PS3 deliberately hard to program?

Teasy: what about reading the words SEEMED TO BE ?

This is what you recollect saying...
I clearly said, in my post, that while PS2 was difficult to program for and would have been in trouble against XBox and GC at release Sony knew they did not need to compete with GC and XBox at release. They knew that by the time GC and XBox were released devs would have gotten used to PS2's hardware. They also knew that by then PS2 would have a very large game library. So Sony were not lucky, they knew what they were doing.. but apparently you missed all of that in your furver to attack me. Save it, I'm not impressed by your ability to waffle for hours on end.

This is what reading it quickly would cause some people to pick up... hence the point "SEEMED TO BE"...

SCE: "Hehehe why should we give them good documentation and nice high-level APIs now ? HAHAHA We have no competition and developers will have to beg us and we can just sit there and let them hang because they have NO CHOICE... HAHAHA We can just wait until we really have competition HAHAHA It must suck o be a developer for PlayStation 2 but what can we do we are EVIL"
 
Teasy said:
Panajev2001a

Erm, quote me saying anything like that. I said PS2 was difficult to program for. Which is true. I also said Sony knew that PS2 being difficult to program for would not be detrimental to its success because by the time its competition came out devs would have gotten used to programing for it and it would have built up a nice game library. I did not say at any time that they deliberately made it hard to program for just for the sake of it. Where you got the "HAHAHA" bit from I have no idea.

There has been speculation that SONY deliberately made the PS2 unconventional hence difficult to program so that ports to other platforms would be difficult.


Saem said:
oh, BTW can anyone take that fricking USELESS picture from up there. its USELESS and gives that annoying wide-screen effect.... come on... people are working here, with no time to go right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left- for every line
thank u

One big reason I dislike inlined pictures. GRR!

You guys need to run your monitors at a higher resolution ;)
 
PC-Engine said:
You guys need to run your monitors at a higher resolution ;)


SWEETIE, if i run at a higher resolution my pc is gonna explode... with all the stuff i've got running at the same time i'm surprised it hasnt blown up yet...
 
Panajev2001a

Well surely I'd have to post something that was similar to what I seemed to say for it to seem that way yes? Which is why I asked you to quote me saying "anything like that". Basically I think its crazy for anyone to get:

SCE: "Hehehe why should we give them good documentation and nice high-level APIs now ? HAHAHA We have no competition and developers will have to beg us and we can just sit there and let them hang because they have NO CHOICE... HAHAHA We can just wait until we really have competition HAHAHA It must suck o be a developer for PlayStation 2 but what can we do we are EVIL"

From this:

I think he means PS2 was lucky because while it was very hard to program for it also was released without any competition. It didn't have any competition for over a year on the market. It didn't have a really good game for a long time. Then a little while before XBox and GC arrived devs started to get the hang of developing for it and the games started to come. If GC and XBox had been released at the same time as PS2 then frankly PS2 would be third right now. Look how quickly great games arrived for GC and XBox. Of course you could say Sony knew PS2 would have no compeition for over a year. So they knew they could get away with being hard to program for, so it wasn't really luck at all. In the end though I think the point he was getting at is if PS3 is equally hard to program for it won't be 'lucky' enough to have the market to itself for over a year like PS2 did.
 
There has been speculation that SONY deliberately made the PS2 unconventional hence difficult to program so that ports to other platforms would be difficult.

Speculation would be a gross understatement... Better adjust that tin-foil! ;)

...and somehow NAOMI->smaller/cheaper=DC...must be magic.

Wanna show me the JVS support in the DC? Keyed GD-ROM drive? Last time I looked NAOMI also had twice the main and graphics memory that the DC had...

Xbox using NAOMI 2 would be the same scenario...NAOMI 2->smaller/cheaper->Xbox

In 2000? Who knows how much Xbox would've cost in 2000 let alone earlier (and what it would've been constructed of). Then you've gotta consider the fact that NAOMI 2 had around 136MB of RAM in it (well really more like 104MB since 32MB was duplicated), dual monitor support, JVS support, two GPUs and a geometry co-processor; vs. at the latest in Y2K comodity PC components? Yeah sure... End of 2001? Maybe, but has anyone done a part count, and component cost analysis of the two for that timeline?

Oh and...

