EA on PS3/360 development

[Titanio]

Hope this isn't old..these comments cropped up a couple of days ago, which I thought were kind of interesting, and EA has elaborated on them further. First the original comment:

Jenson also said EA hadn't finished building a game for PS3, adding "we have not yet been able to work to port [a] PlayStation 3 game to an Xbox 360 game or an Xbox 360 game to a PlayStation 3 game" either. Porting helps significantly lower the costs of development for publishers. Jenson said EA plans to "work to try to scale the development cost but... that is something that it's way too early to speculate on, given the fact that we haven't really gone through" the porting process.

A new interview with the EA Sports Lab team elaborates:

http://uk.sports.ign.com/articles/706/706168p2.html

How is the development for PS3 different than what you went through with the 360?

Steve Chiang: Definitely different. The PS3 has an interesting and unique architecture and it's very powerful. But it's different, because it has some parallel processing that we've never seen before. Our guys are getting a kick out of pushing the hardware to its limits. The Xbox 360 is more like a traditional multi-processor PC. It's more like what our guys are used to seeing.

Are the PS3 versions going to be any different than the 360 games?

Steve Chiang: We have a different development team on Madden. We have a 360 team and we have a PS3 team. Our PS3 games, what we're showing is still pretty early, we're still five-six months from launch. We're really working to create specific features for the PS3, but we're not talking about those yet.

This kind of surprised me, that they have segragated development still. It seemed everyone was thinking 360/PS3 porting would be the defacto standard, but not yet, at least, in this case! They've gotta be sharing assets, regardless, though.

 

[Karamazov]

now we may see more differences between the same EA games on both ps3 and xbox360 than we saw on same games on ps2 and xbox.

 

[Kryton]

Do EA use a 'standard engine asset' format? I imagine they'll write target engines for both platforms that can swap assets easily. Be interesting to see if anyone writes a mini-VM so that a high performance byte code could be written and run without modification on both.

 

[msia2k75]

Well, that was kinda unexpected...?
EA next-gen efforts have been pretty poor so far (aside Fight Night).
Are they struggling with PS3 hardware? Or the contrary? Dont know just asking...

 

[Tap In]

I thought that was interesting as well when I read it.

I'm assuming that

We're really working to create specific features for the PS3, but we're not talking about those yet.

means that they will be designing Gyro controller commands into the game which obviously 360 won't do.

Should be interesting.

 

[Titanio]

Well, that was kinda unexpected...?
EA next-gen efforts have been pretty poor so far (aside Fight Night).
Are they struggling with PS3 hardware? Or the contrary? Dont know just asking...

I don't think it's a matter of struggling with any hardware at all, as much as it is that the systems are different enough such that they're not directly porting between the two for now.

Standard HDD could be something else they might take advantage of, but I don't know how much it would be useful in their games. It sounds like the CPU is the biggest difference, then possibly control options for some games.

 

[Tap In]

....then possibly control options for some games.

yea

it remains to be seen how much Devs will take advantage of the new controller (or how applicable it is). But IF they are able to make it work with many different genres (sports for one) I would personally be excited. If it turns out to be more than just a gimmick and a real time application of controller schemes it could be huge.

I will miss the rumble feature though.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I don't think it's a matter of struggling with any hardware at all, as much as it is that the systems are different enough such that they're not directly porting between the two for now.

Standard HDD could be something else they might take advantage of, but I don't know how much it would be useful in their games. It sounds like the CPU is the biggest difference, then possibly control options for some games.

I think it's probbly a matter of having limited time on final PS3 dev kits, so rather than trying a last minute port from the 360 which would not probably be a recipe for disaster, they decided to run them concurrently.

 

[Tap In]

for reference,
here is EA's effort on PS3 to date for Madden


http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/811/811802/img_3585961.html

a couple more here
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/811/811802/imgs_1.html

 

[Tap In]

I don't think it's a matter of struggling with any hardware at all, as much as it is that the systems are different enough such that they're not directly porting between the two for now.
....

this kind of goes toward my theory earlier that there are multiple teams for some other games too. We discussed that when we were determining why some press releases only mentioned 1 platform in their PR rather than all when we had info that pointed to multiplatform.

this sounds like it will be a very expensive process and I'm guessing they are going to have to play around to determine which direction PS3 >> to 360 or 360 >> PS3 will be easier to port. (once they figure out how to do it.)

