Developers discredit "slow and broken" PS3 claim [update 1]
by Ross Miller 
{ Jun 7th 2006 at 3:55PM }
On Monday, a rumor broke out on the Inquirer regarding some faults with the PS3 hardware. All signs pointed to this rumor being unfounded -- the source, the site's credibility, the spelling and punctuation -- and we told you to take it with a grain of salt. Looks like more than a few developers are agreeing.Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz (a reputable news site with a proper spell-checker), many top developers called Inquirer's piece a bunch of misrepresentation of immeasurable data figures. "It's exactly what we'd expect," noted one developer, "and the bits that we actually need to use to make games are perfectly fast."
Until the day of launch (and likely for many months afterwards) we will continue to hear rumors and hearsay spring up about Sony's console -- much like we have, much like we will with other consoles -- and we would advise to trust maybe 1% of the rumors that spring up.
[update 1: Thanks, SickNic!]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cage @ Jun 7th 2006 4:01PM
How bout Sony comes out and tells us specs regarding online, games at launch, etc. That would help...
LunarDuality @ Jun 7th 2006 4:03PM
Of course, having it debunked by PS3 developers is also a slight conflict of interests since they are hoping the PS3 (and by extension, their game) sells very well.
Where is an informed, independent source when you need one?
Draco @ Jun 7th 2006 4:10PM
I don't know, most developers are multi-platform, so lying doesn't help their cause. I'm sure Sony wouldnt make such an obvious blunder (then bring it to everyones attention)
Sony is dumb, but not that dumb.
SickNic @ Jun 7th 2006 4:11PM
Whats with Joystiq not giving credit to people contributing stories lately? If more than one person submitted the story, than at least write the generic "Thanks to everyone who sent this in" quote. Same thing happened with the Penny Arcade ESRB story from last week.
*Sorry for the rant.
Christopher7xii @ Jun 7th 2006 4:13PM
"Where is an informed, independent source when you need one?"
I think Paula Cole sung a song about this.
Anyways - If anyone knows it'd be the developers. If the developers are 3rd party, they'd have no shame in saying things suck. If you haven't paid attention to the past year, 3rd parties have been pretty forthcoming with the status of the Wii, 360 and PS3.
jOEfRO @ Jun 7th 2006 4:13PM
look i am a 360 fanboy, but i know the ps3 will have more power than the 360 but that doesnt bother me, sony has the better system, so all my fanboy bretheren, stop this madness in claiming the ps3 has bad hardware, just stop, its not worth it.........
Mogli @ Jun 7th 2006 4:17PM
Paid Sony Developers talking about their plattform........
nootau @ Jun 7th 2006 4:19PM
TheInquirer is quite good in its reporting. They normally have very good sources for rumors and (contrary to popular belief) their track record is actually one of the better ones....as rumor or breaking-news sites go.
With that said, i think its upsurd to think that Sony would allow anything to go wrong with the PS3. They are willing to take on massive costs just for it to be as Sony envisions: a great consumer electronic device that will also play quality games. Its a reverse from the "system that plays quality games, but doubles as a consumer electronic...aka PS2", but hey...quality games are quality games.
WEe @ Jun 7th 2006 4:21PM
Well it's pretty obvious from things like the Naughty Dog realtime jungle demo (yes, that was realtime, see IGN), MGS4, and Heavenly Sword that the PS3 will be pretty powerful.
This really shouldn't be a suprise... how could XBox360 be more powerful and yet come out a year earlier? It's just not possible.
Geist @ Jun 7th 2006 4:24PM
Okay, so this is my theory: Sony execs are going to poop in a box. When Sony fanboys buy these boxes of poop, or "PS3"s (Poop System 3 lol i am teh funny) the execs will scream "SEE! TOLD YOU THEY'D DO IT! TOLD YOU TOLD YOU TOLD YOU! NAH NAH!"
