Valve Says PS3 Complexity Hinders Game Development

[300lb. Samoan]

Since when are Bethesda Ps3 neglectors?

I don't know, I thought someone mentioned here or in the article about Valve and other companies not liking the PS3's architecture.

 

[Jumplion]

Perhaps Indigo Dingo will provide us with a counter argument.

Allow me instead.

Get used to the hardware maybe? If companies like Guerrilla, Kojima Productions, Square Enix, Media Molecule, Insomniac, Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, Bethesda, whatever can make quality games on a system that is supposed to be deadly hard to work with, why the hell is it so hard to ask VALVe to just get off their fucking asses and do a little work instead of hiring the people who already finished the game halfway before. [/hate for VALVe]

If VALVe were committed, they probably would have gotten used to the hardware a LONG time ago. Everyone else has and all I'm hearing from VALVe is the same thing I've heard 2 or so years ago "The PS3 is hard to work with!". News flash, so was the PS2 at first! But developers got used to it and moved on.

The PS3 has plenty of quality games, 360 has it's own share, whatever. If VALVe want to stick with PC and 360, fine, but don't give us some bullshit false hope like when you said before "If L4D sells well we might consider making it for PS3". Other than random dick-waving, I see no real reason for VALVe to really bother enough to state what was already known except make themselves look better. I've never seen a single PS3 developer that goes "Oh, the 360 is too simple to work for, we wanted a challenge!" or whatever excuse they'd make up.

But now I'm getting bitter, BLECHARDUGLAPHRAL! I hate VALVe sometimes...though if I had a better PC I probably wouldn't be as bitter about them

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

Question:

Is the PS3 hard to develop for, or is it different?

So many devs. fight at each other saying "The PS3 was easy to develop for" while the people at valve can't stand it's architecture.

 

[Jumplion]

Question:

Is the PS3 hard to develop for, or is it different?

So many devs. fight at each other saying "The PS3 was easy to develop for" while the people at valve can't stand it's architecture.

I seem to remember somewhere that a guy at Guerrilla games said "The PS3's architecture is quite easy and flexible to work with" though with exact wordings I'm not sure.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

Yeah, but they didn't back it up. Same with Infinity Ward. Valve are pretty much alone in this, while the number of people who say their products are only capable thanks to the Cell is considerably larger.

Oh, should have known better. I agree that the cell technology is impressive, but when the PS3 came out they hyped IBM's parallel processing structure as the wave of the future, and so far I don't see anyone adapting this architecture. Programming for XBox 360 makes a lot more sense for Valve because they do develop with the PC in mind and the code can transfer almost relatively pain-free. Meanwhile, since the Cell tech is so proprietary, the hours that go into learning to program for a PS3 might not result in transferable skills. Learning to program a 360 means you'll likely have a head start when you approach the next XBox (or Windows) iteration. But Sony seems intent on making you learn Klingon to program this machine. What'll it be for PS4, Elvin++?

 

[DeerGoMoo]

@SinisterDeath: Please actually try to know something about what you're saying before you start typing.

Valve knows PC. They don't know SHIT about console development. How many console games have they made prior to 360?
Like, 1!

Why does that matter? Code is code, due to the relative straightforwardness involved in programming for the 360 it is easier to port their PC code over to it. The complexity of Cell is what's preventing them from wanting to release games for PS3, as it would likely require massive reworkings of what they have - did you think they employ a bunch of mutant programmers that can write code extremely well for PC but when placed in front of a console dev kit their brains fall out of their ears? It has very little if nothing to do with lack of previous console experience.

Unless your microsoft and develop a 'console' using the same 'codeing/achitecture' that they, you know, OWN. Totally has absolutely nothing to do with why Sony/Nintendo don't use a 'more pc like system'. Not at all.

What's the deal with this assumption that the 360 is so PC like? The first Xbox practically was a PC, but in terms of architecture the 360 is closer to the PS3 and Wii, saying as all three current gen consoles run IBM designed PowerPC processors, compared to the majority of current desktops which use x86 (which, might I add, if anyone truly owned it, it would be Intel, not Microsoft). Sure DirectX code and likely much of a Windows kernel is present on the 360, but why wouldn't it be? The code is there and easily portable, so who in their right mind wouldn't use it?

