PS3's Power Confined to Prosperous Exclusives

"Since the release of Sony's PlayStation 3 back in 2006, gamers around the world have debated the fact that PS3's superior hardware to its competitor, the Xbox 360, should push its titles beyond what's capable on the Xbox 360. With titles such as Killzone 3 and Uncharted 2 now on store shelves, these discussions are likely to contain mention of such software titles as leverage, but how does the co-founder and designer of his own studio feel about this?"

-TheGamerAccess.com

[Nick212004]

I wonder if what Sony has learned from the development side of things with the PS3 will have an impact on how they approach their next console.

[Shaman]

Of course they learned...They should have dumped Cell and blu ray,really.With dumping blu ray they could easily went for 1GB of ram(as all the consoles would have HDD disk space wouldn't be such a problem) and dumping money into cell was wrong idea IMO since with that kind of money they could probably get specially designed,considerably better GPU than 360 had and not only would games look better than 360 counterpart,3rd party would turn on PS3 much and they wouldn't miss 2005 launch because of blu ray diodes.

Its evident that they learned it since NGP looks to be much more GPU focused machine than CPU focused.Generally,its not that the "learning to develop" for console is giving better results as time goes by,its developers knowing ins and outs of system and having much better and optimized algorithms than couple of years before.

Testament to that is just how fast MLAA pass is on 360(1.2ms on 720p).Its not that you can't do it,you just have to find smart way to do it...

[RedDead]

This^^^ Cell was not needed. Could have just threw in a good Gpu instead of it along with the RAM. Seems they have learned, best option would be to wait a year after the Xbox 3 to comes out and 1-up it with a better GPU. Simple enough, the Ps3 will obviously be more powerful on every level with that, devs will like too work on it aswell. Good choice with the Ngp

Obviously the disagrees though 8\ Power of the Cell!

I dunno if I agree about Blu ray aswell, extra space helpped, although the Dvd constant spin speed makes it a better disk so too speak. Just can't store alot of info on it.

[Cenobia]

I'm pretty sure bluray was a big win for Sony. It may have prevented some earlier games from going to the PS3, but they crushed HD-DVD, and we are seeing the benefits of the larger format in a lot of recent games.

[BrianG]

I agree that Sony could have played the safe route and simply made a more powerful GPU and used more RAM.

But Sony has been known for pushing the envelope, which is what they did when designing the Cell architecture. The same can be said about Bluray.

Now we all know that Bluray has indeed paid off for Sony, clearly showing its superiority to other HD formats on the market. The Cell on the other hand wasn't as big of a success. But how would we have new things like Bluray without trying new things?

If every company played it safe, we would be dealing with the same CPU and GPU architectures for decades to come. "I know, add a core" "Time to release are new chip, add a core".

In theory the Cell architecture makes perfect sense, blurring the line between CPU and GPU since it can handle what used to be natively GPU processes. Also having many SPU's to assist the main processing unit. I think the Cell would have been a definitive success if it utilized 3 PPU's instead of only 1. It would have helped the unfamiliar developers port games easier while giving experienced developers more horsepower to play with.

Just my thoughts. I don't disagree with your opinion or facts presented. At the same time I understand why Sony made the decisions they did for the PS3, risky, but paid off in the long run. Plus we have the added bonus of developers now knowing new ways to work game code to fit tight resources.

[trophywhore1]

Silly goose.

[death2smoochie]

Nothing wrong with Blu-Ray at all. The limitations for the PS3 as for the Xbox360 also was lack of RAM and Bandwidth that is associated with both.
One of Sony's BIGGEST mistake (and it seems they have corrected this fully with the development of the NGP) was the fact they took NO advice or after thought from game developers when they designed the PS3. They built a system with the idea:

"Build it, they will come..."

and this hurt Sony for the first few years of the PS3 life as game development was very hard.
Sony has always had poor software development tools compared to MS and even Nintendo.
You can bet your ass, based on how Sony has courted developers this time around with the NGP, that they will do the same with the PS4 and make it a more developer friendly system with better software development tools.
However as I said, Blu-Ray imo was a smart move on Sony's part

[darthv72]

I dont know so much about the bluray being a win for sony. It has been a win for movie studios but we are really NOT seeing the benefit of such high capacity in games. For all intents and purposes we have been told that the capacity of the bluray would make games longer and more involving. Not sure how because it is a storage medium and nothing more.

Like carts and CD's and hdd's. It simply holds the data that the main hardware loads into memory to process. Nothing is processed from the disc itself except cutscene data. The linear nature of a movie plays out on the disc like records used to from beginning to end.

Games are not linear which adds to the fact that data is read at various points of the disc. I am expecting 100's of hours of gameplay and story but we are not going to see that. At least in the typical $60 game because we know that development time costs $$$$.

