Hardware and software development

[Tahir2]

To you software devs out there: Don't you find it a bit unfair and nauseating that you get started making a game for an unreleased console a year or more in advance on hardware and software tools that are almost nothing like the final product. Then you are given 6 months to test with actual hardware that could be slightly different from the end product and clean up your game as well as making sure it is fun...?

To the hardware developers: Don't you think it would be wise to lock down your final specifications earlier in the lifecycle of a consoles development phase and release final hardware to software developers that is similar to the end product but slower only in clockspeed and/or amount of processors?

I always wonder how the guys get launch titles out in time and how good they manage to make them look. Some are even fun to play.. amazing.

I think my idea is so good I should patent it and get it registered.

 

[AlNom]

early, relative to what? It's all perspective. Either launch sooner or later. If the console launched a year from now, you'd probably consider the specs locked down "early" or perhaps, "too soon".

There's nothing that is telling the manufacturers to stop along the way from producing the hardware. It just takes time. They're going as fast as they may without screwing up the hardware. You try producing multimillion transistor chips at 90nm.

Again, it's a temporal perspective. MS could have given developers more time with the hardware and launched next year, but they wanted to be out first. You're also asking hardware to be designed quicker, which is just inhumanly unfair. And now you're beginning to sound like a manager.

 

[Tahir2]

What about prodicing the mainboard chipset (including the RAM/CPU/GPU) all at 130nm or even 180nm "early"?

The point of doing this is to get a alpha or beta console out quicker that may only be 1/5 of the performance of the end product but architecturally there will be less need for headaches on the software side come Launch Time (I am specifically trying to tackle the launch issues).

Of course libraries and tools still need to be built and are currently being built and revamped on the next-gen consoles but until recently MS only provided dual core G5's with X800's and PS3 development hardware has been equally as slow or slower.

I do understand what is going on but it is fun to speculate.

If I sound like a manager then that is where some of my experience is... unfortunately

 

[3dcgi]

Producing a first run chip at 180nm wouldn't have helped get devkits out significantly early. Implementing features and just getting things working take a significant amount of the development time.

 

[MrWibble]

In order to give us a longer time using hardware comparable to what will be released, even at a lower speed it would almost certainly mean compromising the final hardware significantly.

As much as I find it frustrating to spend a few months rushing to get code done towards a launch (and remember, only a few developers are in that position anyway), I think the collective frustration of all developers spending an entire generation spent hacking at underpowered hardware would outweigh it.

Besides, the business perspective is much simpler. You must release the best possible machine as close to your intended date as possible. Choose your launch window and throw every trick in the book at making the machine itself state of the art. The moment someone compromises for the sake a few of us developers, the opposition would pounce on it and tear it apart.

Launch is not about having good games, launch is about having flashy looking games. Sad, but I think true.

 

[Platon]

Of course libraries and tools still need to be built and are currently being built and revamped on the next-gen consoles but until recently MS only provided dual core G5's with X800's and PS3 development hardware has been equally as slow or slower.

Actually I think that the early dev kits for PS3 were better than the early ones for xbox360, atleast on the hardware side. Atleast those had the cell early and a dual GPU...

 

[ERP]

Actually I think that the early dev kits for PS3 were better than the early ones for xbox360, atleast on the hardware side. Atleast those had the cell early and a dual GPU...

Early Ps3 kits were a lot closer than the early Xenon kits were.
Sony just has a different philosophy to MS they get small numbers of kits out with very early software and silicon. MS gets a lot of kits with closer to final API's, and solid tools.
I think a lot comes down to the Sony hrdware company, MS Software company thing.

In terms of which approach is better, they both have their merits, but Sony's approach is probably more conducive to good looking launch titles, although MS's is certainly more developer friendly.

 

[Tahir2]

Thanks for the info ERP, I had assumed this issue was widespread across the industry but someone already beat me to a solution.
I wonder what would happen if someone was able to mix MS's and Sony's approach and how does Nintendo do it since they are neither software or hardware company in the typical sense..