Comments on: Sony: PS3 is hard to develop for--on purpose

The Japanese electronics powerhouse is making it hard on developers to create games for the PlayStation 3, and believe it or not, the company is fine with that.

[Zerias]

actually, Microsoft has LESS consoles in the wild that Sony. Remember that whole "Red Ring of Death" fiasco? Remember when Internal numbers from Microsoft indicated that well over 60% of Xbox 360's were failing off the assembly line, and all of the Pre-Jasper chips were known for warped motherboards, broken power supplies, and so on? Remember how long it took Microsoft to admit there was a problem, then the huge write-off to repair and replace consoles? Then the sudden rocket-like sales of the Core system after the price drop? The reality is, Microsoft's total user-base worldwide is less than the Playstation 3, but because Microsoft has deliberately obscured just how bad the Xbox 360 failure problem is, many news sites simply pick up the latest sales numbers and treat those as gold... when those sales numbers are not indicating replacement consoles on warrenties and problems that Microsoft never honored.

[killerchris2k8]

So we have to take your word for it?

[darkr]

lol 60% where did you get that number?

its was 33% lol

[darkr]

oh tell that to the 10s millions of current xbL users

[Inconnux]

Sony is bleeding cash with every PS3 made. They can't afford to drop the price at the risk of losing more money.

Developing games for the PS3 has been made overly difficult. Xbox360 development is just a version of DirectX so developers can release games for Xbox and PC with little effort. DirectX is also quite mature at this point so there isn't a huge learning curve. Perhaps Sony should make a SDK based on OpenGL or some other industry standard. Right now Sony is completely out of touch with reality

Sony has to rethink its strategy... put the PS3 out to pasture and start developing an affordable PS4. Sony, Japanese for 'too damned expensive'

[oneforce]

Well, regardless of whether Don Reisinger said it perfectly (to your standard) or not, you still need to respect and listen to what he's trying to say. I've read most of his articles and he's not afraid to say the truth whether it's popular or not. This article obviously doesn't sit well with the Sony fan boys. I've owned and wore out every game console ever made, so I'm not afraid to try any that come out. However, all bias aside, I must admit the XB360 on XBL is a far superior online gaming experience to anything Sony has now or will have in the conceivable future. No one knows what gaming will look like 5 years from now, all we know is what is available today, which is Sony has failed. Their online gaming experience is disappointing. They seem unprepared. Sony either doesn't care what their online experience is for users or they don't know how to make it better.

It's not surprising that Sony is losing more and more market share every day. At this point, they're so far behind they'll NEVER catch up - and they continue to head in the wrong direction. As stated in many recent articles game developers are switching-over and focusing on developing games for the XB360 on XBL. Only a handful of hard-core Sony developers are planning Sony-only titles for the future - which is certainly not enough to win market share.

You may not agree with Don Reisinger (or me) and that's fine. But there's a very good reason why we're all reading articles about game development for PS3 instead of owning a company developing a game for it or actually designing and developing a game for it. It's because none of us have the required combination of ambition, skills, experience and business insight. Don Reisinger writes with the business 'logic' insight to tell the 'truth' (business sense) which ultimately dictates the eventual market result(s).

A superior cell CPU architecture does NO good in the consumer market if (a) user's think "cell" means a phone, and (b) it's difficult to harness and/or it deviates too far (in development terms) from the accepted 'popular' platform.

Every football team no matter how good (or bad), eventually fumbles the ball - sometimes at a critical moment. Apparently, Sony has fumbled here by creating a superior cell CPU architecture that can't easily be utilized by game developers. It's like putting a big rear spoiler on a front-wheel drive car - useless! This whole discussion boils down to one point:

Why would any game developer invest more $ in development of a game for a less popular platform that harder to use? Especially if the game sells for the same amount? It just doesn't make any sense.

[SteveW928]

Don Reisinger and insight... have you not heard of an oxymoron? The guy writes these articles to stir the pot and get lots of hits and responses. I doubt he is as stupid as he appears in these articles... but I'm not sure I'd use insight to describe him. LOL. About as much insight as a turnip.

