PS3 deliberately hard to program?

DeanoC

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According to this month's Edge magazine (Issue #124, page 12).
"Apparently, PlayStation 3 will be even more difficult to program than the PlayStation 2 was, though according to contacts inside SCEI R&D, this is partly deliberate, in a bit to eliminate developers who don't have the technical skill to develop for the platform"

A good or bad idea? Will that just mean devs work on the XBox2, GameCube2 or will it just mean lots of low quality games for PS3 and a few REALLY good ones?
 
DeanoC said:
According to this month's Edge magazine (Issue #124, page 12).
"Apparently, PlayStation 3 will be even more difficult to program than the PlayStation 2 was, though according to contacts inside SCEI R&D, this is partly deliberate, in a bit to eliminate developers who don't have the technical skill to develop for the platform"

A good or bad idea? Will that just mean devs work on the XBox2, GameCube2 or will it just mean lots of low quality games for PS3 and a few REALLY good ones?

That might not be a good idea if MS and N release at the same time as PS3. PS2 was lucky.
 
Hahaha... I can almost guarantee Nintendo is sticking with simplified programming, and MS will stick with DirectX... so I think PS3's in a liiiiiiiiiittle bit of trouble here.
 
DeanoC said:
A good or bad idea? Will that just mean devs work on the XBox2, GameCube2 or will it just mean lots of low quality games for PS3 and a few REALLY good ones?
I heard the exact same bs (almost word for word) about PS2 being 'deliberately' hard to program way back when I first started working with it..
Anyway I wouldn't say anything if it those very people weren't about as informed as a certain poster that tried to argue particularly feverishly with you in another thread ;)

The fact that the actual difficulties with PS2 development are pretty much entirely due to some inconsistencies in hw and/or missing features, not some kind of architectural issue - only serves to detract from that theory further.
Ok, one could argue they deliberately skimped on development software support, but that pretty much caused trouble for everyone regardless of their skill.
 
DeanoC said:
According to this month's Edge magazine (Issue #124, page 12).
"Apparently, PlayStation 3 will be even more difficult to program than the PlayStation 2 was, though according to contacts inside SCEI R&D, this is partly deliberate, in a bit to eliminate developers who don't have the technical skill to develop for the platform"

A good or bad idea? Will that just mean devs work on the XBox2, GameCube2 or will it just mean lots of low quality games for PS3 and a few REALLY good ones?

i'll second (third?) pana and faf: this Edge statement is BS - it's not the way to higher quality titles.
 
PC-Engine said:
DeanoC said:
According to this month's Edge magazine (Issue #124, page 12).
"Apparently, PlayStation 3 will be even more difficult to program than the PlayStation 2 was, though according to contacts inside SCEI R&D, this is partly deliberate, in a bit to eliminate developers who don't have the technical skill to develop for the platform"

A good or bad idea? Will that just mean devs work on the XBox2, GameCube2 or will it just mean lots of low quality games for PS3 and a few REALLY good ones?

That might not be a good idea if MS and N release at the same time as PS3. PS2 was lucky.

Lucky ! :LOL: What a word ! The developer support on PS2 are there only because the PS2 is a lucky black box. :LOL: (edit: sorry, can't help)

Even though the Good/Bad ratio of current PSX/PS2 games is not quite high, there are still many many good games to choose from.

If the case is really true (which I doubt) and Sony is really so confident to eliminate the weaker developers, I wish PS3 luck as it may be a suicidal action since games will take much longer time to develop. And the "untapped power and hard to develop" arguments will carry over to the new generation.
 
One would think that the 'less skilled' developers putting out the lower quality titles would simply die out as their poor quality games fail to sell.
Making the platform harder to develop for will simply add more work for their developer relations team (I assume they have one), and more work having to be put in by the developers.
Given that generally games consoles make their money from the games anyway I would think that it is in Sony's interests to have as many titles available as possible, which seems to be the way they have worked in the past.