Okay so I'm not against the system. I'm not a fan of it either. I'm sure that when it's released it'll have all the pretty bells and whistles that people will want, and have graphics that make people go 'ooh' and 'aah'. Whether or not there'll be any gameplay behind these remains to be seen.
crono141 @ Jun 7th 2006 4:32PM
About the whole consumer device that also plays quality games: Way back in the day I saw a DVD player that also had a huge library of Sega Genesis games on it. It ran for about 200 or so dollars I think, and this was back when DVD was still pretty expensive. This was perhaps the first "quality consumer electronic device, that also played quality games".
I'm guessing none of you have ever heard of this DVD player. Possibly because it wasn't legit, but also possibly because nobody bought it, nobody wanted it, and it failed as both.
People don't want quality consumer electronics that also play games. They want EITHER quality consumer electronics OR a quality game player. They don't want BOTH in the same unit.
How many of you have TV's with built in VCR's, or built in DVD players?
Andir @ Jun 7th 2006 4:39PM
Those that spread these around want the PS3 to fail in one aspect or another. I'm sure a good chunk of them bought an XBox and are afraid that if it doesn't come out on top they will get the raw end of the stick again. This is simply not the case. I have played the 360 at a friends house and it runs good. I won't deny it. We had some freaky things happen (which I thought pointed to the fact that MS tried to rush the system to production, then I sat back and realized it's probably just a software glitch) but in all, the 360 was pretty stable. The PS3 will have to be as well, or it won't succeed. Sony knows this. I've had a very dependable PS2 for who knows how long and never had a drive fail on me, but I'm sure some people did.
I wouldn't go as far to call someone an idiot by purchasing either system. They wouldn't be. I think the PS3 will come out on top, but it won't crush everyone like before. MS will still heavily back the system (they have to) and it will generate some very interesting titles. There's no point in arguing user intelligence about a system purchase at this point.
jojo @ Jun 7th 2006 4:48PM
end of the day people will be buying ps3 by next year. ps3 will still win the market, say 60% share. 360 will come last and wii will come second.
by the way there is still be tokyo games show on september, where they will show killzone 3, devil may cry, r5 and maybe god of war 3.
Ianc02 @ Jun 7th 2006 4:51PM
Its already obvious that MOST people who will buy PS3 are only buying it so they can go, ohhh look at the graphicszz. I will buy one a year down the road at least when all the tools who bought it at launch have done the beta test for me. As for the broken hardware issue, lol. What next, ?rumour? Which bit of the PS3 will be unstable,broken,slow,overheat,crash,explode next? Its as boring as Wii jokes now people.
sabre @ Jun 7th 2006 4:53PM
From the article:
"but every new platform takes a while to get used to. Put it like this, I worked on early PS2 games, and those were a real nightmare - we're getting code up and running on PS3 much faster than we did last time around."
That is 100% truth. Based on my experience with co-workers and other inside info I've heard...developers of middleware and games have found getting code work on the PS3 is way faster then the PS3.
Oh and ANY new platform is going to have a slight learning curve when it first comes out. So to say that "uh oh! X-developer is having bumps in the road when working on a new platform...there must be something wrong with the machine!" is downright stupid.
The_Solidshadow @ Jun 7th 2006 4:53PM
I have a TV with a built in VCR, but that's only for my lil bro's room (4 yrs old). I doubt you'll get a living-room-quality TV with a VCR/DVD player built in.
Anyway, I thought it was unanimously agreed on by developers that the 360 had better graphics in the way the graphics processing unit works, and that the PS3 had a more powerful CPU, albeit much harder to program for??
illdamage @ Jun 7th 2006 5:02PM
"How many of you have TV's with built in VCR's, or built in DVD players?"
I hate those things they're crap. Good Point!!!
Staticneuron @ Jun 7th 2006 5:14PM
"Whether or not there'll be any gameplay behind these remains to be seen."
A sentiment echoed only way to many times. I think it is rather stupid. The dev's who made all those wonderful hits on the PS2 aren't going to all of a sudden up and become mindless graphic slinging monkeys as a large , and very wierd, niche of gamers(if you can call them that) would like to believe. Just because the systems is going to have powerful graphics it doesn't equal the death of gameplay. The graphics serve to enhance immersion.
