The business model for console games in this generation is not a good one. Games are very expensive to develop but most make a loss, it is only the occasional hits that keep the industry going.
The reason the games cost so much to make is that the consoles are far more content hungry than previous generations of machines yet are not powerful enough to use the large swathes of middleware necessary to reduce production costs.
And the market has changed. Increasingly each product niche is owned by just one title, which can sell massively. All the competitors to that dominant title sell in far smaller numbers than they did in previous generations. Making a “me too” title is no longer a good idea, now you have to try and ensure that each title you release dominates its niche, something EA (for instance) have failed to do.
In this generation the Wii is by far the cheapest to develop for because it is not HD. However game sales are dominated by Nintendso first party titles and much that has come from third parties has been shovelware dross that is a waste of everyone’s time. Here, once again, are the rules for Wii game development:
1) Don’t do shovelware. You are just damaging your brand(s).
2) Write Wii specific titles. Don’t port. You have to respect the interface difference.
3) Understand that most Wiis live in the lounge. And most other consoles live in the bedroom.
4) Polish, lots. Then polish some more.
5) Realise that you have to provide entertainment for the population at large. FPS titles are not a good idea.
6) You need to market completely differently. PR in women’s magazines will work a lot better than adverts in game magazines.
7) Talk to your wife/girlfriend. They understand the Wii better than you do.
The Microsoft Xbox 360 has been a huge success as a platform to develop for. It has simple, elegant, architecture and Microsoft have supported it with good tools, as you would expect from a software company. No surprise then that Metacritic lists 645 games for the Xbox 360 against 425 for the Wii and only 351 for the Sony Playstation PS3.
The problems of the PS3 are multiple. It has a quirky new CPU architecture and a poor GPU which acts as a bottleneck, hobbling the capabilities of the machine. If this weren’t enough there is the unavoidable fact that the PS3 isn’t selling very well. We are in mid cycle now, the point at which sales volumes should be ramping up. And for the PS3, they aren’t. The main reason for this is price, the PS3 is still vastly too expensive for the market and is cruelly exposed by the bargain that is the Xbox 360.
Sony are caught between a rock and a hard place. The PS3 design contained so many newly developed bits that it was, and remains, very expensive to manufacture. But Sony are not in good financial health so do not have the resources to subsidise a price reduction. Already they have lost billions on the PS3 project. It has proved to be probably the biggest loss maker in the history of video gaming.
And now things are getting even worse for Sony. Activision is the biggest game publisher and their boss is Bobby Kotick. He is not happy with the PS3: “I’m getting concerned about Sony; the PlayStation 3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don’t make it easy for me to support the platform. It’s expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStationâ€. And this unhappiness becomes a threat: “They have to cut the price, because if they don’t, the attach rates are likely to slow. If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sonyâ€.
In the real world very few games are actually developed for the PS3. They are mainly developed for the Xbox 360 and then converted to run on the PS3. So things are very bad when that conversion cost is becoming uneconomic.
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killzone 2 mgs4 resistant 2 are already making that effort utilizing ps3 superior hardware to make stunning looking games, owning both xbox360 and ps3, i would say it doesnt matter, there has to be an agreement somewhere that during a certain timeframe an upgraded console is not to be release, it’s much easier releasing better hardware but not only the gamers will feel betrayed, Sony might be able to take microsoft to court if an xbox720 is released too soon, that said, if anything it will probably means more exclusivity for ps3 games, since it’s much easier to convert xbox360 to ps3 then vise versa, we have already seen this trend with the lacking of quality games released on the xbox this year as compared to the ps3, so in reply to your blog, i have to say you have already been proven wrong.
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I see the PS3 fanboys didn’t take long to find this article.
As Bruce rightly says it’s all about costs. I would love to get a PS3, if only to play about 4 games (Little Big Planet, Killzone 2, Drakes Fortune and MGS4) which are not available on the 360. However the price of the machine to play 4 games at present is totally unviable to most consumers in the current recession.
I am sure someone will come back with the usual tired old arguments like, you get Wi-Fi/Blu-Ray built into the PS3, which makes it a better value proposition overall. The point being I hardwire all my consoles and don’t care about Blu-Ray just yet.
