YOU KIDS AND YOUR PROGRAMMING! Back in my day, we programmed the games we played ourselves...When you bought "Mario and Clank Fantasy Solid" the box said "Some Assembly Required"
Developing for the PS2 wasn't all that difficult. After about a year and a half the PS2's developers began to understand the architecture. The Cell processor is a completely different beast. An otherwise cleanly and bugless program could simply refuse to run on a Cell processor. This hurts development. Hell, a game that runs perfectly on the development kit could have a critical crash error on the actual PS3 hardware. This problem isn't rare either. The PS3 sees this issue a lot more often then the 360.MrGFunk said:I was going to say wasn't development on the PS2 notoriously hard? The results achieved by some early on were impressive but for most it took some time.Jumplion said:One word and a number. Actually 2 words and 1 numbers;SuperFriendBFG said:No... Come 5 years from now there will already be a significant advancement in hardware and it will leave the PS3 in the dust. So much for a 10 year life span.Indigo_Dingo said:You're once again missing the context. The difference is between making something thats easy to develop for, is already known inside and out, and hits a low brick wall within 3 years, or having something that can be pushed to actually exceed the boundaries and make continual advancements.
Playstation
Playstation 2
To compare a release title to Okami, SOTC or God of WarII shows the progression that can be made.
unlike the A-bomb, you get to keep using the weapon. I'd like to see someone try to re-detonate a detonated bombIndigo_Dingo said:The A-Bomb was really simple, wasn't it?Booze Zombie said:Okay, so you make guns harder to produce and maintain so they're higher quality, right? RIGHT?
I mean, look at the complicated AK-47... wait, no. The fanciful M4... no. The ultra-high maintenance Barret 50.cal sniper rifle... Damn it.
The harder something is to use, the less you want to use it. The weapons industry understands this, why can't a mega company get it?
The compition is over! give that man the prize!^^ But seriously saying that the PS3 is better but your going to have to wait till its at the end of a TEN year cycle because its harder to programme isnt such a selling point when you think about how expensive the console was. By the time your getting what you actually paid for in gaming terms the next next generations already hear and its time for a new console.Onyx Oblivion said:YOU KIDS AND YOUR PROGRAMMING! Back in my day, we programmed the games we played ourselves...When you bought "Mario and Clank Fantasy Solid" the box said "Some Assembly Required"
Yeah but then you're limiting the 'new' and 'exciting' to what can be done through raw power, rather then the the imagination and creativity of developers.Indigo_Dingo said:You're once again missing the context. The difference is between making something thats easy to develop for, is already known inside and out, and hits a low brick wall within 3 years, or having something that can be pushed to actually exceed the boundaries and make continual advancements.
If God of War II looked better than anything on the Xbox to you, it's because of the art direction, not because of the technical execution of the graphics engine. I thought Shadow of the Colossus was a beautiful game, but it lacked the dynamic lighting, soft shadowing, and normal mapping of Chronicles of Riddick on the Xbox, for instance. God of War II lacked those things as well.Indigo_Dingo said:You're assuming it already hasn't. Killzone 2, which Guerilla said on record uses 60% of the Ps3's Graphics potential, has far outstripped anything the 360 is capable of. And God Of War II looked better than anything on the Xbox.Ajar said:This assumes that hardware configuration is the only factor driving game performance, which isn't true. It also assumes an equivalence between game quality and game graphics.Indigo_Dingo said:Except they can't - they already unlocked the full potential of the system in half a year, so all their games will look the same and there will be no discernable advancements.Grumman said:Gee, I wonder what a game company, in the business of making games, could do with their time if they don't need to waste nine-and-a-half years learning to use the new hardware to its full potential?
I know! They could use their time to learn to make better games!
I like the PS3 and am quite fond of mine, but we don't yet have any reason to think that its graphics ceiling in gaming is massively higher than that of the 360. The PS3 has a theoretical CPU advantage, but while that advantage is clear in Cell-suited applications like Folding@home, it isn't at all clear how much of that theoretical performance will turn into real-world gaming performance. This was the case last generation, where the PS2's Emotion Engine had a theoretical FLOPS advantage over the Xbox's processor and yet there was nothing on the PS2 that equalled the best of the Xbox graphically.