BTW NAOMI 2 hardware was completed a year before it was shown at JAMMA and the design was locked down even before that

Big whoop... We had PS2 dev units in early '99 and simulators on SGIs even earlier. That doesn't mean the system would've come out earlier...
 
Big whoop... We had PS2 dev units in early '99 and simulators on SGIs even earlier. That doesn't mean the system would've come out earlier...


I keep forgetting how OLD the PS2 is. I just got one last July.

If you had PS2 dev units in early 1999 and simulators on SGIs, when, mid-to-late 1998, (just guessing) that would mean some developers have simulators of PS3 on highend SGIs (or whatever is used now) probably now, if not later this year. no?
 
Well I don't know about studios running simulators right now... Ours was a bit of a special case. But I do know for certain that there are studios with PS3 titles in the planning stages. (that really doesn't mean much though). I'd imagine that most studios won't get any finalized hardware 'till mid to late next year...
 
Teasy said:
Nowhere in my post did I say that Sony were not "damn good". I just said that if PS3 is difficult to program for and is released at the same time as GC2 and XBox2 it would be akin to PS2/GC/XBox all being released at the same time. Notice that is if. That if is based on the subject of this thread. I am not saying that I believe that will be the case.

Exactly, and thats why the majority of m responce was discussing the ramifications of launching XBox at meet a PS2 American launch window. I think I clearly showed that it would have had a negative contextual effect on the life and vitality of the console and would have resulted in a worse launch with concerns to software (which as stated would have had to been produced in a 6 month window!!)

The situation if launched w/ PS2 would have been much, much worse. Infact - Microsoft picked about the best launch window (that allowed for the superior hardware and content to launch with) as possible given their situation. This generation was enevitable in outcome, but MS has tried valiently.

Looking forward, I think a direct confrientation with a PlayStation launch is hara-kiri. I don't know how far in each time direction the bounds would be in which you have strong PS influence; but product marketing is an art - and one that I'm pretty ignorant in.

Finally, I have no idea why you even replied to my post when my post was only there to try to clear up what I thought PC-Engine was saying. PC-Engine was the one who said Sony where lucky ect.. not me.

Ahh, yes, this is true. I probobly lumped you in with him and for this I'm eternally sorry. Allways liked you and to inflict such an insult. ;)
 
Wanna show me the JVS support in the DC? Keyed GD-ROM drive? Last time I looked NAOMI also had twice the main and graphics memory that the DC had...

Why would DC need those? DC is a home console NAOMI was an arcade board. You seem to be glossing over the fact that DC games are 99.9% identical to NAOMI games, who the hell cares what they did to make DC smaller/cheaper. The only thing that matters is that they did it and it didnt' affect NAOMI->DC games.

In 2000? Who knows how much Xbox would've cost in 2000 let alone earlier (and what it would've been constructed of). Then you've gotta consider the fact that NAOMI 2 had around 136MB of RAM in it (well really more like 104MB since 32MB was duplicated), dual monitor support, JVS support, two GPUs and a geometry co-processor; vs. at the latest in Y2K comodity PC components? Yeah sure... End of 2001? Maybe, but has anyone done a part count, and component cost analysis of the two for that timeline?

Again, the only difference between an N2 based Xbox and DC would be, a second gpu which was already cheap since it's the same one used in DC, a 100 MHz TnL chip which wouldn't of costed more than the SH-4, and additional RAM which was cheap 100MHz SDRAM. Not only that, Xbox could've used half the RAM as N2 just like DC used half the RAM as N1, didn't change the way DC games looked compared to N1.

The PS2 sold for $300 and it costed around $450 to manufacture. Using NAOMI->DC for reference, Xbox based on N2 technology wouldn't have costed more than $450 to manufacture and could be sold for $300 like PS2 was.


Big whoop... We had PS2 dev units in early '99 and simulators on SGIs even earlier. That doesn't mean the system would've come out earlier...

N2 was based on N1 with minor additions. N1/DC hardware is older than PS2. In other words N2 was based on proven technology (N1/DC) that was already on the market long before PS2. Why even bring up simulators when the real hardware was already existed in the market? What are you gonna bring up next, the PS2 paper concept which was created shortly after the release of PSX? :LOL:
 
First look at this topic but the suggestion that the PS3 (or PS2) would be deliberately made hard to program seems bizzare. I would expect this to be more of a function of deliberately making the hardware complex in order to push the performance envelope.