Heed the warnings Sony – drop your pricing! Then you’d have another sale from me.
To the OP, I would love to see Sony try and take Microsoft to court if they release a new console. That would frankly be hilarious and I look forward to Bruce’s take on this ridiculous statement.
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@ roy … Eh?
Sorry, can you break that down for me?
Sony should take MS to court if they release another machine too soon?
It’s easier to convert 360 to PS3?
There is a lack of quality games on 360 this year?
There is some other stuff in there that I can’t even start to follow, but they’re presumably wrong, as are the points from your comment that I just listed.
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@ roy
What typical fanboy rubbish, you really don’t know what you are talking about and it shows.
I don’t want to get into a point by point tit for tat, but have you looked at the upcoming 360 exclusives?
Forza Motorsport 3, Halo 3: ODST, Crackdown 2, Shadow Complex, Alan Wake, Halo: Reach, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction, Left 4 Dead 2, Gears of War 2: Dark Corners, 1 vs 100, Joy Ride, etc
How is that lot lacking quality?
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This article seems based heavily in speculation; I’m not saying you are wrong or right just there is a severe lack of meat on your bones on this one. Gaming as an industry is incredibly fickle, three, four years ago people where lining up to bury Nintendo, fast forward to present day and they dominate. Setting sights on Activision, they would not dare to try and explain to their stock holders; “Yeah we have decided to cut one of our distribution legs off, don’t worry, we may be smaller than EA again but who needs Sony?†I would perceive that this statement from Bobby Kotick was meant as a shot across the bow, informing them that this is a better time than ever to bring the cost down of the hardware. I wonder what the stock holders think about his statement any way, is this really the best time to start rocking the financial boat?
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The fact that according to financial reports the PS3 was the top money maker for most of the top videogame publishers out there last year is enough to expose this article as pure and complete garbage.
The author is an obvious Xbox fanboy, as further confirmed by the last comment on his own article.
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@ Tony
That is really interesting.
Can you tell us where these financial reports you talk about are? Maybe give us a link so we can read them ourselves.
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Uncharted
Uncharted 2
Resistance
Resistance 2
InFamous
Killzone 2
God of War 3
MAG
Heavy Rain
LBP
Valkyria Chronicles
Warhawk
MGS4
GT5
R&C
WKC
Heavenly Sword
Please tell me that the 360 has a better 2009 lineup. You’re a true fanboy.
Don’t include any titles that are also coming out on the PC and you are left with 2 or 3 360 exclusives. GoW and Halo. The only overrated games on 360 only that are worth a penny.
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Some good points Bruce, slightly marred by speculation in the closing paragraphs. Nobody outside of Sony knows how much the PS3 costs to manufacture at this point, and how this compares to the cost at launch. A price cut for the PS3 is coming before the end of the year – Kotick’s interest is that it happens as early as possible before thanksgiving and xmas to maximise the base for games like Modern Warfare 2 and Guitar Hero, and his statements are giving ammo to retail in an attempt to force the issue.
Microsoft have lost billions on the Xbox project, too ($1.1bn on repairing defective machines, $100m’s for the white elephant HD-DVD addon, before we even consider R&D, marketing, hardware subsidies, Xbox Live and buying developers like Rare and Lionhead) but you know that.
Finally, most multiplatform games are developed concurrently now, which is why simultaneous releases are the norm (whereas a couple of years ago they were rare exceptions). Digital Foundry’s articles have shown how the differences between versions have narrowed over time – because, obviously, as the tools have matured the time and cost to release a game that runs well on both systems has fallen.
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Bruce,
“Gears of War 2: Dark Corners, 1 vs 100, Joy Ride, etc”
List wars are always stupid, but expansion packs and gameshows are what you use as examples for a strong lineup? Your point would have been better-served if you cut the list short by a few titles.
As to financial statements, you’re the expert, certainly you can google ‘annual statement 2008’ along with the name of the publishers you’re curious about. Not saying they disprove you, but this just seems lazy.