[SteveW928]

@ oneforce - "Why would any game developer invest more $ in development of a game for a less popular platform that harder to use? Especially if the game sells for the same amount? It just doesn't make any sense."

It is called basic business logic. Lets use a simple example. Say there are 2M xboxes and 1M PS3s. Developer A cookie-cutters out a multi-platform title and gets 10% of the total 3M.... or 300k sales. Lets say Developer B writes a really excellent hit title for the PS3 only, and sells to 40% of the PS3 user base... or 400k sales. Also, the PS3 title which is actually good could stay at a higher pricing for longer because people don't dump it as quickly, so the game store channels aren't full of used copies a month later..... and if the game is good, down the road, gamers recommend it to their friends, as opposed to a bunch of initial 'excitement' sales that quickly die off (what happens with most of the 'hot' titles that are all marketing fluff).

[pithenumber]

@Steve
following what you said
devs should make PC games
TF2, hl, CS:source/1.6 are still being sold
and WoW was a hit and still is a hit

this is how your story should go
2m xbox, 1m ps3
dev makes excellent game for xbox, hits 40 of its users for 800k sales, the "cookie cutters" it to ps3 10% buy it for a total of 900k sales

[SteveW928]

@ pithenumber - If that is true, it only shows that PS3 uses have better taste in games than xbox users... wait a minute... you might have a point there. ;o)

[brian.lee]

I think the PS3 has more staying power in terms of hardware longevity than Xbox 360. I don't like the way Microsoft does things and Xbox and Xbox 360 were good examples Xbox users were just test subject. Same goes for Microsoft Zune it's dead in the water right now and the only reason Microsoft is back porting features to first generation Zune is because the don't want to **** off users.

Another excellent example The new 360 interface redesign it's a complete revamp of the UI why? because they didn't do a good job on the initial release it was confusing. Sony's interface is simple and well thought out which is why they haven't had to scrap and rewrite it. The only exception is the online store, but even the new online store isn't that far off from the current one.

[jessiethe3rd]

Sorry... Zune is not dead in the water. I know the iPod's rule the market but I'm enjoying my Zune with a music subscription program that allows me to download almost unlimited music plus 10 free DRM-free downloads a month. The thing about MSFT is when they don't get it right they listen to users, watch the market, try again. They don't rest - they keep developing. Something that Sony just does not do well - they are a hardware a media company - not a software company. Sorry - Netflix integration? Seriously Sony is just sleep walking the whole subscription media idea to sell more blu-ray.

If you watch Microsoft and it's strategy around hardware you'll notice they are all about upgrades to current software (look no further than their strategy on Windows Mobile devices... upgrades are usually readily available if it wasn't for the OEM hardware manu trying to prevent you from upgrading...)

This comment is ridiculous - Microsoft is constantly changing their product and re-inventing - no one gets it right the first time around. hate software development not a company trying to get better by listening to consumers and delivering a better product.

[martusfine1]

Hi all, I was a die-hard Sony fan (PS1, PS2, PSP) and I have to say that Sony screwed themselves with this particular generation of consoles. I'm not saying good games are coming out, of course every console has one or two good titles. My issue is that Sony has taken everything the first two were known for and seemed to toss it out the window.

1- backwards compatibility. The nexus of this idea is Sony, so let's toss it out for no good reason!

2- Ingenuity- Sure there are good games, but Xbox is allowing for homebrew games to be released on the Xbox live. That's some awesome console goodness of ideas there. I get it has a blueray, but with Hulu, netflix, etc, sometimes people will sacrifice quality for FREE, especially in this economy.

3- Forgetting why the PS3 exists...GAMES! It seems Sony is trying to create a experience (ie, home, multi-platform programming {Psp and PS3), instead of experiences through game playing. Let's keep the main thing the main thing....GAMES!

