hey what about Lazy Publisher! Nobody likes thouse guys!
Nope, they aren't lazy...Just greedy
Can Sony help devs with ported titles?
- Thread starter Butta
- Start date
Nope, they aren't lazy...Just greedy
Of course I am.
If multiplatform games start looking better on the PS3 by default I will have no problem believing it actually has an edge. Hell, if there was anything supporting that case I would believe it without hesitation.
But, right now, I can make a list of games that are available for both systems and nine times out of ten the 360 version will come out on top. That shouldn't be the case for a system released a year later, even if we take tools and dev time into account.
But back on topic, "can sony help devs with ported titles.?.?". They probably are giving them as much support as they can, but there are still problems and the main one is that 360 is the lead platform and PS3 is getting the ports. If the system is actually equal or better than MS', then the situation will be solved or even reversed during the next few years (especially if the PS3 becomes the lead platform).
True - But the sales situation was a bit different and the company comparison is a bit different too.
From the bits of info over the past two years one thing seems pretty clear. Sony is more concerned with BR sales than games.
Sony needs to either provide better tools than MS or provide more potential clients for developers to consider ps3 as the lead dev platform.
Full Auto2 is out on 360?
Same game, but you know that...
http://ps3.qj.net/Gates-Talks-Xbox-360-and-PS3/pg/49/aid/485Bill_Gates_2005 said:
Fastforward a year:
Interesting eh?
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djskribbles
Legend
FEAR doesn't use anything close to what the ps3 is capable of. it's just as Joshua Luna said, it's because 1. its a port, 2. lack of time, 3. less mature dev tools for the ps3. people are expecting too much from sony out of the gates. if you ask me, the devs are doing a pretty good job so far stacking up against the 1-year old xbox 360.
HT
I don't like very much all this dev bashing... lazy, greedy...
I think a lot of the devs you (some people here) speak about would be quiet happy to work in less time, cost constrained environement. A lot of them would quiet happy to work in some big team working on big title like say NAO, DeanoC, Fran, etc... (sorry for the devs i've forgotten).
People are not equaly talented nor devs, but I think this kind of attitude can manage to draw away some devs would be tempted to give us some insight...
We still haven't no news from say Joker...
So blame editors, money holders, not cost, time constrained dev team
/HT
I don't like very much all this dev bashing... lazy, greedy...
I think a lot of the devs you (some people here) speak about would be quiet happy to work in less time, cost constrained environement. A lot of them would quiet happy to work in some big team working on big title like say NAO, DeanoC, Fran, etc... (sorry for the devs i've forgotten).
People are not equaly talented nor devs, but I think this kind of attitude can manage to draw away some devs would be tempted to give us some insight...
We still haven't no news from say Joker...
So blame editors, money holders, not cost, time constrained dev team
/HT
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If it is plain and simple, as you categorically state, then please itemize the developer issues.
I think the clear reasoning is a number of factors (publisher timelines and funding, market conditions, PS3 complexity and current tools and lack of PS3 experience, the game designed around a more traditional architecture, and so forth) coming together which has impacted a number of games -- not just FEAR. So I am quite interested how you are going to pin this on the developers -- seeing as they are the same guys who did the PC and 360 version.
Actually, that is the laughable part: It is ALL the developers fault (lazy et al), yet these same lazy, jerk, hater devs turned out a better product on the PC and 360... how does THAT make sense?
And to be frank, if devs are too lazy and too stupid that is Sony's problem too. If Sony knew devs were this lazy, and yet knew the success of their platform would hingue on the very same lazy/stupid devs making games, then...
Again, I don't think this has anything to due with the developers trying to make trash. It reflects on them and most have poored more hours into the project in the dev cycle than most of us have into our jobs in the same time frame -- with the difference being their job results are viewed by millions. the fact is a game has "legs" for a limited period of time. FEAR was a 2005 PC title and made a run on the 360 in late 2006. The publisher knows this. The problem is that the 360 had a bigger install base as well as a working engine already on it and the developer had already released a product on the platform. So the publisher allocated resources to push the 360 version out the door for purely common sense fiscal purposes. Now the developer has a VERY limited amount of time to push out the PS3 version -- a platform they have yet to release a game on, have no working engine, and is universally agreed upon is more complex, specifically when porting a PC centric code base.