Finally, did you perform ANY analysis in your article? Nothing you posted about is new. Nothing is insightful. Hell, you didn’t even posit the very real chance that, given the article the quote is drawn from, that Kotick is simply exercising his muscle as the CEO of the largest publisher. As a ‘veteran’, can’t you draw down actual game development figures, the cost of making multiplatform ports, a discussion of ROI? Rather than go “gosh, Bobby Kotick said this, I’ll just take it on face value”.
You say you’re a marketer, but are you sure you’re not a games journalist?
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“simple, elegant, architecture”
Interesting that he has the undertone that the Xbox is the “winner” of the console war because of this. I believe regarding simplicity, the wii will be much more simple to program. The current leader is the Wii and the 360 and the PS3 is more or less the same considering the fact that the 360 is launched 1 year before the PS3.
The number of games available for each system is also questionable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_games 684
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_3_games 557
Isn’t that much of a lead huh considering the 1 year head start?
Finally, is the variety of games a good indicator of.. how good a console is? Perhaps. But not the absolute quantity of variety, but rather, the quality(if you are a gamer) and quantity sold(if you are the company).
The wii is currently the clear cut winner in terms of profit making. But the PS3 is the leading console for quality games. Judging from the recent and recently announced exclusive titles, the PS3 list seems more promising(Uncharted 2, God of War III, FFXIII versus, FFIV, Ninja Gaiden Sigma II, InFamous, Killzone 2, MAG, Heavy Rain).
The PS2 has a base of 130 million hardcore gamers, even adding up all 3 7th gen consoles sales, (PS3)22m + (360)30m +(wii)50m doesn’t match that. Moreover, the wii has neglected lots of their base(gamers) while they profit greatly from a new market(non-gamers).
Now if Microsoft and Sony were to expand into motion-sensing, they would very well penetrate into the non-gamer market. Either way, it will probably have a great impact on wii’s dominance in the market. Sony is less likely out of the 3 though, to forget its base due to the apparent extra emphasis on quality games(high precision motion control) interaction.
From what it looks, Sony(and PS3 fans) seems to have a prospective 2010, much more than Microsoft or Nintendo. Sony has a more “future proof” hardware, given the rapid advancement in computing technology, though it does requires extra effort for developers to develop games for it, and the returns may not be immediate. But ultimately, I believe it is worth-while since its fan base is set to grow soon.
Lastly just some technical correction, “It has a quirky new CPU architecture and a poor GPU which acts as a bottleneck, hobbling the capabilities of the machine.”
Just stating it is “quirky” isn’t much of a fair statement. It is true that the Cell is difficult to program for since it is a completely new technology. But having 7 processors over 360’s 3 processors translate almost to twice the computing power. The GPU is not poorer per se. The main problem is with the video ram distribution. 360 has a unified ram between CPU and GPU, which means if the situation calls for, the xbox can use more than 256 ram for the GPU and less for CPU, but the total amount is the same. MOREOVER, the ram speed of the ps3 is 3.2ghz compared to 700mhz on the 360. Added to the fact that the PS3 Cell is a much more superior CPU(7core vs 3, all clocked at 3.2ghz) than the Xenos, the PS3 is definitely much more powerful, technically, and could support much higher graphic quality when developers start to learn to utilize it. This is very much evident in exclusive games such as Uncharted, MGS4 and Killzone2(of those already released), there is hardly an xbox360 title that matches that kind of quality.
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@Bruce
“Forza Motorsport 3, Halo 3: ODST, Crackdown 2, Shadow Complex, Alan Wake, Halo: Reach, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction, Left 4 Dead 2, Gears of War 2: Dark Corners, 1 vs 100, Joy Ride, etc”
Very interesting list u got here, lets analyse it.
Forza Motorsport 3: Can it really outsell the GT5? For 1 thing it is not even 1080p,(http://xboxevolved.e-mpire.com/article/Forza_Motorsport_3/5541.html) not that graphically quality is what gamers look out for, but do factor it into consideration.
Halo 3: ODST
A FPS, fair enough, Halo is a great series and fps is indeed a strength of the xbox360, due to its online support(but less so recently, with KZ2 introduced), this is more likely than not a blockbuster to be.
Crackdown 2
Looks like another action/shooter, seems promising, but doesn’t really stand out for me. Just my opinion.