4- Finally, brand loyalty is falling like a house of cards. Please here me out, sure MS is all about MS, but it seems that with xbox, they took the market strategy of sony a few years ago, blew off the dust, and make it their own, while Sony decides to do something else and now I think MS has taken the lead.

I know the WII is destroying the market regarding units, but the damn thing is a fad and we'll just leave it at that. For one, Sony was doing the whole "eye game" way before nintendo, and what the heck has nintendo produced that's on par with sony or ms regarding emotional and thought provoking gaming?

[screamapillar]

I don't have a nintendo but even I can acknowledge they have created a niche for themselves first of all by concentrating only on games/game consoles and secondly in doing something other game companies hadn't done before. Some had done things close (particularly PC) but the WI is an original concept (granted, not as original as some of us here know but still, original in terms of the market in general). It is also doing really good things for people like getting them off their fat rear-ends. The new nintendo system proved that the best graphics isn't necessarily what makes the best game (imo the new nintendo has the worst graphics of the 3 platforms) BUT it is still a good and unique concept that is achieving due to that. People are bored of the same old crud.

[DocNo42]

Steve - can you at least try to not be such a blatant apologist?

Average PS 3 owner owns 3 games:

http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2009/01/playstation-3-attach-rates-ties-the-wii.html

(wow, proud that they have just now tied the Wii)

Average 360 owner owns 8 games:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xbox-360-attach-rate-grows-to-8-1-titles

(was looking for the more neutral NPD article but couldn't find it and don't feel like googling some more for someone who probably won't try to comprehend it anyway)

Sony's strategy for the PS3 was doubly flawed. Forcing blue-ray hiked up the hardware cost and drove the console cost up to twice that of their nearest competitor. Sony still looses money while MS and Nintendo are both in the black (and Nintendo was from day one).

On the developer front, their hubris that they could force developers to totally re-think how to program games backfired after their stratospheric console price compared to the competition killed their sales, making the platform even less appealing for a developer to really spend the effort to learn how to program. Cost for optimized development is too high.

Video games, at the end of the day, are a business and it's all about managing costs.

I own a PS3 (with a 360), but I will own two to three games, at most - it's mostly a BlueRay player for me. The online experience is horrible. I have MGS4. In order to play it online, I have to make 2 new accounts in addition to my PS3 account, one for Konami, one for MGS4. Then I have to deal with their crappy servers. Compared to Halo on live where I just sign in and play the game.

Oh, as for the Live subscription - Costco has the year subscription cards for $30 right now. I would get one, but I am already paid up a year in advance from the last Amazon sale where I paid - you guessed it - $30. Well worth it for a unified experience that just works. Wow - "that just works" - not a phrase I'm used to using with Microsoft, but it's true - Live works very well and is heads and shoulders above everyone else (and no, It's not just MSN chat with a pretty dashboard - freaking fanboys).

Developers that don't want to spend the time to unnecessarily learn the ins and out's of Sony's obtuse architecture aren't being lazy - they are being fiscally responsible. Unfortunately, Sony is now on the downhill slide of the value hill. They missed their peak (releasing late, overly expensive and expensive to develop for) and it will be interesting to see if they can at least tread water, never mind falling further behind.

[SteveW928]

@ DocNo42 - umm.... so if it matters so much how many titles each owner buys.... then why is the Wii only tied with Sony in that criteria, but ahead of both M$ and Sony by a huge margin? What matters is that there is enough market-share, of which a percentage will buy your title to justify the development. I've heard these market-share arguments for years, no make that decades, concerning the Macintosh and how it was doomed to failure because of it. Nonsense!

Re: Blu ray... Sony is a big company with more than the PS3 on its mind. It is likely that Blu ray won the format wars because of the PS3. What is that worth to Sony? Also, I doubt the actual drive mechanism costs much more to Sony these days than would a drive of some other format (what was it, like $100 when the PS3 was first released... my guess is like $30 or less now since you can buy a Blu Ray player retail for $150 or less.)

Re: on-line... I'm not sure why you are going through so much issues with MGS4... maybe some problem with that game? I play Warhawk, Gran Turismo, Burnout Paradise and others on-line all the time, and it is easy peasy. I'm not sure how it could be more simple.

