Tecmo jumping on PS3 bandwagon

[one]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/644/644736p1.html

The Tecmo president, who bitched about Sony dishing out less money (or devkit, whatever) last year, has announced their support for PS3 at an IR conference.

As part of today's comments, Nakamura touched upon a few next generation development issues, stating that Xbox 360 development will cost 20% more than development for previous generation platforms. Specifically referring to the PlayStation 3, he added: "Compared to the Xbox 360, it seems to be somewhat out of place with today's developers. I believe that it is having an influence on the skills and abilities of developers. You will have to change your way of thinking."

 

[pcostabel]

What's the big deal? Tecmo supported PS2 this gen, it's Team Ninja that has been Xbox exclusive.

 

[Hardknock]

What's the big deal? Tecmo supported PS2 this gen, it's Team Ninja that has been Xbox exclusive.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Acert93]

What's the big deal? Tecmo supported PS2 this gen, it's Team Ninja that has been Xbox exclusive.

I would not expect that to remain the case either. As the pres mentioned costs are going up ~20% for them, so they need to find new ways to make money... raising costs on games is one solution... offering all your games on every platform with a reasonable install base is another.

 

[Rockster]

Raising costs per game could also reduce revenue if consumption is less at the higher price point.

 

[mckmas8808]

"Compared to the Xbox 360, it seems to be somewhat out of place with today's developers. I believe that it is having an influence on the skills and abilities of developers. You will have to change your way of thinking."

Is he comparing the x360 to current platforms or the PS3?

 

[jvd]

I believe he is saying xbox 360 costs 20% more to develop on than current gen tech. Then he goes on to say the ps3 is out of place with the xbox 360 (meaning more expensive?) and its really pushing devs to the wire and showing who has skill and who doesn't

 

[mckmas8808]

I believe he is saying xbox 360 costs 20% more to develop on than current gen tech. Then he goes on to say the ps3 is out of place with the xbox 360 (meaning more expensive?) and its really pushing devs to the wire and showing who has skill and who doesn't

Wow ok. Do you think the PS3 is that much different than the X360? I don't know that's why I'm asking.

 

[hongcho]

I see two separate comments.

As part of today's comments, Nakamura touched upon a few next generation development issues, stating that Xbox 360 development will cost 20% more than development for previous generation platforms.

He is just saying that the development costs for the next generation is higher. For Xbox360, it's 20%.

Specifically referring to the PlayStation 3, he added: "Compared to the Xbox 360, it seems to be somewhat out of place with today's developers. I believe that it is having an influence on the skills and abilities of developers. You will have to change your way of thinking."

He "added"... He seems to be saying that the development environment for PS3 is quite different from what it is now (where as Xbox360 is closer).

I think he is talking about the heterogeneous multiprocessor nature of the CELL chip.

Hong.

 

[Acert93]

Wow ok. Do you think the PS3 is that much different than the X360? I don't know that's why I'm asking.

The PS3 GPU is a big relief, but there are some additional hurdles:

1. NUMA. 2 pools of 256MB of memory means devs will have to spend some extra time getting the memory allocation of their games streamlined.

2. CELL. Xbox has 3 CPU symetric cores with shared L2 cache. CELL has 8 asymetric cores (1+7) and is similar to a "master-slave" arrangement. You will need specialized code to run on the 7 SPEs. More cores means more oppurtunities for idle cores (which reduces performance); it also means more effort to serialize your game engine. If breaking your engine down to 3 parts is hard, then how much harder is 8? CELL has a higher theoretical FP thoroughput, but it also provides a lot of hurdles. See http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22867 for more discussion.

But there is a solution!

1st => Devs can write their code around the PPE/PPC core.

2nd => Multi-threaded middleware. Physic engines, AI engines, etc. If Havok has a physics engine that works well on the XeCPU and works well on CELL SPEs devs could use the middleware for a game and co-develop on both platforms pretty easily.

In the end a developer will have a hard time really maximizing the potential of either platform by cross platforming. They each have special features that will go under used.

The good news is that both have excellent GPUs and both have a LOT of memory and similar cores. So no game should be ugly on either system.

 

[mckmas8808]

Ok cool. Thanks.

 

[one]

Tecmo supported PS2 this gen, it's Team Ninja that has been Xbox exclusive.

Well, Team Ninja has a PS2 game too
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/deadoralive2hardcore/index.html

 

[_leech_]

Well, Team Ninja has a PS2 game too
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/deadoralive2hardcore/index.html

Haha, wasn't that the game some Tecmo guy said was the best the PS2 could do graphically?

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Yes, indeed, and IIRC by Itagaki no less. By my memory Tecmo has always been a bit brash with their comments, Team Ninja infinitely so. It's really not uncommon to hear some news about Tecmo saying with sucks and so on and then having their comments thrown back in their face. The president raises bloody murder over the PS3, now they announce they're working on it. Itagaki says they've maxxed the PS2, modern games destroy their's graphically. So on and so on. Tecmo's definately earned a reputation for that.

 

[Acert93]

Never played DOA... but whoa! The Xbox versions look a lot better...

http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/article/559/559141/dead-or-alive-ultimate-20041022023858639.jpg

Then again, note how DOA4 only looks marginally better

Stuff like this makes you wonder about TN and Rare... are they being overly rushed? Are they really struggling?

 

[London Geezer]

Haha, wasn't that the game some Tecmo guy said was the best the PS2 could do graphically?

That's a VERY VERY bad screenshot.

 

[Acert93]

That's a VERY VERY bad screenshot.

Yeah... egads!

The first one from leech feels almost like a PS1 shot The game does NOT look that bad it seems. Although my experience with both consoles on large TVs is they are grainy, blurry, and definately not as clear/crisp as a PC I know I know... bad me.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

According to those screenshots Tecmo got some VERY nice AA going on PS2!

 

[London Geezer]

Well the first shot posted was a half-frame res shot. The others are devkit shots. The game on a TV will look much better than the first shot but not as clean as the ones Acert posted.

 

[hey69]

actually, it IS that bad on tv.. i had that dead or alive game , (i played the dreamcast version at friends house) it was a festival of jaggies, cutting in your eyes

sereously