Shadow Complex
Ok another shooter(side scrolling).
Alan Wake
This seems like a promising game that has many original content, though quite underrated. Can it really match up to Heavy Rain? Maybe, I don’t know.
Halo Reach
Another FPS, and halo series. Not going to be released soon though.
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction
An interesting stealth game. But judging from the performance of the previous Tom Clancy game.. Is this really the kind of highly anticipated game? I’m not sure.
Left 4 Dead 2
Another FPS. And this doesn’t really count as an exclusive considering there will be a PC version. And FPS usually gets more popular on the PC platform.
Gears of War 2: Dark Corners
This isn’t really a new exclusive title.. Just a stripped down, downloadable version of GoW2..
Not to mention that it is yet, another shooter.
1 vs 100
lol, no comments.
Joy Ride
hmm.. don’t seem as good as ModNation Racers, but it may just be me.
Okies, the xbox360 do have its line ups.. a few good ones, but thats it, other than that it is shooter after shooter. Shooter is good, but too many of it, it gets abit repetitive and it competes with one another. And can you really attract hard core gamers by giving them only shooters?
Look at PS3 line up. God of War III, epic Hack and slash, action-adventure, full 1080p. I just do not find another comparable game from xbox360 this time, maybe some of you can give me some ideas.
FFXIII versus, I’m not sure if it will be release by 2010 but still, considering it comes from a reputable RPG series and producer, I cannot find anything comparable in Xbox360’s library. Maybe you can enlighten me as well. On a side note, the FFXIII might be released earlier and of higher quality on the PS3(since it is optimized first on the PS3).
MAG
MMOFPS, 256 players, I mean, I also can’t think of anything comparable in the xbox library..
Ninja Gaiden Sigma II
hmm.. ok a remake of an xbox game, better, packed more stuffs..
Uncharted 2: Among Theives
Action adventure
Again, judging from the quality of Uncharted 1.. I cannot think of any comparable game from the 360. hmm.. Tom Clancy? Alan Wake?(maybe?)
Motion controller coming at Q2 2010, I have not heard any from Natal. And I don’t expect much for hardcore gamers, but I maybe wrong.
Other notable titles besides what already mention includes Fat Princess, The Last Guardian, DC Universe Online and White Knight Chronicles. And notice I do try to refrain from talking about the blockbuster games already released for the PS3 this year.
Hmm.. seems like unless you are REALLY into shooters.. You have to be realistic, there isn’t much notable titles to expect in 2010 for the xbox 360. Unless, of course, you can enlighten me further:)
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@ Wildreamz
You may find this interesting: http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=464529
“There is a single PPE (Parallel Processing Element) which is like a single core CPU with Multi-Threading technology. That part of the cell is only 1 of 8 parts and it is also the only part that serves as a CPU in the entire system. The other 7 parts are the SPEs (Single Processing Elements) 1 of which is disable for redundancy in the case of failure. So that leaves 6 SPEs. The 6 SPEs are only there to serve the GPU with overflow processing time (which not many if-not no games use yet) As far as CPU’s go the PS3 PPE is not much of a performer throughout the whole system and because the RSX is also quite under-sized it uses the other 6 parts within the cell for it’s “booty-call” in the case it needs any help.”
and
“Apparently no one can make more than two SPEs work at any one time due to how I/Os are handled, and overall memory bandwidth. When enabling a third, performance plummets due to the way memory is requested by the Power core and the other SPEs.”
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Blimey – post an article bemoaning the performance of any console and they all come out of the woodwork.
Gotta love fanboys!
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You’re obviously not a technical boffin, Bruce, but why undermine your argument with hearsay from a forum?
“Apparently no one can make more than two SPEs work at any one time -”
Here’s a video from Guerilla Games that goes into some depth about how they’ve used the PS3 hardware:
http://www.gamekings.tv/index/videos/minidocu-the-company-behind-killzone-2-full-version-subbed/
(14:40 onwards)
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Interesting source you choose to quote from.
And what an extraordinary claim that the PS3 is not even using 1/6(17%) of its total processing power, making it less powerful than the Xbox 360. Does that mean that ALL the PS3 games today only use up to 17% of the SPUs in the cell processor?