Sony also knows that there has been more improved efforts made in the fields of compression to which bigger games now are still able to fit on DVD. Yeah I will get smited for that but in seriousness. Why can a game still fit on a DVD and come out looking and playing the same as the bluray version?

That last statement is questionable because it is the 3rd parties responsible for the content as opposed to the dedicated 1st/2nd ones that handle the exclusives. Yes PS3 exclusives look and play great but unfortunately this gen has been overrun by the 3rd parties and the idea of equality among platforms.

It is really sad that MS had not focused its efforts on securing such talent like Sony has. We 'could' likely see quality development on the 360 that equates to that on the PS3. MS I suppose wanted to make a platform to be as diverse and straightforward as it could to entice the 3rd party development. It comes as no surprise that 360 life is from 3rd party games. It has the highest ratio of 3rd to 1st/2nd of any platform I remember seeing before it.

MS has achieved in making the 360 a very primary focus like they did with their windows platform. People may hate it but it doesnt mean its all bad. These companies are under no obligation to make their games the way they do. They do so at their own choice. So when we criticize a game for its equality in presentation, it's like one side is jealous that the other is getting a version of equal value instead of when the Genesis and SNES had real differences we could see and hear.

Power is only as good as those who are using it. I have seen things on the Genesis never thought possible because of the way it was designed. Yet the proof is right there. Same hardware that the game Altered Beast (launch game) played is also playing Ranger X or Gunstar Heroes.

Creative developers are the ones able to surpass the "limitations" and deliver the goods.

[sikbeta]

You guys still think Blu-Ray was a bad move for Sony? come on people, this format is here to stay, even if Sony, for some reason couldn't push it with the PS3, the Movie Industry could have take care of it but with Sony have their Movie Division, they did it...

[zag]

The reason for little ram is it has the fastest ram from rambus (from memory) intel used to use it then everyone had a whinge about it costing 3 times the amount for a stick of ram compared to DDR.

The ram bus in the PS3 is like 50gigbytes or so in speed.

it's way and above the fastest DDR stuff you can get in a PC.

You can't use the Cell and use slow ram it just won't work, so if you use a big chunk of that ram when hardly anyone uses it well it's going to cost a bucket load for each stick.

[DragonKnight]

Even before NGP, Kaz Hirai emphasized that for the next PS console, they will bring in the devs to help design it. Developers will have a say in what's going into the next PS console, so you can bet it will be very developer friendly.

And please stop with this nonsense that Blu-Ray is slower than DVD. It's faster than DVD, it's just that the PS3 uses a 2x BR drive, which happens to be slower than the 12x DVD drive in the 360. Don't make me post the link comparing the speeds because a 3x BR drive is faster than a 12x DVD drive.

[gamingdroid]

With an install required on many games, I fail to see why Blu-Ray is needed on the PS3. You could have as easily installed the assets into to hard drive.

It will load faster, and installation from a DVD drive would have been faster than Blu-Ray's 2x speed and cost you less.

Then the question about the Cell? Why not just dump a faster GPU in instead of making the CPU support the GPU? Seems like a complete backwards design.

I do have to give Sony credit for creating a solid low failure rate console, with a very solid feel. The PS3 phat looked like one piece expensive technology (and it was) and no other console since has the same aura including the Xbox 360 S.

[jetlian]

its not just that. 360 has and uses better compression which makes the gap bigger.

[ProjectVulcan]

Bluray was as much as marketing move as it was for being genuinely useful for games. Saying that, it began to be clear that catering for the lowest common demoninator (i.e 360's dvd) meant it would only ever be good for exclusive PS3 games. It did introduce me to bluray movies too though, and i am a big movie fan so no regrets here.

With regards hardware, then the GPU is the worst choice. The problem was that sony did not commission a custom GPU like microsoft nor select a recently released GPU, but instead opted for a design that was already 18 months old when PS3 launched.

Admittedly this was partly down to delays beyond sony's control, but really you shouldn't be releasing a console with a slower GPU a year after your primary rival. It should have been faster. It should have been custom designed based on Geforce 8- which in the end launched the week BEFORE PS3.....

Sony could have asked Nvidia to basically halve their latest and greatest in development at that time, an 8800GTX, and throw it into PS3, it would have been a lot faster than what RSX is but most importantly more flexible.

[DragonKnight]

@gamingdroid: "With an install required on many games, I fail to see why Blu-Ray is needed on the PS3. You could have as easily installed the assets into to hard drive."

There are 4 reasons.

1. Sony was anticipating the size of games to be much greater than a standard DVD9 would be capable of holding on one disc.

2. Because of number one, and the fact that there are people who like having a physical copy that can't suddenly be erased, they went for an optical drive.

3. PC's still use discs to install games, so what's the big deal?

4. It was a marketing move for Sony in the movie industry as well.

"It will load faster, and installation from a DVD drive would have been faster than Blu-Ray's 2x speed and cost you less."

Again, DVD is slower than BR.

http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/...