Re: Sony making it.... I guess we'll see. In the mean time, I'll enjoy playing my games and doing all the other things I do with my PS3. If xbox ever has some game I just need to play, I might get one of those too... and cross my fingers it doesn't break.

[princebrey]

Sony has a good point there. Developers nowadays are now being lazy on programs that lets them to develop easily that's why when they encounter new innovations with hard programming approach, they get irritated and dont want to try to take advantage what this new innovAtion has. Developer's must not be get used of the as easy as possible approach. Developer's must take the challenge sony offer's for them. a great developer doesnt need to back down this challenge sony is giving to them.

[Rants&Raves]

Then go buy a Mac and expect people to write great games for it too; when none comes you can start smugly judging the work and motivations of people you know nothing about, and that'll make you feel real good. You still won't have many games, and you'll have bought the wrong gaming platform, but feeling good will have been achieved.

[screamapillar]

I have to say that calling a dev 'lazy' just because Sony has placed massive barriers to use their platform is ignorant at best. There are MANY demands on the devs. Please consider that coding isn't the only part of developing a game - well if you want a good game that is.

[BtmnHatesRbn]

I'm so glad $ony still has faith in their version of the Atari 5200.

[robvme]

Sony's comments were not well articulutated, but what I think they were getting at is investing in a system that would attract the elite game developer that would put the time and effort into leveraging the platform over the long run. Not a bad idea to go after an elite corps dedicated to the ins and outs of the PS3, its just that the other consoles beat them to market and that kind of kills that strategy. I wouldn't attribute this to "lazy" developers as some of the posts put it. It is about cranking out great titles for the biggest audience possible.

Couple this with the fact that there was a period of uncertainity, now resolved, around Blu-Ray vs HD DVD, the high cost, at least initially, for the PS3 platform, and you have a hat trick for the slow adoption by both consumers and developers to invest in the system.

I don't own a PS3 yet, but I did have a PS2 and I enjoyed it for a long time. Sony's strategy just isn't working for them, not because the PS3 is not a great machine, but because of various internal factors to Sony as well as external consumer behaviors that Sony has not been able to orchestrate in its favor this go around.

I love the Xbox 360 and the online game play, I have played games on the PS3 and thought they looked and played great. I do own a Wii that collects dust except on rare occassions. If PS3 gets its price down and Blu-Ray looks like it will stick around, I will probably buy one. But I need to see more great games for that platform too. Metal Gear Solid really has me thinking about making that move soon.

[Mentor397]

More games is not always the answer. Try looking up the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 if you want a look at what the other side might be thinking of.

[killjoy2k9]

I skipped the middle 100 posts or so, because I just can't stand to read stupidity over and over again.

Anyone who can't pick up the arrogance and stupidity of the Sony guy's comments probably has their genitals stuck in the card reader slot of their PS3. (I own one, there are a few great games, and it's a great Blu-Ray machine)

Tell me though, which makes more sense to you, if you are running a game studio, if you have an imaginary budget of $100 to spend on your game:

1) $50 on the Dev Kit, $30 on R&D, $20 on Content Development

2) $20 on the Dev Kit, $10 on R&D, $70 on Content Development

I'm not saying that's an accurate comparison, but it's at the heart of the idea. Why spend more money just to get the same thing? The Sony first-parties HAVE to deal with that handicap... Why would other developers CHOOSE to do that?

Sure, the PS3 'might' be 15% more powerful than the X360 at the end of the day... But does it REALLY matter if you don't have the funds to get to it? Does Braid on the 360 lack merit because it wasn't developed for the PS3?

Could you imagine the folks at nVidia telling devs that it's harder to develope for their video card on purpose, to weed out the non-hackers? ATI would have a field day, kinda like MS is for the most part.