Information on the exact number of spus utilized by game developers is hard to get by, but let see what are the claims made by the developers.
http://www.fragland.net/specials/InFAMOUS-Interview-with-Bruce-Oberg/232/
InFamous
“If you have to put a number of it; how much of the CELL processor is being used for the game?
I would say about 50%-60% percent of it, which is really not bad at all. The PS3 has a lot of memory and the processors are able to process an immense amount of calculations per second.”
“As a PS3-only studio, we’ve had the chance to focus on and extract a lot of the power that the platform offers, which sort of feels like a luxury at times. I’ve said this in your previous question but the SPU’s are simply amazing.”
http://www.psu.com/Killzone-2-only-using-60–of-SPUs-overall-power-News–a0005629-p0.php
Killzone 2
“It’s incredible to see huge levels and see the deferred rendering and note that on all the SPU’s, even on the heaviest load were coming up to about 60%,” Haynes said. “They weren’t coming close to maxing out. .They had about 40% of space before they started tripping or saw slow down on some of the processes.”
I don’t think they mean they are only utilizing 40% of a single spu..
All these are plain talk, even if a console is more powerful on paper, is there any real game that showcase its power?
MGS4
Unchartered
Killzone 2
Infamous
Grand Turismo 5: Prologue
What xbox 360 exclusive can top these graphically?
Of course, graphics is not what makes a game. This is merely a response to your claim that the PS3 has an inferior hardware.
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@ Robin
Thank you for such an informative video.
From 18:10 you can see clearly the number of SPUs used. Usually 2 out of 6 and less than 40%(look at the numbers), and at maximum (such as online play, many player on the same screen) then it is maxed out, all 6 SPUs. That is 6(or 7 if you count the central cpu)
Usually, few people make claim that the 360 is technically superior.
It may not even be easier to design exclusive games for. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/90678-Killzone-2-Dev-PS3-Development-Is-Easy)
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@Robin
It is strange that just about every all format game runs better on the 360 than it does on the PS3.
There seems to be a big gap between what the PS3 can do on paper and what it can do in the real world. Look at this article, for instance: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1007286/ps3-hardware-slow-and-broken
Now we all know that the GPU in the PS3 is just an nVidia 7800 that was thrown in at the very last second of the design process when the two cell solution was found not to work. Well here is something very interesting for you. The CTO of a major game company told me that Sony were in such a hurry that they didn’t connect up all the pins of the RSX/7800 and this is why the performance of the PS3 is so crippled. It appears that the RSX/7800 has more pins than the cell and that Sony were in a rush to get the machine out so they didn’t bother with redesigning the architecture of the PS3 to allow the RSX/7800 to work properly.
As you say I am no technical boffin so I can only repeat what I was told by a technical boffin!
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You probably mean cross platform games, most of the time the games are identical due to efforts of the developers to make them identical. The only exception I know is with GhostBusters where the producer took a shortcut to render the PS3 resolution at 56% that of the 360.
Difference between the platform are always hyped and not entirely accurate and most of the time subjective and unnoticeable by the fans of each consoles even if they really exist.
If your main source for such a comment is due to gametrailers.com videos, maybe you would like to take note of this:
http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=14457
But as you know, the games that sells a console is not the multi-platform games but “exclusive” games.
Comparing the best exclusive games from both platform(released and to-be release) should be the key.
PS: Regarding that 2006 rumor you posted, rest assure that PS3 is not “under performing”, it is performing the way it should be. And theorectically, if a game were to be optimized exclusively for a particular system, the PS3 would be the more “powerful” system, due to its 6 SPUs+1 CPU no doubt.
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The PS3 has one 3.2Ghz PowerPC CPU (PPE), and 8 SPEs. Only 6 SPEs are available to use and they aren’t as powerful as the PPE. The SPEs are only good for churning through lots of data like shaders on a GPU. They don’t store much memory either, and the sharing of and passing around of data between everything in the PS3 isn’t easy …which isn’t good if it’s meant to be churning through a lot of data.
