Aramax said:
As for the PS3 being designed to be difficult to program on purpose... how can you even create a computer/console with higher level of programing difficulty?
Multiple cores and a difficult language to interface with them. The "potential power" of the PS3 is locked up behind programming methodologies that are exceptionally difficult to understand and write for. As a result, it's equivalent in power to the 360 with shinier graphics, because that's all we-the-programmers are currently capable of. Anything above that would require extremely different code to the 360 version of a given game (assuming a port), hence it may as well be exclusive (see: MGS4, KZ2, LBP). These games have dedicated teams, so they can explore the PS3 architecture to a greater depth and get a greater result (either just visually or in terms of simulated complexity or a number of things), but they have to struggle against the programming language in order to access that much of the architecture.
The PS3 is "deliberately difficult to program for" in that it's cutting-edge technology with a crazy new way of doing things, and as a result the methods of using those things aren't very well defined. Try explaining a video game, in detail, to an island hermit who has no concept of civilisation, let alone electricity or machinery, and you'll understand how hard it is to tell the PS3 to use all of its power.