[Atlantean]

Don, you gotta be naive if you're serious about that article's title. On purpose? Hell no, they didn't do it on purpose. They're just making up an excuse. Trying to cover the fact that they messed up, and completely disregarded that part when trying to create the next big thing. They went "the way of the Sega Saturn", and they're paying for it. Thankfully, if they keep pulling out those impressive 1st party games, they might have a shot of getting back on top (at least, I wonder if the Wii will last 10 years...).

[DanielDaly]

FLAME BAIT FLAME BAIT LOLOLOL
Feed the fanboys.

[cheetsy]

It's all about not showing all your cards straight away. Basically what he is saying is that if everyone could do everything with the PS3 early on, there would be no surprises long term and the console wouldn't last as long. Bit of an unprofitable idea but long term it might bare fruit.

On a personal note, I have a PS3, basically for playing media from my PCs and watching DVDs and Blu Rays. I sometimes play games, but not a lot. I play games mainly on my PCs.

[-fjtorres-]

Considering how Sony keeps promoting Mr Hirai, he obviously is not an idiot.
Unfortunately, he finds himself in the unenviable position of trying to defend the indefensible which can't help but make him look like an idiot. Faced with the unacceptable (saying my predecessor assembled an inaccesible list of features into a suboptimal product--you don't do that in Japan even after somebody has been kicked to the curb, like Kutaragi), Hirai is stuck with the distasteful job of taking one for the team. Which at this point is all Sony has going for them; theteam of paid and unpaid shills screaming RROD at the top of their lungs while covering their eyes and ears to all reality outside the corporate mouthpiece universe.
Plain and simple: it requires more effort in the form of developer hours to produce the same quality output from PS3 than from 360 or PC. Not even Hirai denies this. He merely insists that developers *double-down* and raise the ante by investing even more time and money to produce something noticeably "better".
"better" within quotes, notice?
Because in the real world, "better" requires trade-offs.
Even a Sony-funded game like Killzone2 shows what those tradeoffs are: yes, the graphics are pleasing to the eye. And the game inside the graphics is competent. Competent but dated. Read the reviews from non-Sony sources and you'll see a game that, graphics aside, would've been state of the art in 2005-2006 but now falls short of top-rank because of the lack of features that the industry now *requires* as standard.
The price of those pleasing graphics is no coop.
The price of those graphics is merely decent maps and levels that are repetitive and don't bring anything new to the industry.
The price of those graphics is a game that is unquestionably the best shooter on PS3 but falls short of the industry standards in this year 2009.
Which is the pattern for *all* the "showcase" games for PS3; trade-offs.
- Lair rendered at 1080p and used the motion controller in a flight simulator. But rendering at 1080p meant frame rate issues and no anti-aliasing (then again, most PS3 games don't bother with antialiasing anyway).
- Heavenly sword? repetitive and ridiculously short. But pretty!
- Metal Gear Solid? Greatest movie ever released on a gaming console; *multiple* mandatory HDD installs and extended stretches of passive user observation. Anybody wonder why the PS3 signature game of 2008 was nowhere to be found on *anybody's* Game of the Year contender lists?
Even Sony-funded games can't afford to "fully-exploit" the mythical, magical capabilities of the PS3!
So why should Hirai or the fanboys expect *other people* to spend *their* money achieving what Sony themselves won't (or can't do?).
Look, children, sometime this spring, the three current-gen consoles will together reach the 100 million units-shipped milestone. The breakdown by then? 48 million Wiis, 31 million 360s and 21 million PS3s. That's pretty close to a 50-30-20 market split, no? Or, you culd say its a 50-50 split between SD and HD consoles. Or you could deprecate the SD Wii as PS3 fans are wont to, and say its a 60-40 market split for HD consoles.
No matter how you slice it, ps3 is dead last and likely to stay dead last.
Which means that to expect developers to sink an extra 30-50% in development cost on the platform with the smallest installed base is sheer folly. Most developers can produce 3 360-exclusive games for what it would cost to produce two crossplatform games.
Ask Square-Enix why all their rpgs are on 360 even though Sony owns a big chunk of their stock.
Because that's where the money lies.
They don't care if the hardware is "technically superior"' they just care where the money to make payroll is coming from. And one thing MS got right is they cherry-picked the most profitable pieces of the HD gaming market. They are making money left and right; from exclusive DLC, from Live Subscriptions. From movie rentals and TV show sales. They are making enough money, they give away their avatar clothes.
The issue isn't what hardware is superior.
The issue is which platform has the better business model and customer base.
Even Mr Hirai knows the answer to that one, and its not the PS3.