The PS3 also has a GPU that is just there to throw out pictures at the screen after the cell has done all the hard work. But the cell underperformed before their hurried release so they put something more powerful in. The GPU that is in the PS3 still isn’t a very good one and is a bottleneck right at the end of the process (you can just tell with it’s lack of handling scaling and looking crap on any TV that isn’t the same as the source resolution).
The 360 has three 3.2Ghz PowerPC CPUs, a faster GPU and shared memory.
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“The PS3 has one 3.2Ghz PowerPC CPU (PPE), and 8 SPEs. Only 6 SPEs are available to use and they aren’t as powerful as the PPE.”
To be more precise, 7SPE is operational, 1 is reserved for the OS of the system, 6 is accessible to the game developers. Which means effectively 8 cores in operation. Each running at 3.2ghz, which dwarfs the tri-core Xenon processor. The PS3 has a total of 9 threads (2 from the PPE 1 from each SPU= 9) the 360 has 6(2 from each core).
Of course, this is only broadly speaking, the power of this 2 system cannot be compared directly just like that, there are too many other factors to consider, and I too, do not have the technical expertise to do so. The PS3 may not be THAT much more powerful than the 360, but seldom ppl argue the other way.
Instead of hearsay, maybe we should just listen to what the game developers have to say.
Insomniac Games(Ratchet and Clank), Sucker Punch Productions(InFamous), Guerrilla Games(Killzone 2) all made similar comments that their games are “only possible in PS3”. You also hear that from other games, such as MAG, God of War III or Uncharted 2, but they come from the mouth of Sony themselves so I don’t want to include them in..
Of course, it might be a marketing strategy. But honestly, seldom you hear Xbox360 game developers, especially 3rd party developers say that about the 360.
And all this talk is essentially pointless, just compare the respective exclusive games released and to be released. Uncharted 2, MGS4, Infamous, Grand Turismo 5, God of War III. What game from the Xbox is graphically comparable?
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I forgot, and Killzone 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTvYPiEi4eU
Check out the graphical comparison with Gears of War 2, arguably one of the best shooter on the Xbox 360.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLlR7p7OJt0
Killzone 2 vs Halo 3.
And shooter is supposed to be the forte of the xbox 360(lots of shooter on it, as Bruce as pointed out).
The argument that the hardware of the PS3 is inferior to the 360 simply doesn’t show, on paper or in actual games.
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@Bruce
Great, a three-year-old article from a tabloid blog.
Again, I’d recommend you look at Digital Foundry’s articles on Eurogamer to see the current state of play for multiplatform games. (Or at least, the most recent data that’s available, as game engines are locked down many months before games hit the shelves.)
e.g.: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/fight-night-round-4-technical-knockout-on-ps3-blog-entry
You’re absolutely right in pointing out that the PS3’s GPU is a bottleneck. In particular, few if any multiplatform games feature FSAA on the PS3 (something which is effectively ‘free’ on the 360’s video RAM). In terms of resolution and framerate parity is achieved much more often than was the case three years ago. And PS3 versions increasingly feature marginally superior effects such as HDR, specular mapping and higher shadow detail.
Now, I don’t know if developers are having to spend a disproportionate amount of resources to optimising the PS3 versions of their games, but surely by now they’re not having to reinvent the wheel every time.
This business with “pins” I assume is something to do with the RSX’s memory bandwidth, which I also understand is the reason that Sony have never been able to implement software backward compatibility for all PS2 games.
Of course for platform-exclusive games the hardware can be used much more effectively, allowing games like Killzone2 and Uncharted2 to deliver visuals technically well beyond the 360’s capabilities.
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@Robin
Very fair comparison. It is no secret that the 360 has additional 10MB for EDRAM therefore, in multiplatform games it is easier to incorporate FSAA on the 360. But I’m not sure if it is noticeable in game though, or the only factor that determine graphic quality(there are other factors to consider as well as ways to overcome this). But I’ll leave it at that.
As I said, the multiplatform games are not the games that sell a console.
In PS3 exclusive games, this problem can be overcome by sharing the load with the SPEs and using technique such as MSAA (such as in Killzone 2, InFamous). I don’t see it as a “bottleneck”(a single component that brings down the performance of the entire system) but rather a “limitation”(that can be worked around). But I do agree that it is something cross-platform developers need to pour in additional resources to overcome.