I wonder if Gabe knows PS3 is based on Linux?

You seem to be confused here. You can install Linux on a PS3; the actual PS3 software is not Linux, it's Sony's own code. Furthermore, even if it were true, how does that matter? A. Valve don't develop for Linux anyway and b. the architecture is completely different. The method of programming would still be different due to the Cell regardless of software/firmware running between the game and the hardware.

If I recall correctly programming Cell entails instructing one core, the PPE, to control the other other six or seven SPEs, which carry out the bulk of the workload. I don't know about you, but getting 6 or 7 different cores synced up and doing what you want when you want sounds like a royal pain in the arse to me.

That said, I sympathise with Valve here, they make great games and it's a shame PS3 fans won't get to enjoy some of them, because really, they're all games everyone should get to play. Hopefully they will release some of their future games on PS3 so everyone can have fun with them. =]

 

[CarbonEagle]

I remember a thread about this yesterday. But, in all honesty who cares about valve games on the 360. Their really on worth their salt on the PC.(due to the huge amount of mod support from the community) Besides they look pretty awful on the 360 in comparison.

i'm not sure what kind of system you are playing on, but I was pretty sad when I saw TF2 on the 360 and realized that my $1500 spend in the last four years was being outperformed by a $150 dvd player. It offers Full HDR, Very High textures and High level models. Unless you are running a DX10 system, a GeForce 280 and 4+gigs of ram (and the picmip, hwmmodels and hwmcvds commands) I don't think you're getting a huge improvement over the 360 except in frames per second, which are lacking - 360 seems to run at just under 60.

Dont forget the $2000 hdtv you need to buy, so it doesnt look like tf1 running at 460x640

 

[Thunderhorse31]

Yes, thats why the Ps3 has low quality games like LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles and Metal Gear Solid 4, all of which are only capable on it, while the 360 has such gems as Too Human, Velvet Assassin and Ninja Blade.

Wow, congratulations on such a compelling argument. I suppose the PS3 >>> Wii because Uncharted is better than Barbie Horse Adventures, and the PSP >>> DS because Chains of Olympus is better than Hannah Montana Music Jam.

Seriously? GTFO.

 

[D_987]

Why are you all arguing - none of you know how to port games to the PS3 therefore your arguments are invalid; your just fighting about whose words have more credibility regarding development than actually talking about which system really is more difficult...

 

[Arehexes]

You know whats funny? Sega did the same thing with the Saturn and look how the devs took that. Left a bad taste in the devs mouth for sega(including the add-ons but that has nothing to do with sony). Also remember how bad ports from the 360 to the PS3 are. Also there is no reason to make a SDK harder to dev then the other consoles. It just makes you want to hate it and not make games for it. Also high rated games don't mean good games, so for the "PS3 gets high rating in games then the xbox". But I only know of like 4 games I would by on the PS3, while my xbox has like 20. It's about taste when we look at ratings.

 

[Woe Is You]

If VALVe want to stick with PC and 360, fine, but don't give us some bullshit false hope like when you said before "If L4D sells well we might consider making it for PS3".

I don't know. Why is this a problem for you? I thought you were the one posting how you didn't really like how L4D looked and you didn't really care whether you got it or not. Being pissed about it makes really no sense.

I mean, I realize a game like Disgaea 3 is exclusive to the PS3 but I'm not really bothered by it being such, since I got over my NIS fever during the PS2 days.

I'm personally not seeing why they're asking Valve about this since their opinion about the PS3 was already abundantly clear before this comment was even made. But I have to agree on the fact that even though there's a higher peak performance (though I still maintain that none of the current gen consoles' peaks have been reached yet), there's really no certainty about the benefits of making a third party title that fully utilizes the PS3. It makes sense if you're working close to Sony or if you're doing a small game like Everyday Shooter, but otherwise... well, there are far fewer people that only own a PS3 at least in my experience than there are that own a 360/PC/Wii in addition to it and if you're short on PS3 developers, well... you know where I'm headed.

 

[yeah_so_no]

Ahh, the fanboys are out in full force this post.

