I found this new interview quite interesting as it is coming from an independent developer currently working for both consoles( Richard Hackett from Blitz).
Full interview here
Full interview here
The debate over graphics on Xbox 360 and PS3 is still raging online, with developers coming out on both sides to claim superiority. As an independent developer how do you compare the two formats in terms of visuals?
In essence the two systems are actually fairly closely matched in terms of graphics. The jump to HD is a major step up in visual quality and that is delivered by both systems. The difference between 720p and 1080i will be fairly academic for some time as there are very few mass market TVs out there at the moment that support native 1080 resolution, and I'm not sure the average consumer sees the difference between them anyway.
At Blitz our cross platform technology enables us to develop simultaneously for both systems and spend our time playing to the strengths of each. Of course developers have had longer to get to grips with the X360 but you can be sure we won't see the full potential of the either system and especially the PS3 for some time yet.
One developer has publicly (although anonymously) stated that Xbox 360 - in games programming terms - is the better machine as the GPU is more powerful, providing greater pixel and vertex processing horsepower. Do you concur at all? Is this really what it all comes down to?
The X360 GPU is slightly more flexible due to the subtle differences between the respective architectures of the nVidia and ATI chipset. Certain shader restrictions are lifted or easier to work around on X360. The bandwidth of the X360 GPU is pretty massive too, though partly this is balanced out by the differences in VRAM layout of the two systems that means the Xbox needs to move graphics data around the system more than the PS3 does. While the GPUs are fast and have a big impact on the visual quality and level of game effects, other factors such as general processing power and memory architecture also come into play.
I've heard that third-party PS3 developers are currently under using the machine's seven 'SPE' processors. How are you planning to employ them? Do you have specific tasks in mind for specific SPEs as some first-party developers seem to be doing?
It does seem that developers have been slow to make use of the SPEs, especially those coming from other platforms perhaps with existing game engines.
At Blitz we are not reserving SPEs for specific tasks but have implemented a more dynamic system that automatically dispatches processing to each SPE making best use of the available resources. It works something like a distributed computing system, SETI@home being a famous example of that kind of technology. For instance in one of our projects we have hundreds of enemies on-screen and the processing for their animation and AI is split up and automatically sent to each SPE dynamically whenever there is processing time available.