RC, I'm surprised you hadn't seen/posted this? I thought it was an interesting read considering the debate that goe son around here about the 'next-gen' consoles. --------------------------------------------------------- http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-348-1.htm As long as consoles have existed, discussions, debates, arguments, fights, and all out WARS have taken place over who makes the best video game units. Growing up, I was always a Nintendo fan boy; I didn't want to hear anything about Sega Genesis... In my mind, Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, and other great first-party titles. Sega had Sonic, and red blood. Things are slightly more complicated these days however. Console makers are taking different approaches to designing their products; some go for hardcore processing power, others focus more on online gaming. We already have a heated debate going on in our forum about which console is better, PS3 or XBOX 360. I thought it would be a good idea to ask my friend, who is a lead programmer for a large gaming company that produces games for both PS3 and XBOX 360. He has also worked on PS2, XBOX 1, and PC games in the past 6-or-so years. Obviously, considering his position working with both consoles and both Sony and Microsoft, he doesn't want to step on any toes, so wishes to remain anonymous at this time. Here are his thoughts on the subject: PS3 vs. XBOX 360 Being a video game developer (I develop for both, Playstation 3 and XBOX 360) people ask me almost daily which platform I think is better. These are my personal feelings, in no way does this reflect my employer. Short answer: XBOX 360. Long answer: Price, performance, visual quality, game selection and online support. I think the XBOX 360 wins in every category. Price: This is obvious; the XBOX 360 core is only $299. The PS3 is around $499 for the 20GB version. It comes with a hard drive, but you don’t need a hard drive to enjoy a lot of great games on the 360 so I think it’s fair to compare both core systems. Performance: On paper, the PS3 is more powerful. In reality, it’s quite inferior to the 360. Without getting into too many details, the three general-purpose CPU’s the xbox360 has are currently FAR easier to take advantage of than the SPU’s on the PS3. I suspect a few years down the road some high budget, first party PS3 exclusive titles will come out that really take advantage of the SPU’s and do things the XBOX 360 can’t, but I don’t think the console is worth buying based on this speculation (for some it will be though, we'll have to wait and see how these games turn out). Graphics: The XBOX 360 is a clear winner. The GPU is more powerful. It has more powerful fillrate, and far more pixel and vertex processing horsepower. Part of the reason is their choice of memory, and architecture of pixel and vertex procesing. I can’t get into details but the same vertex shader will run much slower on the PS3 than the XBOX 360. The 360 also has a clever new way rendering high definition anti aliased back buffers. To accomplish the same effect on PS3 is prohibitively expensive. For this reason I think many games will have no choice but to run in non-HD resolutions on the PS3 version, use a lower quality anti aliasing technique, or do back buffer upscaling. The end result in all cases is going to be noticeably worse image quality. Game Selection: The XBOX 360 has a huge head start here. 1 year is an eternity in gaming. Almost all multi-platform developers have made the XBOX 360 their primary platform due to timing of release-to-market, this means the games will look and perform better on the 360. The PS3 versions will be ports of the 360 versions. (The opposite was true for XBOX 1 vs. PS2). The XBOX 360 is also far faster to develop for due to better development tools (massively popular Visual Studio .NET vs. proprietary, buggy PS3 compiler and debugger), better documentation, and easier architecture (3 general purpose CPU’s vs. 8 specialized processors that require DMA). Timing has also caused all next-gen middleware developers to make XBOX 360 their primary platform, and they will ‘add ps3 support’ as needed. This support will probably be inferior to the XBOX 360’s due to manpower and more importantly, demand. It’s this catch-22 now that will continue to drive the 360 forward and hold PS3 back. The other obvious point here is that right now the Xbox360 already has a very impressive line-up of titles on store shelves; the ps3 just launched, and has virtually nothing of interest. Also, many 360 games are already discounted ($25 for Fight Night 3 at