My personal opinion is that the PS3 will eventually surpass the 360's graphics ceiling, but not by a particularly wide margin, and that it won't be enough to get anywhere near closing the installed base gap in North America.
I heard (source not verifiable) that microsoft is releasing information on the new xbox at the end of 2009. If you follow Moore's law then making a ten year life cycle, especially with the PS3's technology, means that the technology in the console will be severly out-dated near the end of that cycle.Scottay said:The compition is over! give that man the prize!^^ But seriously saying that the PS3 is better but your going to have to wait till its at the end of a TEN year cycle because its harder to programme isnt such a selling point when you think about how expensive the console was. By the time your getting what you actually paid for in gaming terms the next next generations already hear and its time for a new console.Onyx Oblivion said:YOU KIDS AND YOUR PROGRAMMING! Back in my day, we programmed the games we played ourselves...When you bought "Mario and Clank Fantasy Solid" the box said "Some Assembly Required"
During the first 18 months of PS2's life wouldn't developers have had to get used to it? They didn't have much of another option until the Xbox came out.SuperFriendBFG said:Developing for the PS2 wasn't all that difficult. After about a year and a half the PS2's developers began to understand the architecture. The Cell processor is a completely different beast. An otherwise cleanly and bugless program could simply refuse to run on a Cell processor. This hurts development. Hell, a game that runs perfectly on the development kit could have a critical crash error on the actual PS3 hardware. This problem isn't rare either. The PS3 sees this issue a lot more often then the 360.MrGFunk said:I was going to say wasn't development on the PS2 notoriously hard? The results achieved by some early on were impressive but for most it took some time.
To compare a release title to Okami, SOTC or God of WarII shows the progression that can be made.
Usually with development kits you can get some performance issues when porting it over to the actual console, that's normal. With the PS3 hardware it's just a whole lot worse.
Almost all games are initially programmed and run on a computer. A lot of games also use engines that are developed for a PC game.
Compare CoD2 for 360 to CoD4 for 360 and you can see the progression that can be made. See whut I did thar?
That is true, both the Playstation and Playstation 2 were incredibly difficult to program for at first. Then later on the developers got used to it, and with the other two platforms being null void, the PS2's lifespan became what it is now.MrGFunk said:I was going to say wasn't development on the PS2 notoriously hard? The results achieved by some early on were impressive but for most it took some time.Jumplion said:One word and a number. Actually 2 words and 1 numbers;SuperFriendBFG said:No... Come 5 years from now there will already be a significant advancement in hardware and it will leave the PS3 in the dust. So much for a 10 year life span.Indigo_Dingo said:You're once again missing the context. The difference is between making something thats easy to develop for, is already known inside and out, and hits a low brick wall within 3 years, or having something that can be pushed to actually exceed the boundaries and make continual advancements.
Playstation
Playstation 2
To compare a release title to Okami, SOTC or God of WarII shows the progression that can be made.
No actually. Let's face it, if people keep developing for old consoles no matter which one it is the games will inevitably look better and better. It has a lot more to do with art direction then the power of the hardware.MrGFunk said:During the first 18 months of PS2's life wouldn't developers have had to get used to it? They didn't have much of another option until the Xbox came out.SuperFriendBFG said:Developing for the PS2 wasn't all that difficult. After about a year and a half the PS2's developers began to understand the architecture. The Cell processor is a completely different beast. An otherwise cleanly and bugless program could simply refuse to run on a Cell processor. This hurts development. Hell, a game that runs perfectly on the development kit could have a critical crash error on the actual PS3 hardware. This problem isn't rare either. The PS3 sees this issue a lot more often then the 360.MrGFunk said:I was going to say wasn't development on the PS2 notoriously hard? The results achieved by some early on were impressive but for most it took some time.
To compare a release title to Okami, SOTC or God of WarII shows the progression that can be made.
Usually with development kits you can get some performance issues when porting it over to the actual console, that's normal. With the PS3 hardware it's just a whole lot worse.
Almost all games are initially programmed and run on a computer. A lot of games also use engines that are developed for a PC game.