After the unprecedented success of the PSX the engineers obviously got a much bigger budget and greater creative freedom with which to create the PS2. Under such circumstances engineers do what they like doing best - push the envelope and produce the most technically impressive piece of kit they can.

I would expect the success of a console to be largely based on:
1. Marketing/Pricing (to consumers)
2. Support/Pricing (to developers)
3. Hardware spec (would need to be there or thereabouts)

I understand that Sony rushed the launch of the PS2. I'm not sure if this was to combat the earlier release DC or if it was a preemptive strike against the XBox and GC. Either way it was probably a good ploy. The only trade off was that the developer tools were not that complete, and hence alot of the early "hard to develop for" moaning.

I think that Microsoft have done a fairly impressive job with the XBox. Basing the hardware around off the shelf components (well almost off the shelf) such as Intel and NVidia must have helped with the time to get the console from concept to the market. With a software standard such as DirectX they had a pool of potential developers to draw on. I think Microsoft didn't expect to win this round but wanted to set themselves up in a strong position for XBox2. They did this by timing their release so they had a more powerful console than Sony and combined this with aggressive marketing and developer support. No point being knocked out in the first round.

Sony must be worried. If Microsoft continue with the off-the-shelf stategy(Intel, NVidia/ATI, DirectX) for XBox2 they can potentially get the XBox2 to market before the PS3. When combined with Microsoft's marketing strength this may be a formidable opponent for the PS3. Presumably the PS3 will take alot longer to get to market with the development of new chipsets and associated developer tools. I also imagine there would be a larger learning curve for developers between the PS2 and PS3 than between the XBox and XBox2.

So how will the next round play out? I think it comes down to timing. If PS3 releases much later than XBox2 it will need a significant performance edge (or a 'perceived' performance edge) to make consumers wait for it rather than buy an XBox2. Sony have done it once (PS2 vs. DC) but will find Microsoft a much stronger opponent.
 
You seem to be glossing over the fact that DC games are 99.9% identical to NAOMI games, who the hell cares what they did to make DC smaller/cheaper. The only thing that matters is that they did it and it didnt' affect NAOMI->DC games.

Well of course they're going to be largely un-affected. NAOMI didn't support GD-ROM streaming initially so the extra memory allocations weren't used much for anything other than caching data that would normally be streamed from the GD-ROM. There are a couple of NAOMI GD-ROM titles that actually leveraged the extra memory that would've required re-working had they been ported down to the DC. There's of course the multi-board games too, but those don't really count since none of them were ported to the DC.

Again, the only difference between an N2 based Xbox and DC would be, a second gpu which was already cheap since it's the same one used in DC, a 100 MHz TnL chip which wouldn't of costed more than the SH-4, and additional RAM which was cheap 100MHz SDRAM

If only things were so simple. Adding a second GPU also entails the additional memory pool for it, additional support components, a more complex board (to deal with the additional trace layouts and routing). Then of course there's Elan (I won't speculate into costs, however at least SuperH cores are far more widespread than Elan thus have their costs amortized across other customers), with it's memory support and routing for two GPUs. Need add an ATA interface controller if you wanted to have an HDD. You'd be surprised how much the little stuff can add to your costs. There's a reason SEGA went with a relatively cleaner design for the DC (compared to the mess inside the Saturn). Hell look at the GCN's board design, or look how many board revisions Sony's done to the PSX and PS2 to reduce part count and simplify board design to reduce costs.

Not only that, Xbox could've used half the RAM as N2 just like DC used half the RAM as N1, didn't change the way DC games looked compared to N1.

Well if you halved the main mem of NAOMI 2 then you wouldn't even have the amount of main mem that NAOMI (or Hikaru for that matter) had you'd have the same as a DC. Half the VRAM? You'd be about the same as a NAOMI then (16MB per GPU). You could probably get by with half the geometry cache for Elan (16MB). Halving NAOMI 2s audio RAM would give you half of what NAOMI had (still twice that of the DC). You're essentiall getting rid of one NAOMI 2s strongest advantages (really large memory pool).

The PS2 sold for $300 and it costed around $450 to manufacture.

$374 and $488 respectively if you wanna get a bit more specific.