We see here that a 1x drive of BR has a data transfer speed of 36Mbps vs the DVD's 11.08Mbps

So this idea that it would be faster with a DVD drive only hinges upon the type of BR drive. a 3x BR drive is faster than a 12x DVD drive. As for cost, that's relative.

"Then the question about the Cell? Why not just dump a faster GPU in instead of making the CPU support the GPU? Seems like a complete backwards design."

Because Sony didn't want a console that did only beautiful scenery and characters. It wanted a console that could push console physics to another level as well, plus they figured they could reduce memory usage with the way the Cell is designed.

@jetlian: "its not just that. 360 has and uses better compression which makes the gap bigger."

Ummm, no. A compressed assets take longer to load than non-compressed assets. The potential with Blu-Ray is to have whole uncompressed games on a disc, which would obviously load faster. In this case, speed of the games is all up to the devs, not the hardware.

[jetlian]

here

http://www.xboxic.com/news/...

[gamingdroid]

"Because of number one, and the fact that there are people who like having a physical copy that can't suddenly be erased, they went for an optical drive"

Re-install it if it got erased. You have it on a physical DVD disc anyhow.

"We see here that a 1x drive of BR has a data transfer speed of 36Mbps vs the DVD's 11.08Mbps "

Nice mis-information there. PS3 Blu-Ray drive tops out at 2x speed. That means Blu-Ray tops out at 72 Mbps and DVD at 12x tops out at 132 Mbps (that's taken from your source 1x at 11Mbps). Now granted the difference is likely to be small in practice, due to the CAV speed of DVDs except you can optimize the data on the outer edge of the DVD.

"...plus they figured they could reduce memory usage with the way the Cell is designed."

It not sure how PS3 reduces memory usage? If anything, it puts constraints on how you use the little available memory. Maybe you can enlighten us on how the Cell reduces memory usage?

I'm sure Sony had their reasons, but I don't see enough of a value. If anything, pushing technology out to early actually holds it back for competitive reasons. I betcha MS would have released a new console sooner if faced more pressure, but Sony's got to recoup their cost on PS3.

[IHateYouFanboys]

@DragonKnight:

"There are 4 reasons. "

no, there is only 1 reason - sony used the PS2 as the trojan horse for blu-ray so they could make it the standard format for movie releases. thats the only reason blu-ray is in the PS3.

"Again, DVD is slower than BR. "

but again, the DVD drive in the 360 is faster than the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 95% of the time. it doesnt matter if a 3x BR drive is faster than a 12x DVD drive - the PS3 doesnt have a 3x BR drive!

the DVD read speeds of the 360 are 8-16MBps variable. the BR read speed of the PS3 is 9MBps constant. so at the SLOWEST read speed, the 360 reads 1MBps slower, but at its fastest it reads almost DOUBLE the speed. at its average, say 12MBps, its 33% faster than the PS3s read speed.

"Because Sony didn't want a console that did only beautiful scenery and characters." yes they did, because thats what the fanboys eat up.

most of their big games that have anything to do with physics use an off the shelf physics engine that has been used in every game under the sun - Havok. Naughty dog made their own physics engine for Uncharted, but dumped it and used Havok in Uncharted 2 because it simply wasnt as good as Havok. Physics engines dont need some sort of super CPU to run.

"A compressed assets take longer to load than non-compressed assets. "

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahaha.

oh boy. are you serious? so youre saying that loading a 1MB compressed file takes LONGER to load than a 10MB uncompressed file? are you serious? compression is used to DECREASE load times, as decompression is done basically 'on-the-fly' at no processor cost. reading 1MB off a disc is a LOT quicker than reading 10MB, thats just basic common knowledge.

compression is GOOD, and any developer whos not doing it is just kidding themselves. the only things that should be left uncompressed are uncompressed audio (obviously) and FMVs.

[Persistantthug]

The problem was the tools.

Sony didn't design the tools to give game developers the EDGE they needed to do proper development.

When I say EDGE, I mean that literally and figuratively.

For the next gen for Sony's PS4, I expect them to use another, but ADVANCED CELL Processor and/or derivative of it.

Same with BluRay....Same but bigger and better.

[DragonKnight]

@Fanboy who hates himself: "no, there is only 1 reason - sony used the PS2 as the trojan horse for blu-ray so they could make it the standard format for movie releases. thats the only reason blu-ray is in the PS3."

You wish. Your statement would hold merit if anyone other than Ken Kutaragi designed the PS3. Ken designed the PS3 to last, not just to play movies. He knew that the size of games was going to increase, and as a man with a engineering background took the necessary steps to ensure that the PS3 would be able to sustain a 10 year life cycle. Sony wouldn't need the PS3 for Blu-Ray at all.

"but again, the DVD drive in the 360 is faster than the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 95% of the time. it doesnt matter if a 3x BR drive is faster than a 12x DVD drive - the PS3 doesnt have a 3x BR drive!"

