PS3's Football Troubles: How Madden, All-Pro and NCAA Ain't Looking So Good on PS3

If you've never noticed it before, I'm not sure it would really be that big of a difference. I don't really have a comparison to show you though. If it helps, the previous next-gen football games have all been 30 FPS, while football games from last-gen were 60 FPS. I guess if they've seemed considerably less "smooth" to you (or something like that), you're probably noticing the drop in frame rate. Otherwise, I'm not even sure you would have even known it was different unless this story came out (or you looked at both versions side-by-side and really paid attention).

Personally, I'm not usually that affected by a drop to 30 FPS. I'm more affected by an unstable framerate (I'd take a solid 30 over an unstable 60). If it is a solid 30, like Resistance, it probably won't make much of a difference to me. That doesn't make me any less disappointed by this news though.

I don't think that is necessarily true. We've had 60 FPS games (with them being noticeably better than 30 FPS) long before progressive scanning started becoming more of a standard practice. Think early DC and PS2 games. Maybe even earlier than that since I'm not completely sure how games were developed on the Saturn, N64, and PS1 (I'm ignoring PC games of course).

I sometimes get a little mixed up on this, but I'm pretty sure that is the case. Otherwise, a lot of developers wasted their time trying to get games running at 60 FPS.

The PS3's difficult design certainly plays a part in this, but it isn't the only factor. The PS2 was far worse, as was the documentation and support for it (assuming you could even find them in English). Yet, EA was able to put Madden out at launch (IIRC) for the PS2 at 60 FPS...and with really good visuals for that matter.

Now it is difficult to get a lot out of the PS3 if you're just trying to port over 360 code and get it to work exactly the same. This wasn't a problem with the PS2 since it was always the lead platform AFAIK, so there were no issues with porting code over to that complex hardware (at least with EA games generally). So in terms of being a system that allows for easy porting of 360 code, the PS3 is definitely very difficult to work for, more so than many developers would like I imagine. Not sure if I would really blame Sony for doing that, but the fact that apparently Sony did not send much (if any) help to EA to work on this is pretty bad on their part. As I said earlier, I hope that their lead programmers are just really busy working on other projects that may have as much of an impact as these football games.

 

I can't really say for sure whether it is a good business move without knowing exactly what those programmers are working on, although it is definitely bad for Sony that they can't offer any help. I know that much of the top SCEWWS talent is working on development tools for all developers (like EDGE...maybe some tools to expand their current offerings). I wouldn't doubt it if they were also working with Epic to optimize UE3.0 for the PS3, which also would help out almost every developer (or seems that way since so many have licensed that engine).

I'm sure a lot of their attention is also on their 1st party lineup (all ~20 or so games scheduled for release in the 6-12 months or so), which make up a large portion of the exclusives for the PS3. For example, they may be spending a lot of time with Gran Turismo, which is a franchise that could easily sell 2-3 times the amount that Madden sells, and it would be exclusive to the PS3 (unlike Madden, even if Sony helped). Beyond that, they may be working with other 3rd party developers on games that could easily have as much of an impact (if not more) as Madden (Winning Eleven, MGS4, Final Fantasy, UT3, etc.).

While this is disappointing news, it isn't like this is that big of a blow to the PS3. If these games were gimped in other areas (no online or something more substantial like that), if they were delayed, or if they just weren't going to be released at all on the PS3, then perhaps Sony might be more willing to send some guys to help these developers out. But as I said earlier, I'm not even sure this would be all that noticeable to the casual gamers that usually make up the majority of sales for these games, and hopefully this will only be a one-time occurrence. In any case, I'd hope that Sony could find time to send some people over to these developers in time for the next versions in each franchise, assuming they're still having problems (maybe they can actually use the recently released PS3 tools that they probably haven't touched at this point).

Of course, I am assuming that the difference in frame rate is the only difference, but I'm guessing that probably won't be the case (although the other differences may also be difficult to notice, like Madden 07 IIRC).

Actually, western programmers are getting the most out of the PS3 it seems. In general, the Japanese seem to be struggling a bit with next-gen development, and the best ones are getting by thanks to their amazing artists (Gran Turismo, MGS, Final Fantasy). The most technically advanced PS3 games, for example, are coming out of Europe or the US (see Lair, Uncharted, Heavenly Sword, etc.). This makes sense given that the hardware was designed by western companies too (IBM and Nvidia).

Not that anyone cares since it ruins a nice joke.