CircuitCity). PS3 games are all full price since it just launched. Live: Microsoft’s online support with XBOX1 was phenomenal. They built in-house experience, user base, facilities, $$ commitment from executive level (since it proved successful), and most importantly, feedback from 100,000s of XBOX Live subscribers. Playstation 2’s online support sucked. They are now playing catch-up, trying to emulate Xbox’s model. But they had their hands tied just trying to make the PS3 work, it was incredibly ambitious (blu-ray etc.). I haven’t seen it yet, but I seriously doubt the quality will be anywhere to the level of XBOX 360. HD Content: The PS3 comes with one built in (blu-ray). The XBOX 360 offers HD-DVD as an add-on for $200. You probably don’t care about HD-DVD right now. But you will soon (The quality between DVD and HD is comparable to VHS vs DVD, if you have the right TV) so I suggest paying attention to the war that’s begun. There are two formats: HD-DVD and BLU-RAY. Basically if you rent a BLU-RAY DVD from Bockbuster, it won’t play in your XBOX 360 HD-DVD, and vice versa with the PS3. The implications of this format war would require another article on its own. But as far as the consoles are concerned, the XBOX 360 wins because the DVD player is a separate unit. Playing movies is very taxing on the DVD reader, and let’s face it. In 3 years when your PS3 DVD drive goes out due to playing lots of movies (PS2 was notoriously bad about this) you will have to go buy another PS3. With the 360, you’ll just chuck your HD-DVD player, and go buy another one at the store. In 3 years standalone units wlil probably only cost about $99-150. Another point for the XBOX 360, is that I don’t know who will win the format-war, so I would rather wait with purchase of a HD player. The PS3 doesn’t give you this option
I probably have seen it, and maybe posted it or referenced it at some point. It seems to be pretty old (from last November if I'm not mistaken). There are so many developer perspectives on these issues (especially from "anonymous" developers) that I probably wouldn't post too many of them. I like some of the issues brought up with these interviews that don't get touched on much here though.
im not really a sony homer..i dont have ps1,ps2 or ps3...but did they factor in that the Xbox 360 has over a 30% failure rate....while all the other consoles is less than 1% (including ps3)..i would get an xbox...but those red rings of death are scary
Biased? Maybe I missed it. I looked over the site a little bit and it seemed pretty decent. As for the age of the article, I did miss that.
Sony has always been difficult to deal with from a developer stand point while MS has gone out of their way to be a better platformer. Eventually that will bite Sony in the butt. DD
That's to be expected when your new to the scene. As far as Sony always being difficult, I doubt it. I don't think they won the previous two generations by always being difficult with developers.
...like right now. Still seriously considering getting one, since it can double boot into linux and become my living room computer. It took the Xbox a year to come out with a game that truly took advantage of the horsepower and whooped ass with Gears of War. I think it may be the same (or longer) for PS3. Is anybody here using the PS3 as a linux computer for web browsing, etc? How is it? Are there any interesting Linux applications made for the Cell processor? I understand they released a developer kit along with Yellowdog linux for PS3 last year.
lol, here we go again, professional fanboys argue with a professional game developer as to how difficult it is for them to deal with Sony.
I'm guessing it will be shorter. Lair is coming out in August IIRC (although it should have been out WAY before that date), and I think it is definitely a title that makes great use of the PS3's hardware (this is Factor 5 we're talking about). There will probably be a number of other titles that are nearly as impressive as Lair (if not on par, or even more impressive) before the year is over too. There will definitely be things that are even more impressive in the future, although that's also true of the situation with Gears for the 360. I keep forgetting to check out Linux on the PS3. I'll be on vacation with my family next week (w/o my PS3), but I think I'll try to check it out a few weeks from now, assuming I remember. Of course, I'm not all that familiar with Linux, so I might not be of much help when it comes to some of your questions. I can dig up some links from other message boards where people have used Linux on the PS3 if you're interested.