[Starfires]

This is putting it all pretty accurately. A console is not just for technology bragging rights. They are ALL about market share, as developers are writing for them the same way Hollywood writes for the big screen. Their first problem was the high price. Then you hve the elitist image this creates. Then the difficulty to develop for it becomes a big issue, as the lack of realistic returns means the effort is questionable at best.

I really wanted it to succeed- it is a much better deal than a 360 as an all-round entertainment machine. Yet in this respect it is even now ahead of it's time. Whilst in gaming it lags behind the 360, whiuch can easily port to and from PCs. PCs- they are where HD gaming has been for decades, which is only now coming into the average home. Like it or not, Microsoft's first person shooter-based model is the right one, as it is the genre that is best adapted to HD graphics, intense storylines and internet play.

It did, however, make Blu-ray a success and if tht becomes more of a standard, there could be some hope on the horizon (along with another price-cut, it is still too expensive for many.)

[Starfires]

Cell was yet another muddled attempt at 'trend creation' by Sony and it ended up with an architecture that they should be apologising for, but instead you get attempts at 'spin' like this. Of course, if cell was everywhere it would be more worth developing techniques to develop for- but it's not, it is a niche product. My own view is that it was developed more with playback of Blu-ray than games in mind, as the multi-core archetecture excels here. If you see this, you will see what Sony's real strategy was- and if it hasn't succeeded, that doesn't mean it wasn't one that had merits at the time (though I see this is arguable).

They hoped that Plystation was already so etablished that everyone would get one, that the extra cost (which is still there, relative to the other consoles) would be a willing sacrifice by the gamers... yet why would they? Why would developers relearn everything, when other cpus, more conventional, are so much easier to work with?

I just love my PS3, but more for the multimedia. It is too bad it didn't catch on more widely, though I suppose if Blu-ray does there is still some hope, as it is probably the best Blu-ray platyer in terms of value on the market. I just think they did mess up with the exotic CPU, low memory and weaker graphics card mix. It should have been a more open platform, attracting thousands of titles, the good ones floating to the surface. As consoles are designed to be ubiquitous- this is the measure of their success.

[Jonathan]

I picked up a 360 Arcade unit at Circuit City Saturday before last for the low low......LOW price of $130. I also got another wireless controller for $20 and a 120GB 360 HD for $80. A damn good deal to be sure. But I will be blunt. If they were selling PS3's for $210 I still wouldn't get one. Sony's attitude has seriously turned me off of their gaming platform and this is from someone who owns a first gen PS, a launch day PS2, and a PSP. Until they modify their attitude I'm done with Sony. They are the Apple of the gaming industry. Underdog that has NO bragging rights to speak of and yet they are the most arrogant company in the industry.

[yiang]

I'm not one for fan boy b.s. and really would like to see the PS3 come into its own. But if the CEO of one of Sony's few cash cows is not sure how to exploit the power of the PS3, I'd be very worried, esp. as an investor. Part is just perplexed at how demoralized or lost he appears. This is a total contrast from all their recent demos outings and conventions. Yes, I've come to realize they want the PS3 to be more than a gaming and movie console. Fine I accept, but what else is there? What's their plan for marketing this thing? Was the PS3 meant to be a game changer or just slick way of playing catch-up?