[ Using NAOMI->DC for reference, Xbox based on N2 technology wouldn't have costed more than $450 to manufacture and could be sold for $300 like PS2 was.

Doesn't quite work as accurate reference. Xbox requires additional support for the HDD (which keep in mind would represent a higher percentage of system cost launching it 20 months earlier). However if you did wanna do the whole NAOMI -> DC reference, then you'd be looking at $600-$800 for home unit. But hey that's right in the range of 3DO and Neo-Geo systems (both in the $700 range)
 
first the ps3 isnt out yet so i dont how its hard to program second you dont know the whole architucre exepct we know about the cell. third it could be very easy you dont know how is it going to play out
 
Tagrineth said:
Evil_Cloud said:
I don't think that the one with the best hardware will win the next console war... Gamegear >< Gameboy, PlayStation >< N64,...
It'll be all up to the PR of the companies to start a huge hype accompanied by tons and tons of commercials...

The most powerful hardware has never won a console generation.

In fact, every generation... the weakest hardware overall won. (not counting in-betweens: Dreamcast, Jaguar, 3DO)

Eh.....even if you squeeze the inbetweens into a generation, they never won. Oh yeah......

Oh, and I'm sure there was something out weaker than the NES.
The SNES was stronger than the genesis overall(at least in how games looked) and it won worldwide, though not in America.
Saturn lost, though you can debate if saturn or psx was stronger.(but you can also debate that the ps2 is the weakest)
And gameboy advance is stronger than any other handheld competitor.(maybe not in raw power, but the snes wasn't stronger than the genesis in raw power)

BTW, how come companies that lose tons of money(microsoft and sony) on their consoles, can't make something that completely beasts PCs, but if sega was to have done that with dreamcast(sold it for $300, took a $100 lose and have basically double of everything) it would have crushed any PCs of the time, and possibly the ps2.(that would have been what, like virtua fighter 4 arcade quality?) And if nintendo were willing to lose money on gamecube, they would have had a 600 Mhz cpu and a 200 Mhz gpu, though I don't know if that would beat computers of the time(it would certainly give a healthy boost), and heck, maybe they could even get the gpu up to 300 mhz.

Oh, and I'm fairly certain nintendo could have launched gamecube at the same time of ps2(or within 6 months) if they wanted to eat even more losses than sony was.(I think they were demonstrating fully working gamecubes like a year before it released, but there would have been a serious lack of games on launch....some prettied up n64 titles that were very unpolished at best, and even bigger losers than luigi's mansion)
 
archie4oz said:
You seem to be glossing over the fact that DC games are 99.9% identical to NAOMI games, who the hell cares what they did to make DC smaller/cheaper. The only thing that matters is that they did it and it didnt' affect NAOMI->DC games.

Well of course they're going to be largely un-affected. NAOMI didn't support GD-ROM streaming initially so the extra memory allocations weren't used much for anything other than caching data that would normally be streamed from the GD-ROM. There are a couple of NAOMI GD-ROM titles that actually leveraged the extra memory that would've required re-working had they been ported down to the DC. There's of course the multi-board games too, but those don't really count since none of them were ported to the DC.

Again, the only difference between an N2 based Xbox and DC would be, a second gpu which was already cheap since it's the same one used in DC, a 100 MHz TnL chip which wouldn't of costed more than the SH-4, and additional RAM which was cheap 100MHz SDRAM

If only things were so simple. Adding a second GPU also entails the additional memory pool for it, additional support components, a more complex board (to deal with the additional trace layouts and routing). Then of course there's Elan (I won't speculate into costs, however at least SuperH cores are far more widespread than Elan thus have their costs amortized across other customers), with it's memory support and routing for two GPUs. Need add an ATA interface controller if you wanted to have an HDD. You'd be surprised how much the little stuff can add to your costs. There's a reason SEGA went with a relatively cleaner design for the DC (compared to the mess inside the Saturn). Hell look at the GCN's board design, or look how many board revisions Sony's done to the PSX and PS2 to reduce part count and simplify board design to reduce costs.

Not only that, Xbox could've used half the RAM as N2 just like DC used half the RAM as N1, didn't change the way DC games looked compared to N1.

