I think you guys misunderstood assen. He illustrated his quotation marks "will get used to PS3" /end quotation marks with "things will be easier next year. PS3 development will always need more effort, better programmers, etc."
His first "comment" wasn't a very good choice of wording (but not everyone here speaks English as a native langauge).
Assuming there is no evolution and complication in the code, then that is correct. But games in 2009 will be more complex and demanding the system "do more with less".
Some issues will be trivial in that "good practices" as well as tools&code already ironed out can be leveraged; in other areas it will be the same issues of getting the same performance from a SIMD architecture with small local memory with more manual management and a smaller total system memory configuration.
It all depends. We are seeing some of both right now -- some really bad ports as well as some really good "ports" (co-development).
It all depends on the studios. Are they picking designs that work well on both systems? Do their techniques translate well to the SPE architecture? Are they trying to port to the PS3 or is it true co-development? Are they giving the PS3 adequate resources so they can adequately design systems that make efficient and, minimally, equal end results (performance and quality) as the 360 effort?
Marketshare and development costs are going to be major factors--as well as the continued quality improvements in the tools Sony and their partners make available. While the cool physics system you developed in your 2006 may carry over in large parts, your player animation systems was spartan in your FPS and now that you have a 3rd person game with intricate animation demands you will need to not only create a more robust system to deal with the complexity, but also find smart ways to map this adequately to the PS3 system.
One of the hurdles is that the number of people who can adequately tame the SPEs is thinner than the number of whom can do so with multiple cores. Both are small pools, but no one appears to disagree with the fact that right or wrong the SPEs are posing a larger hurdle to to existing programmer talent pool. They may be lazy, unexcited, or just plain bad at their job. But it is these very people companies are relying on to create these games. While tool quality will improve, "good practices" will be shared, and general understanding of the system--what works well, what doesn't--will be gained through hands on experience, these very same forces will be met with further deadlines, increases complexity--and more importantly, high expectations and standards. If IW released CoD2 in 2007 it would be considered a poor game. 360 and PS3 devs cannot shoot for what was good in 2005, but must be on the cutting edge in 2008. I am not a prophet, but I think there is a middle ground--some things will become much easier and common "game breakers" can be avoided, but there will also remain a lot of reinvention of the wheel and struggling to get the right algorhythm in place to efficiently produce the results you require. And the cynic says: SMM made a comment about some dev houses hating MS. There are also individuals who hate Cell and would like to see it die. If the marketshare doesn't grow, sometimes you can create your own self fulfilling prophecy.
I think it is very likely that many PS3 ports in 2008 will still be suffering. More will ascend closer to parity, and in certain situations (like nAo's case) even exceed, but there are enough market factors moving right now that there will continue to be poor ports on the market.
His first "comment" wasn't a very good choice of wording (but not everyone here speaks English as a native langauge).
Assuming there is no evolution and complication in the code, then that is correct. But games in 2009 will be more complex and demanding the system "do more with less".
Some issues will be trivial in that "good practices" as well as tools&code already ironed out can be leveraged; in other areas it will be the same issues of getting the same performance from a SIMD architecture with small local memory with more manual management and a smaller total system memory configuration.
It all depends. We are seeing some of both right now -- some really bad ports as well as some really good "ports" (co-development).
It all depends on the studios. Are they picking designs that work well on both systems? Do their techniques translate well to the SPE architecture? Are they trying to port to the PS3 or is it true co-development? Are they giving the PS3 adequate resources so they can adequately design systems that make efficient and, minimally, equal end results (performance and quality) as the 360 effort?
Marketshare and development costs are going to be major factors--as well as the continued quality improvements in the tools Sony and their partners make available. While the cool physics system you developed in your 2006 may carry over in large parts, your player animation systems was spartan in your FPS and now that you have a 3rd person game with intricate animation demands you will need to not only create a more robust system to deal with the complexity, but also find smart ways to map this adequately to the PS3 system.
One of the hurdles is that the number of people who can adequately tame the SPEs is thinner than the number of whom can do so with multiple cores. Both are small pools, but no one appears to disagree with the fact that right or wrong the SPEs are posing a larger hurdle to to existing programmer talent pool. They may be lazy, unexcited, or just plain bad at their job. But it is these very people companies are relying on to create these games. While tool quality will improve, "good practices" will be shared, and general understanding of the system--what works well, what doesn't--will be gained through hands on experience, these very same forces will be met with further deadlines, increases complexity--and more importantly, high expectations and standards. If IW released CoD2 in 2007 it would be considered a poor game. 360 and PS3 devs cannot shoot for what was good in 2005, but must be on the cutting edge in 2008. I am not a prophet, but I think there is a middle ground--some things will become much easier and common "game breakers" can be avoided, but there will also remain a lot of reinvention of the wheel and struggling to get the right algorhythm in place to efficiently produce the results you require. And the cynic says: SMM made a comment about some dev houses hating MS. There are also individuals who hate Cell and would like to see it die. If the marketshare doesn't grow, sometimes you can create your own self fulfilling prophecy.
I think it is very likely that many PS3 ports in 2008 will still be suffering. More will ascend closer to parity, and in certain situations (like nAo's case) even exceed, but there are enough market factors moving right now that there will continue to be poor ports on the market.
).
