In defense of Sony...
. The PS2 design is one of the most in efficient, poorly concieved designes of all time.
It's also doing the best (quite significantly, I believe) in sales for current gen consoles, and costs significantly less than the next-best selling X-Box that is a type of the platform you praise.
Sure times in PS2 developer land are ok now. After a couple years of the really brilliant developers making libraries, and rethinking the entire game making process for everyone else.
Well, that's the balancing act.
Obviously developers WILL take time to learn to develop on new console to some extent...mostly depending on the outlook for popularity of that console. The trick is not to "cross the line" so to speak. Every console IHV has some line past which developers will say "nah...not worth it." For Sony...the line is pushed furhter away than most: because they can. The circumstances for this round of consoles (Sony's Band and success of PS-One, and one year head start on X-Box), is what really allowed Sony to do what they did.
Microsoft, having no console brand and coming one year later, really had NO CHOICE but to have an easier development platform, otherwise they would have surely been doomed to failure.
And in terms of Brand, it's not looking to be much different for the PS3 - X-Box 2 war. Sony Playstation is still a helluva brand worldwide. X-Box has established itself as a good brand in the U.S. though. (I think in Europe too, though not in Japan at all IIRC.)
How is it that they have not learned any lessons at all?
What lesson? Making money hand over fist?
Much greater depth and realism can be achieved with reasonable levels of pollygons coupled with High res textures, per pixel lighting and shadows, and of course Pixel shading routines for details.
I would agree that perhaps better "still screen shot" realism can be achieved with the "pixle shading" approach....but there's also good reason to believe that "better animation" is soon to be approaching as the main differentiator in visual quality.
Do they want every developer on earth to reinvent the wheel yet again? Why?
Presumably, because it's cheaper. And if it's cheaper, and developers ARE willing to re-invent the wheel again, the question is, why not?
It makes no sense at all.
I disagree, it makes some sense, though for Sony in particular. It would make no sense for someone like Microsoft or any other "newcomer" in the console area who needs to establish a presense and brand.
And to be clear, if MS can get X-Box 2 on the market at roughly the same time (or even earlier than PS-3), and having comparable visuals, that will indeed make it tougher for developers to justify reinventing the wheel for PS-3 again. However, I'm just saying that based on the
past, there's no reason to call what Sony is doing as stupid and not making sense.
Note: I own an X-Box and do not own a PS-2.
