platform that has unplumbed depths of capability. The two are not linked. I think that's the point you are consistently missing."
Umm.... I'm not sure what posts of mine you are reading. Have I ever said anything remotely like that? What I've said is that the PS3 is NOT hard to code for.... and DOES have more capacity. Two separate statements.
The PS3 uses a simplified set of OpenGL and a variation of the C programing language. I'm not sure why this is so 'hard'. Maybe some developer can explain this to us... as I'm not a developer. I'm just reading articles by developers. The just of them (ones saying it is hard) seems to be 'hard' = not so easy and quick to port, or not exactly the same as what we're used to doing for the PC and XBox environment, whereas the PS3 developers are saying it isn't hard at all, just a bit different way (and arguably better way).
The Atari 2600 is an interesting example for you to select... as it is programmed in assembly (though many tools were developed to avoid having to do this). Atariage has this to say... "But be warned! Programming the Atari 2600 is a lesson in patience, as it is unlike programming any other console!"
Sony is failing here and only an idiot like you would defend that.
Give me a simple way to send a self-aware object for rendering through the pipeline in as few lines of code as possible, and get the development tools to apply the very best practices for me automatically, and we'll already be far ahead. Less lines, more power.
That's why I agree with viper396: you simply have no idea what you are talking about. But I hear that it is fashionable these days to request people to "white knuckle it" and "get off their ass", without actually considering whether the castigated are already doing it (my guess is that you don't work 12 hour days, do you ? You are posting this at 4:36 PM, 24 minutes before what's probably the end of your business day), and perhaps doing it a lot more than you are. I'm sure that feels good to you, but without a clear understanding of who and what you are dealing with you are one giant step away from ever being in a position to issue orders. So get cracking and clue up; chop chop !
I think your job sucks so you like to act like you could be the boss of someone. It's compensation.
Recession trolls are so lame.
I know exactly what type of programmer you are. If you run into something complex, and I am sure that simple things like threads and recursion are challenging for you, and there isn't something you can just plug into your spaghetti code to do it you give up because you can't write your own tools and libraries.
People like you are the reason that software is such a mess today.
I'm curious though, why you believe the on-line community and stuff is so much better on xbox. I've played xbox at friends, and had fun... but I'm not sure why you would think the xbox is much better.
I'm not really a fan-boy of either.... though I tend to hate M$ for other things... so that weighed into my decision. I also really think Sony's long-term strategy for hardware is a better idea. But, I tend to buy what I think the best product is... which in this case, is why I went with Sony. I really don't care much for anything else Sony makes.
14m users on xbl
vs the 1-2m psn
serious i have to wait 5-15mins for a FULL game and usually we have 3vs 5 on COD 4 if we're lucky
and i have a PS3 with COD 4 and MGS 4 only reason i got ps3 was bluray movies and mgs 4 but to keep my nephew and my mother's bf happy i bought 1 action game COD 4 (no he hates mgs 4 too high tech)
my nephew has a xbox 360 with COD 4 oh and we actually pay for his xbox live account
guess what is used more online or even locally?
my xbox 360 with COD 4 it is far easier to games online and there is far less lag most content for psn for new games isn't free where you do get alot of addon map packs from xbox live
halo 3 what else GOW 1-2
Exactly! These devs are lazy as hell. Every ps3 exclusive looks and performs so much better then the 360 exclusives. MGS4, Killzone2, uncharted, heavy rain. Maybe it was a mistake for Sony to take this route, expecting devs to make great games instead of the crap they have been putting out since MS entered the game. I guess we shouldn't expect devs to create the best.
until Sony gives devs better tools, not going to happen
olok at my comparison of x86asm to C++ earlier on the comments, that about the difference between ps3 tools and those of the other guys
Why are you afraid of it?
Sometime inline assembly is the way to get something done properly. Sometimes you can do it in a fun, but brain dead language like Java, Ruby, or Python.