Specious reasoning. Blu-Ray reads at a faster constant rate. Just because the PS3 doesn't have a 3x drive (btw, you're arguing semantics) doesn't mean Blu-Ray itself is slower.

"most of their big games that have anything to do with physics use an off the shelf physics engine that has been used in every game under the sun - Havok. Naughty dog made their own physics engine for Uncharted, but dumped it and used Havok in Uncharted 2 because it simply wasnt as good as Havok. Physics engines dont need some sort of super CPU to run."

It is a fact that the computational ability of the Cell is unmatched in console history. You are now trying to argue the devs use of the architecture as a method to talk down the hardware when, in fact, you can't. Again, it comes down to the devs. Just because they don't use the full ability of the Cell, doesn't mean Sony didn't intend for the Cell to be used to it's greatest strengths.

"oh boy. are you serious? so youre saying that loading a 1MB compressed file takes LONGER to load than a 10MB uncompressed file? are you serious? compression is used to DECREASE load times, as decompression is done basically 'on-the-fly' at no processor cost. reading 1MB off a disc is a LOT quicker than reading 10MB, thats just basic common knowledge.

compression is GOOD, and any developer whos not doing it is just kidding themselves. the only things that should be left uncompressed are uncompressed audio (obviously) and FMVs."

See, this is where you show your ignorance and fanboyism. First, you try to stack the argument in your favor by using varying sizes of data. It is a fact that uncompressed data loads faster than compressed data because it doesn't need to first uncompress and then load. In all likelihood, that 1MB of compressed data may load at the same speed as that 10MB of uncompressed data. But why don't you try to use the same amount of data next time.

And then you chastise devs for NOT wanting to reduce the quality of their game by compressing the data? Wow, MS has you by the nuts don't they? Fact: Compression is only used because it has to be, not because it should be.

[MaxXAttaxX]

The CELL works with the GPU and processes some of the graphics before it even gets to the GPU.

IT GETS THE JOB DONE! Just look at the results. The graphics look great, especially with exclusives.
_____

And Blu-ray:
Really? People are still in denial about this?
Does LA Noire ring a bell. Or better yet, how about Final Fantasy 13? We all know how that turned out.
When will people learn.

And Blu-ray is not slow!
It requires less rotation speeds to read larger amounts of data. So there goes your "slow" theory.

But I guess fanboys will downplay what they fear.

[gcolley]

the PS2 was also hard to code for. they didn't learn then, maybe this time though as games get ridiculously expensive to make

[JBaby343]

Thank you DragonKnight for intelligent posts.

Blu-Ray is a better format than DVD end of story. Yes when the PS3 released 2x BD drive was all that was available so DVD has the edge between the two consoles but now you can get 8x drives that smoke DVD drives so I'm happy Sony pushed the technology even in the early stages because otherwise we'd still be stuck with DVDs for the next gen.

Uncompressed assets are always better to stream in than compressed assets because they don't have to be decompressed first. That's common sense. How can anyone argue to just stick with compression when you have the space (and speed as illustrated above) to have uncompressed assets?

Best Line in this discussion "Fact: Compression is only used because it has to be, not because it should be."

With regards to the CELL. "Why not just dump a faster GPU in instead of supporting a weaker GPU?"

Fact is GPUs are taxed much more than CPUs in today's gaming environment so it actually makes a lot of sense to use the CPU to pick up slack if it can (and the CELL can like no other). The problem is that Sony did not plan for a proper GPU (the plan for 2 CELLs didn't pan out so they grabbed what they could at the last minute) so the GPU suffered for it. RAM and bandwidth are also a problem but using the CPU to assist the GPU to allow the GPU to do even more makes perfect sense.

Now that devs know how to use the CELL and we see what it can do, I would love an upgraded CELL plus the latest GPU with upgrades to XDR RAM and DDR with system bandwidth increases across the board. That would be quite a system.

[Dragun619]

Wow, we still have some Blu-ray Haters?

Blu-ray delivers 4x space than regular DVD's and more than that if it dual layered. How can you guys hate more space? MGS4, LA Noire, FFXIII, etc & all Ultimate/Goty edition games like Borderlands, GTA4, & Dragon Age, have all benefited from Blu-ray along with Movies, easily using Blu-ray to deliver 1080p HD quality, with 5.1/7.1 surround sound.

And The Cell has help produce great games such as Uncharted 2, MGS4, God of War 3, Heavy Rain, Killzone 3, & soon Infamous 2, Resistance 3, Uncharted 3 The Last Guardian, Starhawk, etc. I dunno about you but PS3 exclusives are looking better and better.

Man, you haters are getting weak.

[metsgaming]

well with the NGP they made it easy to develop for so you can say they learned. They learned that they should talk to devs and let them know what they are going to do. I dont think they will switch over to make it develop like the pc but they will talk to the devs especially in house.