Seriously, who cares. Valve is whinging again that the PS3 is too hard to develop for, old news is old.

 

[oliveira8]

To finish this once and for all.

Valve is a company of 200 people working, with CS:S, TF2, DOD:S and L4D to provide with content and bug fixing.

They also developing HL2:Ep3 and Left 4 Dead 2, plus improving a game engine.(And maybe Portal 2)

Also trying to keep the biggest digital distribution system up and running 24/7.

Do you honestly expect Valve at this point to pick up the PS3 or even the Wii and learn to develop for them? When they can just develop for the PC and the 360 two platformers that aparently are the same to develop, and make tons of profit.

Short answer: No.

They just wont bother to learn to develop to the PS3, cause to Valve eyes its not worth the effort and they most likely have better stuff to do.(Like playing WoW. ^^)

So PS3 fans that want Valve games to the PS3 I suggest the folowing: Learn to develop to the PS3 and apply to Valve.

 

[SinisterDeath]

Name one playstation that was easy to develop for.

Playstation 1. Or did you forget that it had a library rivaling that of the SNES/Genesis/NES libraries? Not to mention that the PS2 had many great games and a large library itself. I realize people have gotten lazy and aren't pushing consoles to their limits anymore (like the aforementioned SNES/Genesis/NES/PS1 did) but still, in the long run, both PS1 and PS2 were far better to design for than the PS3.

In fact, if you look back, complexity was one of the reasons that the Saturn and Dreamcast went belly up. Or at least it was one of the common reasons cited at the time.

Also, Indigo, really put a sock in it already about those games. They were all "capable" on the 360 or even the PC. Why didn't they go to it? Probably something to do with the whole "Exclusive" crap and the fact that people jack off to graphics more than they do gameplay. Not that MGS4 had much gameplay, and LBP is admittedly only as fun as you can make it, which for people without a lot of creativity isn't saying much.

That didn't make it an easy system to develop or rather Program for.
I seem to recall a few interviews, People who made ps1 games, going over to ps2 saying 'ps2 is hard, but its easier then ps1', and people going from ps2 to ps3 saying damn near the same thing.

The Playstation/PS2 weren't easy to program for, in no way shape or form. The main, Numeral Uno reason it has such a large library is.
A) IT sold so many units with a lot of name brand games, cult followings, and even companies that switched from nintendo to Sony becuase there machines weren't necissarilly easier to develop for, but probably, more cost effective, better graphics? ect.

Why does that matter? Code is code, due to the relative straightforwardness involved in programming for the 360 it is easier to port their PC code over to it. The complexity of Cell is what's preventing them from wanting to release games for PS3, as it would likely require massive reworkings of what they have - did you think they employ a bunch of mutant programmers that can write code extremely well for PC but when placed in front of a console dev kit their brains fall out of their ears? It has very little if nothing to do with lack of previous console experience.

No, code is not code. Some code is easier to make, others aren't. Some code is easier to convert to other code, while others are impossible.
Simple fact about developing games on the PS3.
Companies like Valve, make the game on the PC, Then they port it to the 360/ps3. So the code is natively 'PC'. 360 = microsoft so OF COURSE Its going to be easy, it uses the exact same propritary code/software that pc gamers have, that works with Windows! Is meant to work on windows! Look at it this way, if 360 has DX9, would you be shocked? I wouldn't. If PS3 did, I'd probably drop dead.

Another thing is this. Yes, the ps3 has harder 'architecture' to work with then People who DESIGN games for the PC.
PC, you think of everything as a giant pool of resources, you have X ram, X HDD, X CPU speed, X Vid Graphics, ect ect. Its one giant pool. You now create a game, And try to make it work on a certain set of requirements. And given the way PC/Windows works, This method works, its not meant to be 'optimized' for every pc. Thats impossible, theres to much varation.
And this is why VALVE fails at console game making. They haven't realized, that the reason Sony has won the last 2 generations, is because They HAVE optimized games for there consoles. Look at PS1. My god. NO BODY thought you could do what they did, with the resources of that system! There were people who developed games, that said they PUSHED the ps1 BEYOND what it should have been able to do. The Ps2 was similar, but not to such an extreme level.
The Main difference between Ps3, and 360 is The Ps3 is based on games being optimized in the best way possible for said console, the 360 is more about big pool of resources, and throwing what you got at it and hope the pool doesn't flood. Valve is not used to writing code that allocates Say, Physics to only work on one SPE, and animations on another, He'd rather throw it all at the PS3's single CPU and say 'see, its weak, it can't handel it' with out even touching its real power.

