Sure the PS3 may never eclispe what the 360 can (& probably will) demonstrate (in real world implementation) with regards to IQ, however it certainly can fail/equal/surpass it on a case by case basis..
That's a fair way to put it. For example, Little Big Planet may very well not be possible on 360 depending on how complex the physics simulation is.
However, going back to his blog, his main frustration seems to be at the difficulty in getting the PS3 to perform some basics. You have to understand, game development today has become incredibly high risk. Costs are stupidly high, deadlines are tighter than ever, and head count is limited. Many studios are literally just one game failure away from going under. Anything that ads risk to the current situation without a huge potential return is simply not welcome anymore.
The 360, thus far, has been stupidly easy to dev for. So easy in fact that one coder and one artist can make a 360 game from start to finish by themselves. 360 has been welcomed by many because it has taken some of the risk out of game development at a time when it was very much needed. It's helped our ability to meat a deadline with a quality product. You can get a good game out on 360 in a 10-18 month timeline, even if you are starting from scratch. You get great tools, great support. Microsoft kisses developer ass because they understand the value of game programmers to their bottom line.
Now enter the PS3. It's going back to the old days of screw you developers, we don't care if it's a pain to work with. Yup, it's complicated. Yup, theres little support. Yup, it will take you years to get it to do what 360 can do out of the box. Too bad, that's how it is, now get to work. In the above scenario where do you think coders will flock to? If all this extra risk/work yielded a tangible benefit then sure, the end justifies the means. The problem is that so far it's only yielding at best parity. Look back at posts about a year or so ago and you'll read how people were expecting PS3 games to be many times better than 360 games by Xmas '07. Needless to say, that hasn't happened. In fact, many games are still having difficultly hitting parity.
I think his blog came to be from frustration at all the fud out there that paints PS3 as a super dooper machine that should be 10x better than 360, and that anyone that doesn't make it so must be an imbecile. That's why I understand his frustration. Clearly our PS3 lead is smart given that he's been coding games since the Timex Sinclair, and given that Sony keeps trying to steal him from us every other month. Clearly our ex-Nvidia guy on the render team will, believe it or not, know a thing or two about RSX. We're not all incompetent.
An aside to all this is that Sony is running out of time. In 2 to 3 years, many of us will be leaving old gen coding (360/PS3) and will start coding on the new new-gen (Xbox720). I'm getting close to the halfway coding point myself on the current generation so the switch for me is not really that far away. That's one of the dangers of making a box so difficult to dev for. By the time it gets a chance to shine, the next Xbox will already clobber it.
