BioWare Kills Mass Effect 2 PS3 Rumor

[Captain Picard]

I'm not sure what people expected. There's only so much a developer can be bothered to do for a console with a puny 256MB of system memory. Making a game like ME1 or 2 run with a hardware limitation like that and having it still look like it's supposed to is a task not worth bothering with.

Oh give me a break. The PS3 has the same amount of system memory as the 360. It's just used differently. Namely split into two halves.

So, you're telling me that the Xbox 360's 512MB of memory is somehow "split in half", and that only half of it is usable by whatever game it's running? Even if this were the case, it's still not burdened with handling the OS as well as the game, like the PS3's 256MB of memory.

Oh, it sounds to me like you want some details. No problem.

Below there is some information and data copied and pasted from the Official US Playstation website.

Enjoy!










The PS3 uses XDR ram that is far faster and more efficient then normal PC ram. it isnt the same thing so the comparison to what you'd expect from a PC isnt fair.

Here is some data from Hack5 about the PS3's ram.
....

That was informative. Up until now, I was under the impression that the PS3 had ONLY 256MB of ram which was shared by both the GPU and the CPU. I did know that the PS3 uses XDR ram, which is rather similar to the RDRAM of yore. High operating clocks made possible by high latencies and narrow bus widths. Anyway, The fact of the matter is that Bioware began as a PC game developer, and thus developing a game for both the PC and Xbox 360 is a much simpler task than developing a game for all three. From a programming perspective, the PS3 ends up being the "odd man out" if you will.

 

[A1]

I'm not sure what people expected. There's only so much a developer can be bothered to do for a console with a puny 256MB of system memory. Making a game like ME1 or 2 run with a hardware limitation like that and having it still look like it's supposed to is a task not worth bothering with.

Oh give me a break. The PS3 has the same amount of system memory as the 360. It's just used differently. Namely split into two halves.

So, you're telling me that the Xbox 360's 512MB of memory is somehow "split in half", and that only half of it is usable by whatever game it's running? Even if this were the case, it's still not burdened with handling the OS as well as the game, like the PS3's 256MB of memory.

Oh, it sounds to me like you want some details. No problem.

Below there is some information and data copied and pasted from the Official US Playstation website.

Enjoy!










The PS3 uses XDR ram that is far faster and more efficient then normal PC ram. it isnt the same thing so the comparison to what you'd expect from a PC isnt fair.

Here is some data from Hack5 about the PS3's ram.
....

That was informative. Up until now, I was under the impression that the PS3 had ONLY 256MB of ram which was shared by both the GPU and the CPU. I did know that the PS3 uses XDR ram, which is rather similar to the RDRAM of yore. High operating clocks made possible by high latencies and narrow bus widths. Anyway, The fact of the matter is that Bioware began as a PC game developer, and thus developing a game for both the PC and Xbox 360 is a much simpler task than developing a game for all three. From a programming perspective, the PS3 ends up being the "odd man out" if you will.

I suppose that's technically true. It's simpler to develop for two platforms that are very similar to each other than it is to include a third platform that's radically different from the first two. But on the other hand Bioware has openly admitted that they enjoyed working with the PS3 for the first time while making the PS3 version of Dragon Age: Origins. They've also acknowledged that they have numerous in-house PS3 projects planned. This is one of the reasons why I continue to believe that the Mass Effect franchise eventually coming to the PS3 is a distinct possibility. Although I'm not holding my breath.

And besides, ever since the release of the PS3 Slim the PS3's user base has grown considerably. So it's kind of hard to argue that developing for the system isn't worthwhile. Maybe there once was a time when that was true but not anymore.