 

[Hardknock]

Very interesting Tap-In.

From IGN's pics it appears the PS3 version has better ground textures for the grass, but the 360 version has more AA and better stadiums? Overall the 360 version just looks a bit smoother. Since this topic is about Madden on each system I think it should be fine to compare their efforts on each so far. Keep in mind that they've been deving for the 360 longer (I'm guessing?):

PS3:

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/811/811802/img_3585959.html

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/811/811802/img_3585960.html

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/811/811802/img_3585961.html

360:

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/811/811804/img_3573153.html

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/811/811804/img_3573151.html

I think it's cool that EA has seperate teams for each system, hopefully this will ensure each version is best using the hardware.

 

[DemoCoder]

Madden pisses me off, because they showed a CG trailer last year, and they've had along time to work on it, and what've they shown so far looks like ass. Barely better than the X-Box1 version IMHO.

While games like NBA, Tiger Woods, Fight Night, are making great strides, Madden looks like a previous-gen game with a few tweaks and looks NOTHING like the CG "target" shown last year.

 

[scificube]

I'm not sure comparisons can really be made yet. Madden is a complete game for the X360 while the PS3 version that we've seen is still a work in progress.

 

[Tap In]

Steve Chiang: I think in the end, it will end up being around the same. They are both going to ship around the same time frame, just a year different. The difference between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 in terms of games, our goal is to have everything we have on both platforms, but since we have more development time for PS3 since the games will ship later, we will have more development time to create more stuff.

I'm guessing they will have a few more game modes for PS3

 

[mckmas8808]

I'm guessing they will have a few more game modes for PS3

I want the PS3 version to use gyros.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Interesting.. especially since it was announced by MS that the X360 would be the only console for the release of Madden.

That hasn't gotten alot of notice, but it was mentioned during the speech.. Maybe he knows EA is a few months behind on the PS3 version so it won't be available at the same time. ?

 

[Tap In]

Interesting.. especially since it was announced by MS that the X360 would be the only console for the release of Madden.

That hasn't gotten alot of notice, but it was mentioned during the speech.. Maybe he knows EA is a few months behind on the PS3 version so it won't be available at the same time. ?

I took that to mean that the 360 game would come out at its normal release schedule of September-ish to meet the NFL opening day, but since PS3 will not be out until November, they have a jump start.

 

[Bad_Boy]

Yea, Madden 07 will be released in august 06. Obviously, like you mentioned, ps3 doesnt come for another 3 months. Hopefully they can put the extra 3 months to use.

 

[Lazy8s]

Did EA ever really try to implement a Renderware initiative for their internal developers?

 

[Acert93]

I think it is too early to start comparing. There may be texture place holders and what not, plus the PS3 version has a solid 6 months to launch which means ~4 months dev time. Some of the differences appear more stylistic (like the giant green twigs for grass). I was hoping for a solution similar to Euphoria ::sigh::

Madden pisses me off, because they showed a CG trailer last year, and they've had along time to work on it, and what've they shown so far looks like ass. Barely better than the X-Box1 version IMHO.

Agreed. This shot is not much better, relatively (in my subjective opinion), than the PC version. Better, yes; but not the leaps and bounds we have already seen in many of the 360/PS3 titles. Madden is one of the TOP 10 sellers every year. They should have the dev budget to put out a top 10 looking game, especially since the game is confined to 22 players, coaches and refs, and a fixed size stadium.

Of course now that EA owns the NFL, NCAA, and AFL licenses...

I'm not sure comparisons can really be made yet. Madden is a complete game for the X360 while the PS3 version that we've seen is still a work in progress.

Hahaha the 360 version is not a complete game! They gutted it with the excuse that it was a completely new engine (which it ain't).