[miyamoto]

good point mate

" I dont think they will switch over to make it develop like the pc"

because many analysts like Hideo Kojima see that its games made for mobile devices like smartphones & tablets that is starting to take huge chunk of the gaming market in the near future.

The way I see it many NGP & PlayStation Certified games will be PS3 compatible which will make the PS3 alive and well on the mobile era.

[ALFAxD_CENTAURO]

They learned to improve more, when it is compared to 2006 status.

Sony is the Company that make risks in the Gaming Industry.

And with those Risks, they can have a successful plan or receive a bad report in different aspects.

[Mr Tretton]

Dump BD? lmao

More memory would have been nice but it's all irrelevant as we approach next gen

[baker_boi]

My bad this was supposed to be for the posts above.
-----EDIT-----

Yeah the Blu-Ray market was clearly bust for Sony, ya know, selling all those Blu-ray movies and games.

And The military and certain other groups using networked PS3s for super computers? Man such a bad idea. The CELL just really wasn't needed.

/sarcasm

[miyamoto]

I remember this scenario during the 16-bit era:
The SNES vs The Genesis

360/Genesis one year head start > PS3/SNES
360/Genesis great American support > PS3/SNES
360/Genesis initially sells faster > PS3/SNES
360/Genesis at the time FPS/Sports console of choice by Americans > PS3/SNES
PS3/SNES arrive a year later > 360/Genesis
PS3/SNES more powerful > 360/Genesis
PS3/SNES more powerful graphics > 360/Genesis
PS3/SNES more potential > maxed out 360/Genesis
PS3/SNES more longevity/staying power > 360/Genesis
PS3/SNES more support in Japan & Asia > 360/Genesis
PS3/SNES more exclusive games > 360/Genesis
PS3/SNES bank on exclusive 3D games > 360/Genesis

I love my Genesis as it had great action games & more reliable hardware than my SNES. I loved my SNES for its great JRPGS and great graphics. I hope Sony & Microsoft learn a lot from history.

[Istanbull]

You are obviously a young kid who doesnt know anything about Sony. The PS2 was also said to be difficult to develop for, but after time passed on, the complaints stopped. And after 7 or 8 years in PS2s lifecycle, we got really great looking games who competed with first gen games of the 360 like GoW2 or FF12. Thats what Sony means with 10 years plan. I hope you're not too young to understand this.

[gcolley]

you are obviously a fanboy

no PS2 games looked as good as the best xbox1 games, let alone the 360. looking at games like riddick and doom 3 on xbox, GoW2 and FF12 didn't even come close. it just didn't have the horsepower

10 year plan doesn't really mean anything to core gamers. if you stick to a console for 10 years you get left behind. within a year or 2 of a new console release, most people have forgotten about the previous one

[Jocosta]

They disagreed with a rhetorical question. Priceless.

[Foliage]

The Cell and Blu-Ray are two reasons why the PS3 has excelled. I'm not sure what basis the poster is running from, but it is incredibly misinformed.

The only real shortcoming you can point to in the PS3 design, opposed to the 360 one, is the RAM structure. They both have the same amount of RAM, but not having it shared like the 360 was a severe blow. Sure you can create kernels to share the CPU RAM for the GPU, but despite the Cell being the better processor (compared to the 360) it is not efficient enough on it's own to make up for a 256 MB hard ceiling.

If your game is CPU heavy (these days, which game isn't?). The PS3 does become a problem.

With that said, the rest of the design on the PS3 is far superior in all regards when it comes to hardware. You can argue the GPU is slightly worse, but it's hardly worth discussion.

The Cell and Blu-Ray ARE NOT A PROBLEM.

[saladthieves]

Is it me, or is it that every time this guy speaks about something in the video, I'm busy concentrating on the video game screen on the left, not even paying attention to him?

[Persistantthug]

:P

[kikizoo]

"dragon
its not just that. 360 has and uses better compression which makes the gap bigger. "

GAP ? living in the opposite world of xfans or what ?
the "gap" is getting bigger beetween ps3 exclusives and competition, and it's not because "they don't want to make that kind of quality games/graphics on 360", they just can't !

PS3 is more powerfull, cpu, ram, and bluray...nobody with a real tv, good eyes and the consoles can't deny that.

[trainsinrdr]

im still waiting for the ultimate ps3 game

[metsgaming]

well you obviously haven't been looking.

[Happythedog]

GT5, MGS4, Uncharted 2, God OF War 3, GT5 and MotorStorm AP

Those are ultimate Ps3 games.

I put GT5 twice cause its that dam good.

[Killzone3___]

heavy rain , demon soul , little big planet 2 , killzone 2-3 , warhawk , inFAMOUS 1-2

motor storm one is the best one , i don't like the others ...

[GodofSackboy]

There is only one ultimate game on PS3, nay, any console.

