Sony's PS3 showing up late to Spring Training?

Sounds like ffxiii will use the unreal engine anyway.

All I know is that my store has been sitting on the same 8 PS3's for 4 FREAKIN WEEKS. I am not a hardcore gamer, and have no allegiances, but when the founder of one of the most respected and talented development teams, Gabe Newell from Valve, rips the PS3 a new one, you have to listen (Not to mention J.Carmack from ID who did the same thing in a kinder, gentler way).

The system will not fail, the brand is too strong (and the average consumer too dumb); but their teflon image as the leading console maker is very clearly over. It will have better sales #'s overall because of Japan (American products simply do not make inroads there), but for this market the ps3 does not offer a gaming experience that you can't get for $200 cheaper on the 360 (with vastly superior online).

By the way MGS4 will not be 1080p, and Kojima has done everything but flat out said that they will release it for the the 360 (he said 2 discs should do it)

Xbox360 + Oblivion = great game

Ps3 + Oblivion = slow load time still waiting to load game

@ #36.

You have no idea of what your talking bout do you? Havok 4.0 was already optimized for triple cores (360) and while it ran better on triple cores, the Cell wasn't far behind, for 4.5 they optimized the engine for the Cell and it got a 5 to 10 times better performance. So... do the math...

And to the guy quoting Gabe Newell, you should know he gained a fortune while working for MS for 13 years. If Bill Gates asked him to act like a dog in public he would do so. Many developers praise the PS3, developers like Criterion (Burnout 5 and BLACK in case you don't know)...

I actually think the 360 had a more quality launch than PoS3. They had more original titles and sleeper hits. Like Condemed: Criminal Origins, that game just kicks ass and any 360 owner should cop that, it was very underrated. Then there was kameo, wich was a genre fill in for adventure title, and it was still ok. Perfect dark was'nt even that bas online (single player sucked balls). Call of Duty 2 on veteran dificulty was one of the best FPS i have ever played. then there was quake 4, kool game. And of course PGR3 that game is great. There was amped 3 also.

I think the 360 had an exelent launch. and people need to stop comparing the 360 launch to the PoS3's launch.

Way more quality on the 360 will litle time with the dev kits too. N ot to mention a killer online service out of the box. And geometry wars.

Come on, look at these launch titles, the PS3 does'nt compare. 360 had a far superior launch for these reasons. No other exuces needed.

". Many developers praise the PS3,"

LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO

Are you fucking serious?

@53

And to the guy quoting Gabe Newell, you should know he gained a fortune while working for MS for 13 years. If Bill Gates asked him to act like a dog in public he would do so. Many developers praise the PS3, developers like Criterion (Burnout 5 and BLACK in case you don't know)...

Right Burnout and BLACK makers praise PS3. You know that almost all their profits came from the PS2 on previous renditions of those titles. They might just be thankful for Sony.

Man you're a dumb ass. And Gabe is working on a PS3 title from what I undestand. So, he is critisizing the crappy PS3 tools he has to work with.

MoonfirePewPEwPEw... or stupidity is astonishing...

You got Alex Ward from Criterion, Square Enix, Kojima, Ninja Theory, Factor 5,

ffs even John Carmack that prefeers the 360 admits the PS3 is more powerfull, although harder to develop for.

Am I the only one that actually looked a thte PS3 review and compared it to the 360?

PS3:
"...they're still planning on taking advantage of the SIXAXIS controller when you're at the plate. To use the feature, players keep the controller level in front of them, and simply push the controller forward to make contact with the ball. Now, you can push or pull the ball to the left or the right by twisting the controller in those directions. Similarly, you can influence whether you're going to try to pop the ball up or aim for a ground ball by pushing the controller up or down in a 30 degree angle. It seems to take a little getting used to, but once you've got the hang of it, it's a creative use of the motion sensitivity mechanic."

Then in the 360 they say that it's too easy?

There are other parts worth noting, but I'm sure none of you care. The whole review just sounds like flame bait.

@ Idiot Metalmurphy, read this and not what a developer who wants you to buy a system to play their games has to say. You morons get your info from the wrong people. This Christian guy is an expert read his stuff, it is enlightening.

46. I think the whole deal that everyone has missed is that it has never really been about the best graphics, but the best game play and best game library.

Sure, it's true that graphics add immense amounts to the whole game experience; however, Sony's propaganda has apparently worked out of their favor.

You see, the PS2 won the last console generation hands-down with having sold over 100 million consoles. Expectations weren't that high for games, in terms of graphics, yet because the game play was great, in addition to the massive gaming library, Sony was very successful.

Microsoft's Xbox was graphically superior, and, while receiving great success as a first entry into the console market, it had no where near the profit of the PS2.

Graphics did not win the last generation, and they won't win this one.

It is unfortunate that Sony has made this generation of consoles all about graphics. Part of the reason so many developers jumped onto the PS2 was because it was less costly to develop for because not as many artists and engineers were needed to focus on the graphics (also, after about 2 years of the PS2 being on the market easier programming tools were available for others to use, thus also reducing these costs).

Now, Sony expects everything to look far greater than they ever did for the PS2. The transition for Xbox developers to the Xbox360 was not half as steep as those who developed for the PS2 going to the PS3. Developers for the PS3 have also found such a difficult time programming for the Cell processor.