DBX00 @ Jun 7th 2006 5:30PM
Just because no device has been good at doing more than one thing doesn't mean that someone won't make it work and make a killing doing it.
LaserDisc @ Jun 7th 2006 5:32PM
I used a LaserDisc player (LaserActive) that played Genesis games! This was in the early 90s.
No one bought that either.
(Wow, I just looked that player up, it also had a TG16 (PC Engine) module available too! Badass.)
As to whether PS3 is broken (in this particular way) or not, I want to send a big shout out to all of you who keep on believing it is, despite actual info. Keep the faith. Don't let annoying accurate data change your path of hatin'.
Jouten Za @ Jun 7th 2006 5:33PM
The PS3 is going to be the PSP of the console market... BluRay = UMD, Multi-media functions PSP/PS3...
I think I will wait a LONG time before considering buying a PS3 unless Sony can show me that their system has a very significant advantage in visual quality.
For now, I will enjoy my DS and my 360 while waiting for the Wii and go from there...
ethan @ Jun 7th 2006 5:37PM
phew... i am so glad that something the inquirer wrote was false. most of there stories are 100% accurate. (sarcasm)
but anyway ps3 will be awesome and sell just as good as 1 & 2.
SuicideNinja @ Jun 7th 2006 5:40PM
I'm quite anti-Sony, but I never went with this one. It didn't make any sense for there to be a bandwidth flaw in the processor.
The only thing that was interesting that came out of it for me was that someone said that it would affect applications, but not games. If such was true...then there could still be trouble because a large part of the BlurayStation isn't games. It's multimedia, Bluray, and Linux. That would mean those functions would suffer. However, I don't think it would be crippling; more like "not optimal".
My 2 cents.
lacking cleverness @ Jun 7th 2006 6:57PM
I like the "green thumb" pic..."Hulk declares PS3 A-OK."
Don't spread internet rumors, or you'll make Hulk angry. And you wouldn't like him when he's angry.
syco @ Jun 7th 2006 8:30PM
Not that they are not saying that the statistics are false, but rather that that particular statistic doesn't matter, and for the most part they are right. There's really only one feature that a virtual inability of the CPU to read from the graphics memory could screw up, and that recursive textures (think, the scene in Katamari Damacy where the game you are playing is on the TV in the room you are playing in). And if the graphics card has a function for that, then even this isn't that much of an issue. But it still seems like Sony made a minor goof with comical effect.
Andir @ Jun 7th 2006 8:33PM
"think, the scene in Katamari Damacy where the game you are playing is on the TV in the room you are playing in"
That could simply be done by the video processor. It has direct access to system memory (at very high bandwidth) to be able to write to. The Cell doesn't need to go out to the video memory and grab it.
Corporate @ Jun 7th 2006 9:27PM
With all the shit that Sony claims, I'd trust the Inquirer before I trust Sony.
sabre @ Jun 7th 2006 10:19PM
Those came from developers (and while we aren't sure who exactly) I doubt all of them came from Sony. It's funny how people think that "oh company X is defending Sony so it must actually be Sony." They seem to think that 3rd party developers who develop on a Sony platform can't say anything bad about them.
Ameen @ Jun 7th 2006 11:39PM
The Inquirer not a name for spreading fanboy rumours, Wow I can figure out that there are a lot of websites devoted to the Xbox 360. Even the first reports of the broken Xbox 360 where published only by 1up and Joystiq, This is true journalism. Not the inqf*****.
[-Z-] @ Jun 8th 2006 12:07AM
Those who still think that this rumor is real. Get a XBOX 360 and be happy with it. No point whining about PS3 since you're not going to be happy with it.
Steviepunk @ Jun 8th 2006 7:49AM
As syco points out, they don't say that the stats are wrong, just mis-interpretered, so would suggest that the Inquirers source is correct, even if they do draw the wrong conclusions from it.