Metal Gear Solid 4

[MysticStrummer]

Everyone seems to be assuming trains is trolling but he's right, even though it may be unintentional. PS3 still has upside. The competition is gassed. Whether that will mean anything in terms of the "war" remains to be seen.

[Alos88]

I know he's saying exclusives, but I keep hearing "excluses" when he says it.

[trophywhore1]

I swear still after 6 years, its the same arguments. Yes the xbox is easier to programe for according to developers, but look at what you COULD accomplish with talent and enthusiasm. God of war3 uncharted 2 and killzone 3 for example.

[BrianC6234]

These dumb third party developers are robbing us of great games by making the PS3 versions the same as the 360 games. It's getting old. Shame on them if they're too lazy to make real PS3 games.

[trophywhore1]

Exactlyyyyy! well said.

[death2smoochie]

It's a money issue. It will cost more man power an finances to put in the extra effort to make the PS3 version stand out when it comes to multi-platform games. Most 3rd party companies WILL not do this because time is money.
And your argument can also go towards PC multi-platform games.
The majority of PC games this generation have been just ports of console games. In almost every case the PC version looks almost the same or slightly better and THAT should never be the case taking into consideration the power and head room a PC has over any of these consoles.
The reason why? As stated above. The cost of development.
1ST, 2ND party games for the PS3 are funded by Sony so they have the time and effort to put into these games.

[BrianC6234]

My answer to you death2smoochie is these third party developers are holding the PS3 back. Sony continues to show how great PS3 games can be. The third party developers are letting us gamers all down. I don't want a mediocre version of a game if I can have a better version.

[user8397144]

Another thing is that GOW3 and Uncharted 2 have no install and no loading times! And they are easily the best looking games out there.

[guigsy]

Yeah but all those examples are exclusives. The video argues that multiplatform developers don't have the resources to invest heavily in the PS3 architecture, so you're getting multiplatform games will are often of the same quality (and sometimes worse) then their 360 counterparts, rather than looking much better. It's nothing to do with talent and enthusiasm, some smaller developers simply can't afford to bring out the best in the PS3.

[jrisner]

ummm Isn't any console's strength based on it's exclusives?

just wow.....

[Bell Boy]

That's what I thought..lol

[MysticStrummer]

Of course exclusives are important. The only people who don't admit that are fans of the competition. Exclusives have been the main factor in console "wars" since Atari 2600 vs Mattel Intellivision. Also... LOL @ all the "They should have dumped the Cell and Bluray" talk above.

[cervantes99]

Maybe this is true - but who cares.

Sony has a TON of "Prosperous Exclusives". Enough to keep me busy and happy even if I never bought a multi-plat title.

[Moerdigan]

If Nintendo cafe is strong as people say it is, no one will care quite as much if exclusives are using the best that PS3 has to offer at this point anymore.

PS3 may have now lost that edge now.

still, PS3 will hold up quite a bit better against Cafe then 360, I think.

[mandf]

Nintendo still has to learn to code for HD. Even if they learn it quickly, it will still be family friendly content. I will still buy it but it's still not dedicated towards a more mature demographic. The average gaming age is 37.

[Moerdigan]

that is true that they need to gain experience on HD development.

but the rule Nintendo has always had was to use everything their own hardware has to offer. they have always made up to around 4 title each gen that truly pushed the current hardware.

Nintendo may also see a lot of multiplats from current gen games, with a bump in graphics over the older systems too.

[nycredude]

Nintendo has no franchises that i am interested in anymore. Mario, Donkey kong, and all those mascots were great when I was younger but not anymore. There is more than enough room for every console.

[TheTruth89]

ps3 is a bast. nuff said

[Kon]

wat

[BrianC6234]

Just more worthless crap. Enough with the lazy developers.

[Jihaad_cpt]

what the fcuk is wrong with the person that said dump blu-ray? is that a xbot?

[Neko_Mega]

I think it's better for it to be harder to develop then too easy. Being to easy gets boring and you know your limit, where with PS3 you have no idea what you are getting yourself into and how much of it's power you can get out of it.

[Rikan]

And the delusional notion of the PS3 being vastly powerful and untapped goes on...Does ANYONE read the specs of the machine>?Where is all this 'untapped' power coming from?? lol *sigh* I hope the next generation of consoles comes with a handbook entitled 'Hardware for Idiots'--explaining just what all those numbers mean so the kids on this sight don' bicker about power that doesn't exist.

[zoks310]

Sight and site are two different things.......