I don't think they write code in x86asm, but it prolly is as hard, actually they can't write code in x86asm since PS3 doesnt have an x86 processor
the PS3 devs get sucky tools and a hard language, the rest of the devs get good tools and an easy language, I would code for xBox if I had a choice between that and PS3
I'm not afraid of asm, its just long and tedious, a bit of inline assembly is good to get things done that otherwise would have not been possible, but coding in all assembly is just torture
@ viper396 - I don't think Sony many the PS3 intentionally hard... but they intentionally paid more attention to capabilities than making it compatible with Xbox for easy porting. There is a big difference here... and what this whole argument is about. The multi-platform developers would like to write in their M$ environment, which can run on Xbox and PCs, and then have an easy port to the PS3. They are upset because Sony went their own direction, making the porting aspect harder. While that is a fair gripe... it is not the same as saying the PS3 is hard to develop for.
I think what the Sony CEO is saying is that Sony made the decision to give dedicated developers a more powerful tool, at the expense of all the developers who wanted compatibility. They made this decision because the dedicated programers write better games in general... so Sony realized this would mean better titles that they do have, and less of the junk. IMO, this was a very wise decision. If you're needing to play all the sub-standard junk, you're probably right then in getting an Xbox. If not, then you should make your choice based on the titles you most want to play. For me, that was clearly the PS3, as Halo is the only game I care about on Xbox, where on PS3, I love Warhawk, Burnout Paradise, Gran Turismo series, etc..... and if I have to choose between Halo and Warhawk... no contest! After you've put several hundred hours into Halo and still can't get enough of it, let me know.
If we understand what MS has done with the 360 and XBL platform, is what MS has always done, recycled old tech and branded it new. XBL is simply windows messenger sitting atop networking stack and then they tied avatars to it. It was lacking in organization, so they relaunched recently to much acclaim, but its awfully similar now to competitors from Apple and Sony's media management.
Can i sum this all up, its simple quite frankly, devs are lazy. The same argument was used when the iPhone was first launched, why didn't you write it in Java? or C/++/# or something else other than this different thing than we have to learn. An lo and behold, for the people that took the time and learned and used guidelines, they have created successful apps and the iPhone is an unrivaled success. In a business where its all about flooding the stores with console titles, the 360 and Wii are flooded with hundreds, literal hundreds of CRAP titles. There arent hundreds of crap titles for the PS3, simply because they arent that many devs willing to lear, and develop to properly harness the environment.
If someone asked you to learn Fongbe or Adja (used in Benin, West Africa) to write all of your essays for the next ten years, would you not complain? If the audience really cared about the eloquence of your words, would you really use your second language? If you knew that you would be asked to learn yet another language within ten years, and be held to an even higher standard in that language, would you ever really consider that if you could write your essays in English?
Asked these questions, anyone would stick with their first language. The audience for videogames is a discerning one, it rewards quality and punishes stupidity more and more. Sony is effectively asking developers to learn new languages with every generation. Given the choice, *I* would develop for their competitors.
Programming languages are considerably simpler then natural languages.
I like how you credit Microsoft at taking things from Sony and Apple's media management - get serious dude. Microsoft was doing MediaCenter long before Apple and Sony was doing iTune and their WMC wanna be product and Sony's useless system in the PS3. Microsoft re-developed the blade system to organize content more effectively. Microsoft partnered with Netflix to offer content streaming with the number one video rental service in the world. Why should I go down to the movie store and rent a blu-ray or buy a movie from iTunes when I can easily get a low cost subscription and get access to thousands of streaming titles - many in HD.
Quite frankly, this is not about being lazy - it's about being SMART with the money you spend... especially now days. Companies are in business to make money. Speaking of crap titles on the Xbox versus the PS2 (only a generation ago...) PS2 had all the great titles - the Xbox had the better hardware. Microsoft effectively switched places with Sony - beating them at their own game but also creating a better online experience.
Sorry man - your one sided fan boy and "any thing but Microsoft" stance does not hold water in the real world. Fantasy land can be on that 4D PS3 - leave the real gaming and all the TONS of titles on the 360.
Outside of that... the PS3 is simply Awesome! I have no regrets for buying one... use it way more than I did my PS2.
- by sting7k February 28, 2009 6:37 PM PST
- I know what you do with the other 9.5 years, MAKE MORE AND BETTER GAMES. Damn Sony is crazy.
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- by yiang March 2, 2009 8:43 AM PST
- I agree 100000% but Sony wants the PS3 to be more than a gaming system. What that is, I don't know; nor does sony apparently.
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