Whether
you own a Playstation 3 or not most should be aware of the on-going
saga that is difficult PS3 development. It is a topic that has been
discussed many times, many studios have managed to get a hold of the
platform, yet there are some that "seemingly" continue to struggle. The
latest casualty is Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 and the excuse is
exactly the same, two years later. As a PC/PS3 gamer my bases are
covered if I cared enough about the series, but that is not the point.
I think what is most bothersome is the use of language by the games' producer:
"We
actually announced a PS3 version early on but that was when we were
still doing a lot of technical exploration of the architecture. PS3 is
a very powerful system but as you guys know it's very exotic and tough
to develop for and our engine really at the time wasn't designed for
PS3."
How many people does he honestly believe buy into the
same story from 2 years ago? Any intelligent person would think in a
period of 24 months a studio would have "explored" enough of the PS3 to
create a satisfactory working game. Especially when third party
developers like Criterion or Infinity Ward seem to have little issue
with it. Even the French studio who created Ghost Recon Advanced
Warfighter 2 for Ubisoft said they learned enough in 8 months to create
virtually on-par ports of 360 titles. Dare I even go into Insomniac
territory? Here is a studio that has been able to pump out technically
proficient and gorgeous titles on a yearly basis. To semi-quote Kotaku,
"either Insomniac is the most efficient developer in the industry or it
is run like a sweat shop".
The use of the phrase "hard to develop
for" is misleading. Development on the PS3 is different than the 360
and one should assume every studio (where applicable) has more
experience with 360 development than PS3. It is really that simple. A
more accurate description of his whole issue would be to suggest
studios do not have as much experience and many publishers are not
willing to put the time (and thus money) needed to bring PS3
development up to speed. Other studios have and it shows. Of course I
doubt they will ever actually say it.
That said, when
developing the Playstation 4 Sony needs to pay serious attention to how
they articulate its design. It either needs to be similar in nature to
what the competition is doing or to what its successor (the PS3) did.
That is the beauty of PC gaming. For the last 2 decades the
architecture has essentially been the same. Designs change, they become
more powerful and efficient, but at the end of the day the core is
still there. Not only does that cut down on how much programmers need
to learn (think of it like a snowball effect), it allows for easier
backwards compatibility. Sony does not need to develop a DX based
platform, but maybe they should consider developing their own so from
console to console the architectural concepts remain the same.
Even
so I have mentioned before how pro-one platform industry I am. That is
not to say I'd like one console or the death of exclusivity, but having
multiple consoles based off of one design really is the future; and it
is a win-win situation for everyone involved. However if Sony and
Microsoft cannot agree to such a deal then the next best thing for both
manufactures is to create a more consistent design base for their
platforms. As gamers we all want great games at great prices, but
requiring developers to make multiple versions of one game is costly,
time consuming and completely redundant. That is kind of besides the
point though.
It is very sad that some studios lag so far behind
in PS3 development and even sadder that others choose to forsake it
altogether. I imagine down the road if the 360 version of Red Alert 3
does well enough a PS3 port will be commissioned, but that still does
not change the fact it has currently been dropped. The 360 has more
users in North America (the heart of the game industry) and it has a
higher attach-rate, so it is going to continued to get priority from
publishers because it is the safest bet for return. Looking back two
generations ago it is amusing to compare the Nintendo 64 with the
Playstation 3. Specifically how hardware design and arrogance played a
roll in the performance of both consoles.
Prince of Persia