I think the anonymous dev stretched a lot of his initial impressions into opinions with half truths inserted in them. There's also a difference in philosophy between Japanese and Western devs that usually comes out every time an MS system is compared with a Japanese system, which makes sense because MS gets a lot of input from Western developers when they bring these suckers out. Just because the PS3 is harder to develop doesn't mean it's less powerful than the Xbox. These systems are like fine tuned cars. Carrying over the East/West difference, one car can be tuned for speed on the straightaway, while another is designed for turns or offroad terrain. A drivers own preferences and abilities would determine which car is the superior lot. His statements are based upon current paradigms of programming, and he heavily bases his opinions on the GPUs alone. Because he stated before on the difficulty of using the Cell processer, then it's likely he doesn't know how to efficiently use the GPU and Cell together for better graphics. Dude didn't know how to drive stick. Afterwards, he extrapolates more upon his own assumptions while holding Sony in a vacuum. RC Cola would dispute that the 360 loses because it's stuck on using a disc with less space. A wasteful or mediocre developer would agree because he'd need to compress more data or deal with multiple discs to fit high def info into 4.5 gigs. The dev didn't even bring up this dilemma which is important to him and his company's future in HD, and it's not like this problem just came up recently. He totally commented things with the (then) current situation in mind, which of course MS wins because it had been out for a year while Sony was out for month. It's no wonder he remained anonymous because he showed no signs of future planning or insight whatsoever, despite the reason an interview like this was given is to influence readers on their future purchases...
As someone who has developed for both Sony and MS, it is a matter of money...... As a 3rd party developer you are going to develop for WHOMEVER is winning the console wars...... Sony has become a bit arrogant and is actually facing a real challenge from 2 players now..... Their developer tools are not nearly as good as MS, and their support either....at least from an English speaking standpoint. DD
Bull**** DaDa, you have no idea what you are talking about. You just think you do since you ran a gaming software company and developed games for a living. chow_yun_fat posts on an internet BBS and plays games on occasion. You can't top that kind of experience.
Are you suggesting that the PS3 tools and support for 3rd party developers are in Japanese, or at least Japanese in nature?
Not at all, just that I find the support from MS superior to the support from Sony etc, but I suspect that the Japanese developers may have an entirely different perspective than me. I just hope he keeps playing them......I am counting on that in my next venture. DD
I don't disagree with you about what you're saying (based on what little I know...which is very little I'm assuming), but I'm not quite following you on your last few comments. Why would Japanese developers have a different perspective? Assuming it is something other than the reverse of what I said...which would make sense I guess, but I'm assuming they're might be more even if that was the case.
IMHO, I can only speak from my perspective, but because MS has been the underdog they have gone out of their way to be great with support and tools, particularly with 3rd party developers like me. Sony has been decent, but their preference for proprietary technology particularly on the way that their graphics chipsets work means that we (the developers) have more difficulties involved in getting the most out of their consoles, and their position as the number one seller by a LONG shot allows them to be more arrogant on support and submissions. Which, they are.......but I suspect that Japanese developers may have a much different experience with support because Sony is a Japanese company, whereas MS is a US company, thus me saying that perhaps MS support in Japan may not be that great (I have no knowledge of this, just speculating). Bottom line to me is that Sony has been arrogant and acting like they would always be top dog and publishers and developers would follow them forever, but the truth is much different. MS has made significant strides, and right now the PS3 in the USA is flagging compared to what they thought it would do..... And I think both MS and Sony underestimated the Wii.......which is fairly easy to develop for ....not as easy as the X-box but not appreciably harder either. The PS2 KILLED the X-Box....and you could just ignore the X-box all together and still have a major hit, that is not the case anymore. I hope that explains it a bit, at the end of the day I will develop for both systems, as unit sales are all that is really important, and neither system is winning over the other by a significant margin....... And RC, when I get my new gig finally financed, I am going to be giving you a call. DD
Is that all true with the PS3 as well (mostly regarding the preference for helping Japanese companies, proprietary chipsets, and stuff like that), or has this been mostly based on your past experiences with Sony and Microsoft? Particularly involving Sony's support for the PS1, PS2, and PSP. What you've said makes perfect sense for those consoles (especially the PS2), but the PS3 doesn't seem to fit quite as well based on what I know. Now I certainly may just not know enough about the situation, in which case I'd gladly accept any information you have on the subject matter (assuming everything makes sense of course). I just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. Sorry if it seems like I'm calling you out or anything like that. Like I said, I agree with a lot of your comments about Sony's support (or lack their of). It is just that it seemed like some things you said differs from what I know about the PS3, and I just want to clear some things up in case we're not on the same page.
All of what I have said is from my experience creating products for the previous consoles. I am just getting started on the PS3 and X-Box 360, however, when I talk to friends of mine that are already developing for them both, they say not much has changed. I guess I will see for myself soon enough. DD