[Pacman33]

Steve you might as well save your breath. This argument with the average American goes no where. We were wired to believe selling more means success, because it's in the capatalist bible. Quality means little because we can always milk more money from the customer by charging for repairs or even better rebuys. (see US automakers) Most can careless about a products quality or life expectancy as long as it's cheap. (see outsourcing to China) These are the same types that would call you unpatriotic for buying a Toyota even if a Ford must be fixed or repaired daily. The funny thing is, most American business are finally trying to take on Japanese business practice. (see Lean Six) What you're saying Steve is so simple that it's stupid, so they can't understand it. Sure I can use Microsoft paint to do some quick and easy photo editing, but if I want quality and to get a little creative, I would want to use Adobe Photoshop. Yes there is a steeper learning curve and it will take me more time, so I have to decide whether I want quality or quantity. The cool thing about taking the time to learn Photoshop is that the end result will be works of art and the second and 3rd time around I will understand the tools, thus being able to get better with every creation. With MSPaint I can figure it out in 10 minutes, but my creativity and growth are both capped, because I can only do so much with the simple program. The company easiest to develop for typically houses the most shovelware. (see Wii)

[odubtaig]

Or it's a Fiat. Costs the same as a Japanese car but has a tendency to fall apart if you look at it wrong.

Yes a low barrier to entry means a lot of dross. It also means that those with talent can put out more good games at a higher rate. I suppose the PS2 was a waste of space because of the inarguable amount of garbage within which nestled some amazing games? I suppose the GameCube and XBox had far superior games catalogues due to the tiny amount of games published for them? No? Didn't think so.

As several people have pointed out there is only a finite amount of effort that can be put into making a game in terms of money, resources and time and if a console requires you to spend more time just to do things to the same level then you're not going to do things to the same level. It's not laziness, it's not lack of ambition. Wanting to spend more time on assets, smart AI, level design, etc. and less on just getting the basics working so you can do more with your budget, meet the deadlines and not work through the weekend is called sanity.

A substantially more realistic comparison would be Houdini Vs. 3DS Max. One is more expensive, technically advanced, uses complex formulae and python scripting and the other is used in game studios. There is a reason for this. Despite 3DS Max's reputation for being about as stable as an upturned pyramid this is still not a barrier to people getting the job done quicker.

It's substantially more realistic as a comparison because anyone honestly claiming that a) MS Paint could do 1,000th of the things Photoshop does and b) that Photoshop is hard (compared to what?) is tapped in the head. Photoshop is the easy option. Try using GIMP sometime. Go on, it'll be funny for all observing. That's a UI designed by a psychotic.

That asides, reading the garbage you guys post is like visiting comp.os.unix with all the nerds who think anyone who wants anything so bourgious as a proper IDE is just being lazy and 'real programmers use emacs'.

[rapier1]

Real programmers do not use emacs. They cat from stdin directly into the compiler.

[killjoy2k9]

I guess I might as well save my breath, too. To use Photoshop and Paint as analogs for the 360 and PS3 are ridiculous. It is also an affront to basically state, flat out, that the only way to make art in the world of video games is to push the most pixels...

Pacman, you indirectly insult every single game designer currently working on a project by basically stating that unless they are developing it for a Cell processor, what they're doing can't even rise to the level of art. If they waste their time developing for a machine that could possibly be 10% less powerful, it means that no matter how great the content and the gameplay they produce is, it will always be inferior to whatever shiny thing pops out of a PS3...

If you sat down to write the Great American Novel, would it be better just because when you got done writing, you went back and translated it into Sanskrit? It might be more decorative, but I have a feeling that if you had spent that time on one last round of revision, the finished product would have benefitted.

That's what's going on here... Sony overcomes the shortcomings of it's hardware by by shoveling out ludicrous, arrogant tripe, and people swallow it down like it's pudding.

The PS3 is too expensive? "We think people should need to get a second job to be able to buy one- it is not something you just go out and get because you want one"

The PS3 is hard to develope for? "We think it is better to make things harder, because, um, it builds character"

No, it keeps artists from working on their ART because they need to learn magicks to program for their hardware.

Oh yea- you know why all this is even more rubbish? You have to get your game LICENSED by Sony to release on the PS3. Sony could easily just implement a quality standard, rather than punishing all devs by "making things harder."