This is not a trivial process and they don't have 24-36 months like a Heavenly Sword ot MGS4 to resolve these issues.
And back to the OP, regardless if you like these games or not, it has been a trend. I think it is a launch trend and will change, but putting aside my opinion the Original Poster's question was not, "Why do all these devs suck! Lazy SOBs!" but instead, "What is SONY going to do to resolve these problems?"
Because you can slam FEAR, Tony Hawk, Madden, etc left and right about how the devs are just lazy. Lets just assume you are right. The problem is the lazy devs are getting better results elsewhere.
So how do you fix that if you are Sony?
the first problem for Sony is a serious lack of presence or visibility or hype for first party titles to get the message to the customers that things will improve, otherwise pretty soon the ps3 will be labeled as the bad platform for port (not that the ps2 suffered from this) but this time they are the most expensive and late to the market
Well said Acer... err JL. I think it really comes down to a number of factors and I highly doubt that these developers are being lazy when they are putting out these games. They have their names/reputation on the line. To me the factors include:
- 360 being lead dev platform
- better dev tools on 360, better dev support
- not enough experience yet with PS3 development
- maybe just maybe the 360 is graphically powerful enough where it may shine in places over the PS3
I am not sure of what Sony can do to help developers in this situation... the answer, like the problem, will have several contributing factors such as:
- moneyhatting time exclusivity, making the PS3 platform the lead dev platform
- making the tools better on PS3, better dev support
- sell more PS3s
I really don't think this situation for multiplatform games will change until the PS3 overtakes market share from the 360 by a large amount.
- 360 being lead dev platform
- better dev tools on 360, better dev support
- not enough experience yet with PS3 development
- maybe just maybe the 360 is graphically powerful enough where it may shine in places over the PS3
I am not sure of what Sony can do to help developers in this situation... the answer, like the problem, will have several contributing factors such as:
- moneyhatting time exclusivity, making the PS3 platform the lead dev platform
- making the tools better on PS3, better dev support
- sell more PS3s
I really don't think this situation for multiplatform games will change until the PS3 overtakes market share from the 360 by a large amount.
deathkiller
Newcomer
The problem is the same as the Xbox -> Wii ports looking worse in Wii, they are cheap ports.
In the PS3 case the publisher just don't care about building a fan base with them, and expect bad sales. The publisher is who ask the developers to be "lazy" by giving them a very low budget.
There are objective reasons to Xbox 360 -> PS3 ports looking worse but is low budget and development time what explains the bad framerate and extremely bad graphics of some ports.
In the PS3 case the publisher just don't care about building a fan base with them, and expect bad sales. The publisher is who ask the developers to be "lazy" by giving them a very low budget.
There are objective reasons to Xbox 360 -> PS3 ports looking worse but is low budget and development time what explains the bad framerate and extremely bad graphics of some ports.
I'm not sure that Sony can do a lot to alleviate some of inherent difficulties related to cell programming.
It's not something as trivial as automatic tiling (who prove not to be so trivial in regard to the time it took yo MS to put this together... and still no memexport...) If you put some layer who hides cell complexity (DMA management comes in mind), it's very likely that the result won't be brilliant.
So devs have to put together a cell friendly programming model, witch takes time.
Capcom devs have done a great job, but they were aiming for multi from scratch.
If most devs teams actually make their engine aiming primarily at pc/360 it's very likely that the time and cost constrained ports on ps3 will not be so great.
Ps3 is not (and for some more time) the lead dev platform, it will be interesting to see if big devs teams follow the same path as capcom or bite in the MS easy pc/360 portability resulting in not so great looking multiplatfrom games on ps3 for an unknown time.