At the end of the day, I don't really see how those kind of technical details should really affect whether people should buy the PS3. for all I care it could have a 8Kb memory bandwidth... but if the games look good and play good then people will no doubt want one anyway.
as they say, too much information is dangerous! ;)
gspawn @ Jun 8th 2006 10:24AM
The sources quotes basically didn't deny this article, so they're saying the low poly count isn't necessary to make good-looking games?
PS3 promised to be 2x as powerful as 360. With half the polys, that's going to be near-impossible no matter what else the system can do. Sure, new features like bump mapping and normal mapping have reduced the overall importance of uber-high poly counts, but look at a game like Kameo- literally hundreds of seperate models onscreen, plus massive environs, plus your third person character model... or Project Gotham, where even the car interior has more detail than most games did last gen...
If these stats are correct, but they're somehow not "necessary" to produce games on the level Sony promsied, I'd definately love to know how developers are making it work.
Plus, GI.biz called these numbers "immeasurable"? Computer gaming nuts have been running benchmarking programs to measure these numbers for decades now, and these seem to be some of the exact stats that are very critical to making games run. Maybe PS3 is hiding the rest of its stats in that 4th dimension Kutaragi promised? No clue what to make of all this...
bladestar @ Jun 8th 2006 10:48AM
All I can say is that we should wait and see. How can you guys say that the PS3 sucks or that is the best system? This is impossible to tell. We can't tell for four main reasons. 1) Blu-Ray Drive. 2) The Cell. 3) PS3 SDK. 4) Sony Online Service. All these things are relative new and untested. The only way we will know if the PS3 is after they launch in November and at least 1 million people spend $600+ (I will personally wait.) to test the system. The PS3 have too many unknowns to many parts/technologies that are not introduced to the market unlike the wii and Xbox 360 which are built with technology that we know works.
So think people that say the PS3 sucks and the people that say that it is the best console are both plain wrong. So for those that can enjoy what’s out there (360, PS2, DS, PSP, XBOX) cause if the PS3 will suck or will be great there is nothing you can do about it.
jeesusfreek @ Jun 8th 2006 1:29PM
Somebody up there was talking about the PSP's success. The PSP is a blatant failure. Why would any smart consumer buy two versions of every movie, one for home, and one for the PSP? All the electronics experts on G4 last week agreed that the PSP is doomed for failure because of 1) Its lack of updates and connectivity and 2) Its proprietary format for games and DVD's.
John V. @ Jun 8th 2006 2:49PM
"Well it's pretty obvious from things like the Naughty Dog realtime jungle demo (yes, that was realtime, see IGN), MGS4, and Heavenly Sword that the PS3 will be pretty powerful.
This really shouldn't be a suprise... how could XBox360 be more powerful and yet come out a year earlier? It's just not possible."
Nothing as yet has been seen running on actual PS3 hardware. Everything so far has been in "real-time" using their "PS3 engine" built "to spec". Remember Killzone? That was built "to spec" as well but it sure as hell wasn't running on a PS3 in real time. Wonder where killzone was this E3...
Eternally Damned @ Jun 8th 2006 3:54PM
Gee i know i wont be buying a PS3. Sony always seems to make many promises, but in the end cant keep them. It seems like alot of people want to buy a PS3 so that way they can see Riiiidge Racer, and be able to see "Real Time Weapon Change". Im sorry but i refuse to pay $600 for a budget Blu-Ray player.
Casey R Williams @ Jun 8th 2006 5:43PM
Someone cited the render-to-texture effect of Katamari as an effect the only time the Cell would need to access GPU memory. How about something like Fraps in which the Cell is compiling a video from frames in the framebuffer? (Just wondering because I hear Fraps is slow on most systems) I don't know if they'd ever need to do that, but if something like The Movies, or any title with a machinema video mode, came out they might need to.
Polly Cracker @ Jun 9th 2006 7:13AM
I am over this PS3 already. Boring !
Someone tell me something interesting about the Wii or PC instead of flogging this dead dog. Reminds me of a cheap plastic three-in-one stereo.
As for content: what's so cool about episode after episode after episode of the same old games. The only thing they are adding is some advertisements. Anyone into this? If so, give me your money and I will poo in a bowl so you can eat it up.