What's the deal with this assumption that the 360 is so PC like? The first Xbox practically was a PC, but in terms of architecture the 360 is closer to the PS3 and Wii, saying as all three current gen consoles run IBM designed PowerPC processors, compared to the majority of current desktops which use x86 (which, might I add, if anyone truly owned it, it would be Intel, not Microsoft). Sure DirectX code and likely much of a Windows kernel is present on the 360, but why wouldn't it be? The code is there and easily portable, so who in their right mind wouldn't use it?

The 360 is no where near the architecture of the PS3. The 360 is basically a 'tri-core cpu'. Its 3. uhh 1.5ghz? cpus, that all work together in unison. (Not the technical terminology mind you) Again, the 'pool methodology' Think of the 360 as a gaint 50 galon drum.
The Ps3 is 8, 6 galon drums. Course, the cell doesn't work at all like the normal cpus either. They don't 'work together pooling resources', you 'dedicate' resources to specific portions of the CPU. The wii? Its a Gamecube with a wii-chuck, no one sees that yet?

Basically developers are finding the problem with developing with the ps3 isn't Starting out on the PS3, thats easy.
Its porting.
In order to port a game from pc to ps3, or 360 to ps3, They can't just go about the 'normal' method of porting a game. They actually have to dive in and manually code the system to work with the ps3! Because they can't just throw it at the ps3 and expect it to understand what to do with it, since its needs to know 'what' to do with it all. However, by making it on the ps3, porting to pc/360 is far far easier, infact you'll find that EA games that were made 360 then ported to ps3 suck.
But PS3 games 'ported' to 360 are nearly equal. Aka better quality for all.

 

[PeterDawson]

Weird. As a guy who's developping a game simultaneously for the PSN and XBLA, I have to say both systems seem almost interchangable on the outside. Must be an engine thing. This could also explain why the PS3 version of Last Remnant has been pushed back to 2012 (speculative date, I've checked since the game came out and no announcement on it).

 

[Jumplion]

If VALVe want to stick with PC and 360, fine, but don't give us some bullshit false hope like when you said before "If L4D sells well we might consider making it for PS3".

I don't know. Why is this a problem for you? I thought you were the one posting how you didn't really like how L4D looked and you didn't really care whether you got it or not. Being pissed about it makes really no sense.

I mean, I realize a game like Disgaea 3 is exclusive to the PS3 but I'm not really bothered by it being such, since I got over my NIS fever during the PS2 days.

I'm personally not seeing why they're asking Valve about this since their opinion about the PS3 was already abundantly clear before this comment was even made.

You're right, I don't care much about L4D though if my PC gets better I probably will get it. The thing that pisses me off about that though was, c'mon, they're fucking VALVe for Christ's sake! Of course it's going to sell well just because it has the damn VALVe logo on the damn box! Instead of giving false hope, when VALVe had repeatedly stated that they didn't like the PS3 or whatever bullshit, they should have just simply said "We don't have any plans for a PS3 version".

Everyone already knew of VALVe/Gabe's hate for PS3, so why give us any false pretenses of L4D ever coming to PS3 in the first place?

And I wholeheartedly agree with your last paragraph

Condense

Well, Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and Sucker Punch all consist of about 200 people more or less in their company, so....

 

[Jumplion]

Perhaps Indigo Dingo will provide us with a counter argument.

You mean a counter-insult then a constant stream of cursing, and put downs until people give up trying to be rational then people just leave and he claims the captainship of the failboat.

Okay, I'm getting sick of people going "LOLOLOL INDIGO DINGO TEH FAG FANBOI NUB LOLOLOL" just because he favors Sony over whatever. I'll admit, he gets off his rocker sometimes, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have any less valid points than anyone else here!