It's not something as trivial as automatic tiling (who prove not to be so trivial in regard to the time it took yo MS to put this together... and still no memexport...) If you put some layer who hides cell complexity (DMA management comes in mind), it's very likely that the result won't be brilliant.
So devs have to put together a cell friendly programming model, witch takes time.
Capcom devs have done a great job, but they were aiming for multi from scratch.
If most devs teams actually make their engine aiming primarily at pc/360 it's very likely that the time and cost constrained ports on ps3 will not be so great.
Ps3 is not (and for some more time) the lead dev platform, it will be interesting to see if big devs teams follow the same path as capcom or bite in the MS easy pc/360 portability resulting in not so great looking multiplatfrom games on ps3 for an unknown time.
I'm not sure, I can understand some time there can be some slowdown due to cpu, but on the graphic side the rsx should be able to stand of its own especialy with pc games like fear who run since 2005 on nv4x.
So at this time ports should look more cpu limited than gpu limited, It seems that memory can be an explanation.
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X360 and PS3 version was ported over by a completely different firm than Monolith who made the originial for PC.
Sure.
I don't know really how widespread(if at all) this is with other companies, but MS most certainly has been sending their engineers around to help with development of certain titles that whether run into problems on their platform, or simply warrant extra attention because of their higher profile (or both). A number of 360 titles have been "bailed out" this way. Though I don't know if they would bother with ports/multiplatform for doing this.
Undoubtedly - although if latest media from IGN is to be believed the preview build was running in SDTV, and much as there's plenty of users that still don't have HDTVs, I am not sure Sony even allows software with no HD resolutions at all.Joshua Luna said:
Panajev2001a
Veteran
I think that as far as UE development goes (UE 3/3.x and future UE releases), SCE WWS should send a chunk of its Advanced Technology Group "permanently"
at Epic Games HQ for a while (I think they already have to be honest with you) as they need to have the best port of UE3 and derivatives they can possibly get as IMHO they cannot afford to have all those UE3 powered titles that are going to come out in the future running in an sub-optimal way on PLAYSTATION 3 and they cannot simply tell developers licensing UE3 (this is also a problem for Epic) that they simply need to re-write a tons of performance critical stuff as pre-requisite when licensing UE3 on PLAYSTATION 3.I am not saying that all developers using UE3 on Xbox 360 are not doing customizations on at least some portions of the engine, but even taking the stance that you must re-write anything except the content pipeline of UE3 to get it to run well on PLAYSTATION 3 would quite an unattractive proposition.
I am not even saying that a very optimized (as much as it can be while presenting the same quality of documentation and code clarity UE3 is credited for by common wisdom) UE3 port would take the need away from developers to get their hands dirty and change what they do not need or what does not adapt well to their game or what is still not fast enough, just that a fast (adapted to PLAYSTATION 3 unique architecture and its strengths and weaknesses) reference implementation should be provided.
Still, I realize saying all of that is like discovering hot water, but I still feel the need to repeat it as many months have passed and it was not long ago that Epic admitted many developers had trouble getting UE3 to run at least just as well on PLAYSTATION 3 as it does on Xbox 360.
It would be good if Sony got the basic stuff out there, like the APIs for Sixaxis and the various online functionality. I think this is happening, but of course they are being a bit slow. Similarly there should be demo code and best practices. If you look at the market then it definitely helps focussing on what tools are out there and are being used. A good result recently was Havok's announcement of having optimised its engine for the Cell processor, with some very good results (5-10x improvement in typical game scenarios). That's the kind of thing Sony needs, as it helps the cross-platform developers a lot (there are currently a lot of games that use Havok).
Similarly there should be demo code and best practices. If you look at the market then it definitely helps focussing on what tools are out there and are being used. A good result recently was Havok's announcement of having optimised its engine for the Cell processor, with some very good results (5-10x improvement in typical game scenarios). That's the kind of thing Sony needs, as it helps the cross-platform developers a lot (there are currently a lot of games that use Havok).