Compare CoD2 for 360 to CoD4 for 360 and you can see the progression that can be made. See whut I did thar?
I don't think it's the same comparison. Are you saying that COD4 is getting towards the peak of what a 360 can do?
20 bucks says a new 360 game released within the year will shatter your whole "the games on 360 have reached the limit" argument.Fraught said:They're trying to say that the limit of the Xbox 360 has been reached, but PS3 still has a lot of room for advancing.
Although, I think that when they would've made it easier to program for, it should've used weaker hardware, which in return would've brought the PS3 to it's limit quickly, which would've meant that they would have to release a new console too quickly.
It's pretty definite that while Microsoft churns out another console, other people (owning the PS3) don't have to waste money, and can still play with the PS3, which (unlike the Xbox 360) hasn't reached it's limit.
I mean, read what Kojima said a few years back. The PS2 was one of the hardest systems to develop for, but look at how very, very much longer it has been on the market than GameCube and Xbox.
Okay. Shall I give you my bank account number also?SuperFriendBFG said:20 bucks says a new 360 game released within the year will shatter your whole "the games on 360 have reached the limit" argument.Fraught said:They're trying to say that the limit of the Xbox 360 has been reached, but PS3 still has a lot of room for advancing.
Although, I think that when they would've made it easier to program for, it should've used weaker hardware, which in return would've brought the PS3 to it's limit quickly, which would've meant that they would have to release a new console too quickly.
It's pretty definite that while Microsoft churns out another console, other people (owning the PS3) don't have to waste money, and can still play with the PS3, which (unlike the Xbox 360) hasn't reached it's limit.
I mean, read what Kojima said a few years back. The PS2 was one of the hardest systems to develop for, but look at how very, very much longer it has been on the market than GameCube and Xbox.
In the Playstation's case, it was much easier to program for that than it was to program for the competition (the Saturn AND the N64). The PS2 was hard to program for but since it was selling like hotcakes, it wasn't a problem.Jumplion said:That is true, both the Playstation and Playstation 2 were incredibly difficult to program for at first. Then later on the developers got used to it, and with the other two platforms being null void, the PS2's lifespan became what it is now.
You're assuming this silly stance that Sony is the only company that has made consoles that have had vastly better looking games towards the end of its lifecycle, when this applies to just about every stable gaming platform out there. The NeoGeo, the NES, the C64, the A500. I could list more examples here. Even the games on the first Xbox had a clear visual refinement through its lifespan.Indigo_Dingo said:You're once again missing the context. The difference is between making something thats easy to develop for, is already known inside and out, and hits a low brick wall within 3 years, or having something that can be pushed to actually exceed the boundaries and make continual advancements.
All Epic(fail) entertainment has to do is make a more efficient engine for a new game and they can get better results then GoW2 while using as much power as GoW2. Many games have used all the power any current gen platform has to offer for quite a while, the real advancement in graphics came from more efficient software.Fraught said:Okay. Shall I give you my bank account number also.
PS. That means nuh-uh it wont. I'm not saying it because of that, and I haven't really read much about it, but wasn't there the news that Gears of War 2 used, like, 100% of the Xbox 360?
I know Killzone 2 uses 100% some of the video card (r smthn) and then it borrows 60% from the SPUs, but still.
Eh? You're looking past the multiple Ratchet / Jak and now God of War titles? Heck, they regurgitated sequels to their less memorable IPs like Forbidden Siren and The Getaway.TheNecroswanson said:Couldn't tell you. Sony has a smaller tendency to murder their mascots. See: Master Chief, and every Nintendo IP.
They meant (A). There is NO reason AT ALL the programming has to be complex for it to achieve high/great quality graphics or gameplay. Even if it has to be complex on the assembly code level, the proper development tools can interface easily with the developers to make it easy for them to use.Insomniac55 said:It really depends on what Sony is trying to say.
If they meant 'we made it difficult and puzzling to program for so that it would take ten years to figure out how to take advantage of what the hardware can do' that's bad.
If they meant 'In order to make it possible for the hardware to be properly exploited, the programming had to be complex' that's good.