[waterboy]

well for one thing the architecture is still untapped meaning there is more power to be used which is why exclusive developers are still making better looking exclusives for ps3, and theres still i believe 1 or 2 more processors still on the cell that arent in use theres comments about that they cant be used but in theory theres no proof they cant be used, and we dont know that sony has sent out there best development kits to maximize all that can be done with ps3 so in all the power does exist since people make supercomputers out of ps3 and cell as said by sony was used in their sony pictures studios

[Rikan]

You really don't know much about the Cell chip, do you? "more processors"? Do you recall just how many PS3's were used for that 'super-computer'? The cell chip was out-performed by common off-the-shelf desktop CPUs not 6 months after launch. Fact. The 360 and PS3 are horribly outdated hardware inhibiting graphics development--read DX11, tessellation etc; in need of a new generation of consoles. . I won't argue this beyond that, its obvious your one of the many who should read the hand guide I purposed in my previous post.
P.S @Zoks310--glad you had something to contribute. Can you count too?!

[death2smoochie]

The PS3 is 5+ years old with limited memory and bandwidth. The Xbox360 is even in a worse position.
There is a reason WHY it cannot run more than 1% of its entire game library at 1080p using real Anti-Aliasing or real time effects most of the time. The Xbox360 the same.
This so called "untapped" power is really: Developers using more OPTIMIZATIONS.
And when you mention 1-2 processors not in use?
Are these just popping out of thin air?

When you see games like BF3, Witcher and the many upcoming PC games coming in late 2011 and 2012, you begin to really see the limitations of these consoles.

PS3 and Xbox360:

No DX11 or its OpenGL equivalent support.

No use of usable Tessellation.

Low Floating point precession for all forms of light effects.

Last generation Shader model protocols when modern GPU's today costing even $70 USE SHADER MODEL 5.0...Consoles use 3.0+ and it's OpenGL equivalent (PS3)

Minuscule Small Bandwidth. (Reason why many games on both consoles have a high mixture of low resolution textures mixed with high resolution textures)

Last generation texture compression.

No true Multi-Threaded Rendering (And this may come as a surprise to you and shock others, but current engines still use only a single thread for rendering. The other threads are used for sound, decompression of resources, physics, etc.)

DX11 changes that and the Xbox360 and PS3 do not have it.

The fact is the PS3 like the Xbox360 are dated....and its showing.

[waterboy]

im not so sure of this chip that outperformed ps3 after launch but it wasnt a pc gaming chip there were six ps3s used for the first supercomputer built out of the ps3 but once can also be used ps3 isnt outdated atleast it can natively run on a tv whereas your almighty pc has to stream to the tv pcs are outdated, dx11? why would ps3 have dx anything and dx development tools and software belongs to microsoft

i know much about the cell chip your the one thats confused, ive known about it since before it was built back in the development when toshiba ibm and sony were first getting together in texas to develop it at one of the universities there

tessellation? in need of new generation of consoles? lol your an idiot along with most of the internet a console is a cartridge playing game home system a console hasnt existed since nintendo 64 and also according to how ps3 exclusive games look it would have nothing to do with the almighty pc to why there needs to be a new playstation

ps3 isnt 5 years old idiot not til november of this year, but with how much planning sony put into it it was built far more into the future than that despite your picky nerd pc arguments i have yet to see any pc games that make me see any limitations of ps3 to make it worse i would wait to see e3 2011 before claiming any victory in what ps3 cant do

processors falling out of the air? no, the ps3 has 9 processors on the cell some call them 1 core and 8 co processors or spus but in reality many exclusive developers will call them full blown processors each the only thing a pc fan can really do to try to make pc look so great ahead of ps3 is use multiplatform games for collateral which is stupid a ps3 game in the first place out to look worse compared to pc versions or even 360s cause the architecture of ps3 is a monkey wrench in development of engines in middleware engines

all this tech crap means nothing onscreen which proves most of statement 2 under me wrong since you know nothing of any of ps3s exclusive developers engine techs, to make it worse ps3s exclusives have yet to appear on pc so ps3s games are only possible on ps3 get out get owned

[Trroy]

Rikan, wow. The comments you're making are pretty uninformed. Its like everything you know about CPUs you gathered from perusing tech blogs on the internet, and then you filled in the gaps with your own imagination.

You should stop while you still have 2 bubs.

The Cell was not outdated by other CPUs until about 2009, and those CPUs had 3x the transistor count... A Cell with 3 PPU cores (i.e. the X360 CPU), and 24 SPUs would demolish any modern CPU core, including the server-grade i7s, at a pretty large number of tasks.

It's an unusual design, yes, but implying that its not the best architectural concept available, in this day of horribly slow memory access (relative to CPU speed), and 80-90% time wasted on L2 cache misses, is just plain wrong. It kicks the c#$p out of every other CPU architecture, if its scaled to the same transistor count, and utilized by programmers who know their stuff.

[Jocosta]

You will get lots of responses with the word "architecture" thrown in. Oh wait, I am too late.

[killajd]

For Sony Blue Ray was for the win! The cell processor can still make a huge impact as for longevity on the console extending its life cycle. Another great article Nick! Great job

[Nick212004]

Appreciate it man. I can't wait till you all see what Sony reveals during their Press Conference at E3 2011. You know your boy will be there LIVE!

[xtremegamerage]

Rikan.