CC
 
Lucky ! What a word ! The developer support on PS2 are there only because the PS2 is a lucky black box. (edit: sorry, can't help)

I think he means PS2 was lucky because while it was very hard to program for it also was released without any competition. It didn't have any competition for over a year on the market. It didn't have a really good game for a long time. Then a little while before XBox and GC arrived devs started to get the hang of developing for it and the games started to come. If GC and XBox had been released at the same time as PS2 then frankly PS2 would be third right now. Look how quickly great games arrived for GC and XBox. Of course you could say Sony knew PS2 would have no compeition for over a year. So they knew they could get away with being hard to program for, so it wasn't really luck at all. In the end though I think the point he was getting at is if PS3 is equally hard to program for it won't be 'lucky' enough to have the market to itself for over a year like PS2 did.
 
Teasy said:
I think he means PS2 was lucky because while it was very hard to program for it also was released without any competition. It didn't have any competition for over a year on the market. It didn't have a really good game for a long time. Then a little while before XBox and GC arrived devs started to get the hang of developing for it and the games started to come. If GC and XBox had been released at the same time as PS2 then frankly PS2 would be third right now. Look how quickly great games arrived for GC and XBox. Of course you could say Sony knew PS2 would have no compeition for over a year. So they knew they could get away with being hard to program for, so it wasn't really luck at all. In the end though I think the point he was getting at is if PS3 is equally hard to program for it won't be 'lucky' enough to have the market to itself for over a year like PS2 did.

It was already history about how PS2 succeeded, being lucky or not is not really telling anything. PS2 timing was very good and Sony is agrressive and powerful enough to garner support from developers because of PSX, MS and N were late to the party, although with the better hardware and better development tools.

The next gen is still undecided as there are still too little "info" floating around. But I don't think Sony will be as stupid as what Edge said.
 
I don't think that the one with the best hardware will win the next console war... Gamegear >< Gameboy, PlayStation >< N64,...
It'll be all up to the PR of the companies to start a huge hype accompanied by tons and tons of commercials...
 
I think he means PS2 was lucky because while it was very hard to program for it also was released without any competition. It didn't have any competition for over a year on the market. It didn't have a really good game for a long time. Then a little while before XBox and GC arrived devs started to get the hang of developing for it and the games started to come. If GC and XBox had been released at the same time as PS2 then frankly PS2 would be third right now. Look how quickly great games arrived for GC and XBox. Of course you could say Sony knew PS2 would have no compeition for over a year. So they knew they could get away with being hard to program for, so it wasn't really luck at all. In the end though I think the point he was getting at is if PS3 is equally hard to program for it won't be 'lucky' enough to have the market to itself for over a year like PS2 did.

You speak of it as if Sony wanted to develop a hard-to-program-for system, when in fact, I believe it was their aim to make a powerful system that would be hard to beat even by consoles that launch later. Seeing what developers wanted during the PSX days, I think they did a marvelous job and that they actually succeeded.

I wouldn't think though that they would deliberatley try to make PS3 hard to develop for. It would hold one advantage though, and that is drive up porting costs which would make a lot of games exclusive (simply because it would be too expensive to port to other platforms). Sony does know though that they can't sell a system without developer support, so I wouldn't expect them to do something as risky as this.
 
Evil_Cloud said:
I don't think that the one with the best hardware will win the next console war... Gamegear >< Gameboy, PlayStation >< N64,...
It'll be all up to the PR of the companies to start a huge hype accompanied by tons and tons of commercials...

The most powerful hardware has never won a console generation.