Well if you halved the main mem of NAOMI 2 then you wouldn't even have the amount of main mem that NAOMI (or Hikaru for that matter) had you'd have the same as a DC. Half the VRAM? You'd be about the same as a NAOMI then (16MB per GPU). You could probably get by with half the geometry cache for Elan (16MB). Halving NAOMI 2s audio RAM would give you half of what NAOMI had (still twice that of the DC). You're essentiall getting rid of one NAOMI 2s strongest advantages (really large memory pool).

The PS2 sold for $300 and it costed around $450 to manufacture.

$374 and $488 respectively if you wanna get a bit more specific.

[ Using NAOMI->DC for reference, Xbox based on N2 technology wouldn't have costed more than $450 to manufacture and could be sold for $300 like PS2 was.

Doesn't quite work as accurate reference. Xbox requires additional support for the HDD (which keep in mind would represent a higher percentage of system cost launching it 20 months earlier). However if you did wanna do the whole NAOMI -> DC reference, then you'd be looking at $600-$800 for home unit. But hey that's right in the range of 3DO and Neo-Geo systems (both in the $700 range)

I don't think an Xbox based on N2 would've cost $700 even with a HDD. First of all IDE controllers were selling as separate cards for $20 at the time so an onboard controller would've been even cheaper like say $10. The Elan only ran at 100 MHz and wasn't a huge chip so I'd say it would've costed $50 at most. Then you have the second CLX chip which was probably $40. Then the extra standard industry SDRAM. The extra PCB complexity wouldn't add that much probably about $20.

So you have a manufacturing cost of $20+$50+$40+$20=$130 excluding the extra RAM and HDD controller.

The DC sold for $200 and costed about $275 to manufacture at most in 98. In 99 it would've been a little cheaper, but let's just use the $275 figure for now. So $275+$130=$405 exluding the extra RAM and HDD. I don't think it's too farfetched to think that the manufacturing costs would be similar to PS2 which you said was $488. I'd say roughly $450 with the additional RAM but without the HDD, IDE controller, PCB routing. That seems very comparable and reasonable IMO.
 
Good arguments..

I think both Archie and PC-engine have valid arguments.
However one problem with the comparision given by PC-engine is that the costs shown are mass market commodity prices for the hyperthetical DC++.
With the PS2 though the high costs of manufacturing at the start were reported to be more to do with the initial factory problems and R&D recoupment..

....
Personally I don't think that the Naomi 2 games look that much better than PS2 versions ( Without going into arguments about which type of bumpmapping isn't supported on the GS ) - sure there are differences in the visual output ( TV verses expensive Arcade monitor ) and even the geometry ( which I attribute more to memory reduction than anything else )

If Xbox had launched earlier with a DC style chip I would have expected something more like this spec..

Kyro style chipset @ 150/200MHz
Faster AMD or P4 chip!!

Without the onboard T&L of the NV chip it would be more economical ( across the entire lifespan of the console ) to get a faster chip with better FP capabilities to handle T&L..
 
The extra PCB complexity wouldn't add that much probably about $20.

You sure about that ? I think you're underestimating alot of the cost for N2 combined with Xbox style hardware. Archie would be more conservative with $600-$800.

The DC sold for $200 and costed about $275 to manufacture at most in 98.

Regardless, Sega was slow to reduce cost of DC hardware. If they were able to reduce cost as quick as Sony able to do with PS2, DC would still be around today and Sega would be about to release DC2 around about now.
 
You sure about that ? I think you're underestimating alot of the cost for N2 combined with Xbox style hardware. Archie would be more conservative with $600-$800.

You're missing the whole point. When I say extra PCB costs I'm talking about additional costs over the DC board NOT the NAOMI board. Strip a DC board of all components leaving just the PCB itself and use that as reference. How much do you think the PCB would cost? Let's say the board costed $30. Now let's say a condensed version of an N2 board was 2X the cost. That's still only $60 which is only $10 more than my original estimate. ;)

BTW I wasn't talking about taking an N2 arcade board and putting a plastic box around it and slapping on an X logo :LOL:
 
You're missing the whole point. When I say extra PCB costs I'm talking about additional costs over the DC board NOT the NAOMI board. Strip a DC board of all components leaving just the PCB itself and use that as reference. How much do you think the PCB would cost? Let's say the board costed $30. Now let's say a condensed version of an N2 board was 2X the cost. That's still only $60 which is only $10 more than my original estimate.

Like I said, you're underestimating the cost of things.
 
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