And I also agree that “by now they’re not having to reinvent the wheel every time.”
@ Bruce
Cross-platform comparison is essentially pointless because:
Firstly, it is subjective and many fans will choose the platform they buy their game for, for other reasons, such as the size of the controller, the online support etc.
Secondly, fans will not notice the difference.
Thirdly, it all depends on the efforts developers put in to optimize the game of each system.
For exclusive games, there is no question that the best PS3 games are currently ahead of the best Xbox 360 games and the PS3 hardware has theorectically more potential than the Xbox 360.
I don’t think it is relevant to make technical claims unless it is very obvious. Have you seen overwhelmingly good graphics on many 360 exclusives that was deemed impossible to do on the PS3? Then we have a real issue.
If not, you should focus more on the marketing strategies and trends of the 3 leading companies.
I think the biggest potential game changer now are new exclusive games and the motion control wars.
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Has anyone got a link that has the speeds of the SPEs? I couldn’t find anything that actually quoted it.
cheers
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I guess no one is going to show me a reference then ?
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@BC
“At 3.2 GHz, each SPE gives a theoretical 25.6 GFLOPS of single precision performance.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Self-multitasking_of_SPEs
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It’s good to see that Sony finely came around regarding software, but most of their upcoming titles don’t interest me. I guess I’m spoiled with the RPG goodness from the PS1 and PS2 eras. It’s a strange feeling to turned to the Xbox to play the latest RPGs, but give Microsoft some credit–they’ve got the most Square Enix exclusives thus far.
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@Gordon, now you say it, I realize they indeed quite a number of JRPGs exclusive from Square Enix like Lost Odyessy, Infinite Undiscovery, Star Ocean and Project Sylpheed. I never realized, thanks for sharing:)
I was wondering where did all the JRPG went.
PS3 does have a few JRPG titles but not from Square though, like Valkyria Chronicle, Demon Souls and Disgaea 3(probably a few more).
But don’t fret, the upcoming titles does look promising, like White Knight Chronicles and Final Fantasy 13 versus.
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@Wildreamz
Thanks. I just couldn’t see that information anywhere. Trust it to be under my nose at wikipedia.
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what amuses me in all of this is that they are both (XBox and PS3) being killed stone dead by online games on PC in terms of growth, profits, user acceptance and longevity. Consoles will quickly fade from our lives and, in 10 years, we will look back and say “why did we allow hardware people to dictate how we enjoyed software, when they knew nothing about enjoyment or entertainment or friends?”
Given the costs of a PS3 / XBox360 co-development, I’d put my money and time into social media or MMO style entertainment (or even, horrors!, a full blown TV or movie production) as they are all easier, quicker, cheaper and more profitable over a 5 year horizon.
seriously, if you are not trapped into console development because of sunk costs and the bloated overheads of a major, why bother with it?
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When Bernie Stolar got kicked to the curb just after the release of the original Playstation, the RPGs came flooded in, among them an exclusive Final Fantasy VII. It’s too bad that Sony doesn’t have a enigmatic figurehead like Stolar, who widely discouraged the marketing of RPGs in the US, because it encouraged them to take some risks with the Western market. RPGs have always been my soft spot and I’d be the first in line to buy a PS3 if I could get my hands on a sequel to Legend of Dragoon or Wild Arms. Seriously, what is Sony waiting for? Or have they forgotten what helped put them on top?
@Wildreamz: Valkyria Chronicles is an excellent recommendation, though.
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@Gordon
I like RPGs too, the PS3 is too slow on their release on RPGs this I definitely agree. But so far, there haven’t been an epic enough RPGs on any platform that really blow me away like the old Final Fantasy series. This is really a pity.
I’m really hoping that Final Fantasy 13 and versus will do that, but they are really spending too much time developing them. I’m also putting my hopes on White Knight chronicles.
Btw, I do not think the Xbox 360 Square Enix RPGs are really good. Are they?
@David
PC gaming will have to find a way to counter piracy to replace consoles. MMO is a solution, but it faces a lot of competition from large titles like WoW. Also, consoles are evolving too, 10 years down the road, I’m not surprise that the console market would still be very much alive.