Sony: Natively Developing Games On PS3 Makes Better 360 Games
See Full ImageEarly on in the PlayStation 3's lifespan, the inevitable happened: developers were confused about the new architecture, they had already had a year to get used to the Xbox 360 (which was simpler to work with in the first place), and therefore, just about everyone developed multiplatform titles first on the 360, then ported them to the PS3. This, obviously, sucked for PS3 owners. But as you may have noticed, those days are rapidly disappearing, and perhaps the next step is just as inevitable...
Many developers are starting to develop their multiplat games on the PS3 first, and according to Sony's vice-president of product marketing Scott Steinberg, more will follow that example. According to an E3 interview, it's not just about making PS3 games better; the Xbox 360 will benefit from this move as well. Said Steinberg about developers recognizing the system's potential:
"We see the development just now starting to get going. We're now in our third and fourth generations with first party, and that will start to create some distance with the competition - from our standpoint - but as the third parties begin to move their development to native PS3 and port down to other platforms, they'll start to see their games' fidelity getting better and better - and in fact I think even Xbox 360 games will start to look better as a result. As they realise that if you start on the PS3 other platforms look better, it starts to become a no-brainer." (source: GamesIndustry.biz)
Steinberg went on to talk about retailers embracing the PS3 because it "opened up three revenue streams." Not only will people want games for their new machine, but they'll also want movies for their fancy new Blu-Ray player. Makes sense, yes?
"I think that's the opportunity - pick the tech, and you get ten years as a result," added Steinberg. "And if you're looking for a Blu-ray player, there's really no better player out there than the PS3. Retail has accepted it because of the three revenue streams - games, movies and peripherals. If you cement the customer with a Best Buy or Wal-Mart or whoever, and you merchandise it right, you're going to get those customers coming back for games, you'll get them coming back for another controller, or cables, or the latest release of 300."
With more developers beginning to understand the PS3, and with sales on the rise thanks to far better software in 2008 and the Blu-Ray victory, things appear to be going Sony's way. Of course, 10 years is a long haul, so there's no predicting the future, but at the very least, the situation is a whole lot better than it was in 2006.
7/30/2008 Ben Dutka
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Comments (Beta)
Luan
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 12:42:26 PM
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or i'll use Skynet to destroy Microsoft Co...
fair trade in my opinion...
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Ben Dutka PSXE [Administrator]
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 12:45:50 PM
1 up, 0 down
Luan
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 1:37:38 PM
I dont even use PC's...i use Macs...partly my dad's fault for always badmouthing Microsoft
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ThePoetRazel
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 6:31:15 PM
Suddenly i see a similarity between racism and computing. Together with the games industry's beginnings of integration with the porn industry the virtual world is becoming a perfect microcosm of the real world. Anyone wanna take the Red Pill?
1 up, 1 down
Qubex
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 8:55:57 PM
If they are good enough they will be successful (...as long as people get to appreciate a rival product, its quality and validity in the market place. Being better is not good enough... you still have to let people know about it).
They build products people found easy to use even if those products were often not very robust. They made it easy for most people worldwide to get involved in computing by bringing business and home applications together. They have done what they have had to do to match or stay ahead of the competition.
Microsoft is the incumbunt. They need to concentrate on staying ahead through innovation and staying in-touch with their market, i.e. their users. "Innovation" can be thrown about readily, any company with some money behind it can "innovate"... the victors are the ones that market their products aggressively, get their message out their, get their products into the hands of consumers... commercially Microsoft has done all the right moves and deserves its place in the market. So do others like Apple. Apple offers an alternative... beautiful design, amazing interfaces and well built branded hardware... they have created their nich and they are marketing it aggressively. Similarly Sony is doing what it can to stave off the competition and keep the console crown firmly on their heads. What happens if Apple wants to join in too?
It is all good really. All these companies have their merits and all are doing something which is very important to all of us. Pushing the industry forward, creating competition and giving us products we will want to own now and in the decades to come...
Q!
"aLL RoAdS LeAd ToO HoMe"
1 up, 1 down
The_Chimeran
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 1:12:16 PM
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Luan
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 1:45:25 PM
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LCF
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 1:50:51 PM
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"Build for the PS3 1st then port down to PC then 360"
I'm willing to bet that Sony's 1st party dev. will invest in Cell/Linux PC's sometime in the future to build games.
Last edited by LCF on 7/30/2008 1:51:53 PM
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Troy Powers
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 2:29:28 PM
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Ben Dutka PSXE [Administrator]
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 2:56:04 PM
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3 up, 0 down
vatossan
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 2:57:46 PM
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2 up, 0 down
ActionJackson
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 9:58:04 PM
0 up, 0 down
Qubex
Thursday, July 31, 2008 @ 2:54:33 AM
Q!
"aLL RoAdS LeAd ToO HoMe"
0 up, 0 down
Minishmaru
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 3:34:32 PM
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HUSO
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 8:48:22 PM
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Wasted87
Friday, August 01, 2008 @ 10:01:01 AM
1. see HUSO's statment
2. Ps3 is Linux based and programing for it, once you know how, is much smoother. believe me, I have done some basic linux and windows packaging.