Just better code for unoptimized Spu's.

But quite a few things help.

Culling - Spu's rock the shit out of it.

Cache - Texture streaming - Why PS3 streams better then 360.

On the subject of MLAA.

360 does it on the GPU, PS3 on the SPU'S.

Lucas arts does DLAA on both.

2.2ms on 360 and 1.6ms on PS3.

[NotSoSilentBob]

As I have said before multiplatform games are always based on the lowest common denominator aka the 360.

[Jocosta]

You mean like the Ps2 vs. Xbox back in the day? Now that was a night and day difference between graphics capabilities.

[NotSoSilentBob]

You are indeed correct. What ever is the weakest system will have the games bases off of it due to the fact 90% of publishers are looking for a quick buck.

[MeNoRasta]

Before the ps3 came out i was reading this games magazine (forgot the name of it) and it said that the ps3 will have this chip in it that can be detected by satellite
I know its bs now but i was thinking "wow" at that time.

[Bell Boy]

Watched the video.what was the guy blathering about I was too busy looking at the beauty of Uncharted 2 and God of War 3..who cares if some studios find the PS3 is harder to develop for as stated above the same was said about PS2

If you are content with games developed for the lowest common denominator then that's fine me....I expect more and so far Sony as delivered for me

[ChickenOfTheCaveMan]

Studios are pretty lazy.

Generations in video last about 7-8 years, so how a studio cannot master the system or take the time to master the system after 3-4 years.

I'm eager to see what they've done with Bioshock Infinite where the ps3 version is not a port. Will 2k show that they really understood the ps3 architecture?

[lochdoun]

Funny how you don't hear anyone bragging about Socom 4 now that it's out.
LMAOOO
That game was terrible!!!

[aia12]

this is a clear indication that the 360 cant keep up just look at gears 3 animations and compare them to gears 1 and 2 I'm sure you'll all agree.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

http://n4g.com/news/769161/...

[darksied]

A couple of thoughts on this.

OBVIOUSLY it will be easier for ps3 exclusive developers to make better looking games on the ps3. The same can be said for the 360 (you will find pretty good looking games on 360 exclusives as well). This is not new news. This is not even news. BUT this does not mean that a developer making games on both consoles won't be able to harness the ps3's graphical power, it just means they have to put the time into it. Crysis 2 on the ps3 was amazing graphically (as was the 360), and I find it hard to believe they would have been able to do that without knowing a lot about the system.

NOW, about the video and your site; while I didn't think the topic was all that important and some people will not like it, I do. At least you are going out there and putting your face and stamp on this and actually doing interviews, unlike 90% of the crap that shows up on the n4g (random site, random flamebait article, random crap). Good job, and keep up the videos; go deeper into things, keep asking questions, ask more relevant questions, and bring new things to the table. This was an older topic. Get in there and find out new stuff, talk to big name people at development houses, bring us new stuff.

[AngryTypingGuy]

The guy who reported this story is absolutely horrible. He's torture for the ears.

[Clbobe]

IMO Crysis 2 on Xbox 360 looks as good as any PS3 exclusive. I have played & owned every PS3 exclusive. I didn't believe 360 was capable of doing what Crysis 2 accomplished. Crysis 2 on Xbox looks better than Killzone 3. Slighty but still better. Can an argument be made that Xbox is not being pushed to its limits? No other game on 360 comes even close to looking like Crysis 2. I own both consoles and love them both. PS3 offers me way more options. 360 is just for multiplayer and the occasional exclusive.

[aia12]

xenos isn't slightly better than the rsx it is FAR superior to the rsx almost an entire generation ahead of it. the ONLY reason you don't notice is because they cell has the ability to OVERCOMPENSATE for most of the limitations the rsx has when up against xenos(we only have sony to thank for that). the only think the cell cant make up for is the EDRAM bandwidth that enables 360 games to render alpha effects in full resolution where the rsx can only do quarter resolution. again alpha effects are NOT processing power intensive(or the cell would have been able to help) but BANDWIDTH intensive so we can only blame nvidia for giving us a low bandwidth gpu because its really NOT sonys fault they did the best they could with the cell. the fact that the ps3 doesn't use a unified memory architecture at times can also be a problem because data at times need to be present in both the xdr and the gddr3 so processing time is used in copying back and forth but that's nvidias fault for INSISTING that the rsx have independent memory architecture knowing perfectly well it could at times be an issue because the cell would also be processing graphics along with the rsx. If you asked me nvidia gimped the ps3 just like they screwed Microsoft over with the first xbox. the rsx isn't the 7800 nvidia promised use they gimped it terribly alot of developers say this most of us just don't pay attention even crytek said taht the ps3s gpu is low end compared to the 360s but the cell saves the day

[coryok]

i hate video and sound news, im not goign to spend 10 mins or an hour listening to someone talk, give me the text so i can skim through it

[DJnal05]

Great video nick!!