In fact, every generation... the weakest hardware overall won. (not counting in-betweens: Dreamcast, Jaguar, 3DO)
 
WHY would sony try to deliberately make PS3 hard to program for?

i mean, it's not like they choose whether the console is hard or easy... the architecture is what it is, we know that it is certainly going to be tricky to program for since it is completely new architecture and we already know that IBM will most certainly provide OS, drivers and tools to make PS3 easy to program for... and if not easy, at least in a better situation that PS2 at launch...

it's not like No 1 priority for sony is Make the console hard to program for. i think their No 1 priority is Make the console a powerful beast at a decent price...

then, if the hardware happens to be a pain in the ass (SHUT UP RYAN :LOL: ), which it will certainly be, then that's another thing...

the only thing they can do is delay the delivery of proper tools and libraries, including that magnificent piece of wires and screws that is the Performance Analyser (i guess they will manufacture one, the day they understand what they have manufactured and figure out everything about what the hell they're doing :D )
 
Ahhh, EDGE...

That might not be a good idea if MS and N release at the same time as PS3. PS2 was lucky.
You mean Dreamcast was lucky to launch early and kick the crap out of competition? Oh wait... ;)

I think he means PS2 was lucky because while it was very hard to program for it also was released without any competition. It didn't have any competition for over a year on the market
So, Dreamcast officially never existed?

If GC and XBox had been released at the same time as PS2 then frankly PS2 would be third right now.
If they were released at the same time as PS2, they would:
a) Have not any worthy games by their side (Halo, Mario, Zelda would NOT be ready for launch, heck Mario and Zelda weren't ready for GC launch anyways!)
b) Would be KILLED by PS2 hype. I'll take it you don't remember how it was those three years ago, when people were building shrines to PS2 and were gettting married with them? It is only the advantage of it's hardware (induced by the fact it launced 1.5 years after PS2) that gave Xbox some of the necessary hype.
c) Would likely be less powerful (or very close at best) than PS2 and thus wouldn't have any advantage on that front.

Your assertion was very one-dimensional if you assumed that those consoles would launch 1.5 years earlier with hardware as they have today, with software support they had at their launch, etc.

I think Xbox and GC launched at the best possible time, or they wouldn't even be a blip on the radar...
 
Teasy said:
Lucky ! What a word ! The developer support on PS2 are there only because the PS2 is a lucky black box. (edit: sorry, can't help)

I think he means PS2 was lucky because while it was very hard to program for it also was released without any competition. It didn't have any competition for over a year on the market. It didn't have a really good game for a long time. Then a little while before XBox and GC arrived devs started to get the hang of developing for it and the games started to come. If GC and XBox had been released at the same time as PS2 then frankly PS2 would be third right now. Look how quickly great games arrived for GC and XBox. Of course you could say Sony knew PS2 would have no compeition for over a year. So they knew they could get away with being hard to program for, so it wasn't really luck at all. In the end though I think the point he was getting at is if PS3 is equally hard to program for it won't be 'lucky' enough to have the market to itself for over a year like PS2 did.

Heh, Teasy at least you get the point. Notice how the SONY brigade tries to turn this into a "well DC launched before PS2 topic"....again. Please go read the OTHER thread if you want to beat that same old dead horse. :p
 
PSX didnt make a blip on the radar either with n64's hype.. It was following saturn to the graveyard and was thought that it would die as soon as n64 would be launched.

Well n64 launched and it had the biggest pre-ps2 hype and sales for consoles, but oops, developers were pissed off, they move to the other console, psx gains huge momentum and n64 stands there and watch, not being able to do anything against it.

For sony's sake, they better not piss off developers with PS3, with GC2 and maybe even Xbox2 released earlier than PS3, a good strategy to sway devs away from PS3 could hurt sony a lot.
 
And the trend going forward is multiplatform support so PS3 loses another advantage they had with PS2.
If anything that trend will make more and more people buy just one console and don't care about the rest.

PSX didnt make a blip on the radar either with n64's hype.. It was following saturn to the graveyard and was thought that it would die as soon as n64 would be launched.
N64 had a huge disadvantage of being a cart based system. Had GC and Xbox launched at the same time as PS2, there wouldn't be anything so disadvantageous about PS2 to sway developers to other two platforms. You think they would care they would have to hire few more programmers for PS2 games, when it's the only console that is actually selling well? I don't think so.
 
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