3. It is also easier to port linux code to a windows code than vice versa. They actually make free apps that will do it for you. Where as you have to pay for the windows-to-linux conversion app and it still doesn't work 100% of the time. And yes there is a free way to port windows programs to linux, but again it doesn't always work 100% of the time.
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bamf
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 5:51:37 PM
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Tatsujin
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 6:03:11 PM
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Ben Dutka PSXE [Administrator]
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 6:51:16 PM
3 up, 0 down
orangpelupa
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 7:41:18 PM
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Btw i hope the game devs work fast. On ps2 era, when ps2 get better looking games, pc already surpass that years ago.
I want to see a console surpass pc. I see the potential in ps3's ray tracing power.
Btw if games ported correctly, it will not look bad on the other system.
Look at dmc4, ported to pc, and it look a lot better than ps3 or x360.
EA with bad ps3 ports is just their developer laziness or EA too forcing for the release time.
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HUSO
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 8:43:41 PM
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ActionJackson
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 9:56:33 PM
2 up, 0 down
Reccaman18
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 9:42:00 PM
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1 up, 0 down
bugzbunny109
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 9:57:18 PM
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Hey Ben i see you took my advice about the comments issue, i am not even sure but i will have to check, but it looks like it lol!
Last edited by bugzbunny109 on 7/30/2008 9:58:11 PM
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togenshi
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 10:13:20 PM
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The ps2 had the emotion engine which was able to execute 2 things at once and the xbox was a intel p3 x86 cpu of some sorts (i think).
Most programmers are used to single threaded programming and to get ones head around doing many things at once will take awhile to get used to. 360 can do 3 things at once while ps3 can 6-7 things at once. Its a big step from this
<stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Hello World");
return 0;
}
to something insane like on this website:
http://ww2.cs.fsu.edu/~west/cell/index.php?tutorial=HelloWorld
IBMs always, always ensure backwards capability. 20yo program that ran on 10mhz would work snugly in a PowerPC 6 @ 4.0ghz or something.
Now just want to say that, essentially, once hacked the ps3 may be able to play 360 games given some modifications to the hyper visor (of course it will never be that easy and lots of changes. eg ati calls to nvidia, ram, etc,etc but the possibility is still there).
The whole Cell arch is just new to the gaming industry. Give the developers time to wrap their heads around this new way of thinking and then we'll see the ps3 starting to shine. But single threaded programming is a thing in the past and we have to start somewhere. Kudos to sony taking that leap.
BTW It is also easier to scale down than to scale up aswell.
1 up, 1 down
orangpelupa
Thursday, July 31, 2008 @ 12:50:08 AM
Reply
X360 PowerPC CPU have 3 PPE that support multithreading.
1 PPE can do 2 Thread, so X360 and PS3, both can do 6 thread.
the different is, in PS3,
it use Each of its 6 SPE to do 6 thread.
in X360, it use 3 PPE to do 6 thread.
its abit dillema here,
PS3 : SPE is Slower than PPE, but each SPE is dedicated for 1 thread.
in X360 : it use the Fast 3 PPE to do 6 Thread.
and like we all already know, cpu "virtualization" is not as "fast" as dedicated real cpu.
remember Pentium 4 HT? thats 1 core cpu with cpu virtualization allowing it to be detected and work as dual core. and its slow (not as fast as real 2 cpu)...... and hot...
but in PS3, the dedicated cpu (SPE) is slow, so maybe its on par with x360.
but, if the devs can optimize the threading process on the all 6 SPE, it maybe will be faster than the "virtualization" on x360.
S in SPE is "Synergic", so its supposed to work in "synergy" <--- CMIIW, IMO, Im Not Sure,
2 up, 1 down
bamf
Thursday, July 31, 2008 @ 1:58:58 PM
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orangpelupa
Thursday, July 31, 2008 @ 10:49:31 PM
Reply
bamf,
PPE is faster than SPE in general purpose processing.
as for the spec, SPE is only have half or a quarter of the PPE Cache and so on.... (cant remember)
SPE is only fast in ..... (i cant remember)
duh i cant remember the complete desc of SPE. Its on the IBM website.
basically, when game dev can use SPE to process only things that SPE is fast, it will give great performance.
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AceTatsujin
Saturday, August 02, 2008 @ 7:16:21 PM
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PS3 can do more than what the 360 can do. In GTA IV, you get more people and more cars doing tons of different things and more sh** is going on than anything that is done on the 360.
I don't think I gotta dig any deeper ... you guys should know what I'm talking about.
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Blood_Haze
Tuesday, August 12, 2008 @ 6:07:37 PM
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Scarecrow
Reply
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 @ 11:25:04 AM
I still remember the cover of games magazine, I think it was Official US Playstation magazine which asked the quest "Playstaiton2, too powerful to develop for?"
And look at where the ps2 went.
It's a matter of time before devs start manipulating ps3's programming and using the Cell to really push the ps3. It all depends on the Cell processor. Amazing that some devs say that they haven't even scratched 30% of ps3's capabilities.
I'm still shocked at the things MGS4 pulled off in terms of processing and overall performance. Not to mention the incredible storyline.