Don't get me wrong, it is an excellent processor; however, only used in the correct applications. Since the 7 Synergistic Processor Units (SPU’s) that the processor has are mainly dedicated to performing floating point operations, it will be best optimized for rendering complex physics and graphics or for streaming graphics (such as Blu-ray media). The job of the main core of the Cell processor is to primarily delegate the tasks that the CPU receives to the SPU's--which are mainly for calculating floating point operations.

Creating a game engine that utilizes this architecture can be rather difficult. Also, a CPU like this will not be good for all around tasks such as controlling AI (enemy's movements, actions, predictions). However, the Xbox360's 3 Core chip has 3 general purpose processors that may not be as fit for graphics, though they do have great floating point units, it is a better all around processor.

Furthermore, once one learns to utilize one of the core's on the Xbox360's CPU chip, then all three of the core's power can be unlocked. Granted applications such as multithreading and getting all of the cores to work efficiently together must also be mastered, but it is not near difficult as the PS3 where the entire chip must be greatly utilized in order to produce the same result.

The point is what Sony has done is that they have alienated themselves from some of their original supporters. Where great graphics used to not be as important to them, they now claim it as essential. This is in part due to Blu-ray since they want their entire system to shine graphically, thus giving it a great selling point for Blu-ray.

Furthermore, Sony has made it even harder for developers to program for the Cell processor on the PS3 than it was for the Emotion Engine on the PS2.

They have pushed potential customers away by producing such an expensive machine. The PS2 was extremely inexpensive, which is why they were able to push the price down so fast. It was optimized for games and not to be sold as a household entertainment unit (although it could play DVD's).

Lastly, Sony did not have much competition last generation for the PS2 until over a year after its release. The Dreamcast was quickly crushed by Sony’s lies that the PS2 would be able to look like a Pixar movie and only had the N64 to compete with it, which even then was a generation back. Sony essentially had over a year without any competition from the Gamecube or the Xbox.

Now, Sony has to make the PS3 compete with the Xbox360, which has had a year head start, and the Nintendo Wii, which has been competing against the PS3 nearly since it first came out. Sony and their exclusive developers no longer have the luxury that they did last generation of having an entire year to make sure that great games are produced in order to convince developers and consumers to stay with the PS3. The Xbox360 has proven to be a near graphic equal or better to the PS3. Due to the fact that even if developers figure out a way to produce better graphics for the PS3, it will not be significant enough to cause swing-consumers to purchase the PS3. As they are right now, both consoles are extremely graphically capable it will now be a test of which console has the better games.

In conclusion, Sony’s PS3 will continue to perform poorly as a console because it is more expensive for the consumer and developer; it currently has no unique games that the consumer could not find the equivalent via another console; it is rapidly losing developer and gamer support; and it has merely copied the innovations of the other current consoles and does not stand to be unique on it’s own.

When or if Sony remedies these problems, only then will it begin to become successful again as a gaming company. Until this happens it will have to rely on the fact that developers and gamers alike will be willing to purchase a PS3 Winter of 2007 or, more likely sometime in 2008, when unique games for the PS3 do come out. However, a proper assessment of this situation shows that it will most likely be too late for the company and for developer to suddenly pick-up support for the PS3.

__________________________________
| |
| Only time will tell. . . |
|__________________________________|

Posted at 10:30PM on Jan 26th 2007 by Christian

@48

"Christian, thank you for that, great post, one of the best. Really proves allot of people wrong, and you know what ou are talking about too, unlike some people who base their facts on what the Sony says."

LMFAO, no, Christian is just talking out of his ass. My 9 year old sister could come up with better bullshit than him. Saying that the PS3's cell processor "will not be good for all around tasks such as controlling AI" is border-line retardation. That statement alone proved his complete lack of knowledge of the cell architecture. I would love if he would explain it in detal though. I need a good LMFAO before I goto bed.

@59

Yeah, and you know all about cell architecture. How about you explain. A fact is though, the Cell was not created for games.

And you are "BEYOND" an Idiot (no pun intended). Sound like the old sony cock sucking talk going around.

"Yeah wait for the awsome cell to be unlocked"

Hey dumb fuck! There is nothing to be unlocked. You are a dumb ass.

You know, just go ahead and be ignorant, and enjoy that piece of shit,polished turd.

You are a prime example of the new breed of emotion engine hype believers. I mean even with proof that the 360's hardware is more capable for games (512 ram, 3 proc., online, ect..), and yet you still defend the cell, are you oblivious to the facts?

I guess Sony's viral marketing has been having an effect on some idiots.

You're like a person who saw that cup stacking comercial and thougt it was genius. Just like the dumb fucks who made that garbage comercial.

he ps2 had well over a year headstart when compared to the original xbox. As soon as the xbox came out they were showing games that were pretty impressive compared to the ps2......

I forgot about that. Considering that the Ps3 design was complete when the 360 came out completely voids that year head start BS.....remember PS3 was gonna launch in april. So Im sure they coulve had dev kit out in december. they only changes the controller and removed/added some ports but the part of the console that actually plays games was completed waaaay before the 360 came out

Wow, all that yapping and you still haven't explained why the cell architecture is bad for AI. So I take it that you just blindly accept the statements of people? Sounds like you're the ignorant dumbfuck that you were warning me of. Thanks!

@Hamza

"That statement alone proved his complete lack of knowledge of the cell architecture"

You Fucking Stupid peice of Shit!

So, tell me what are the intricacies of the cel, seems like you are the only one who knows about the "architecture". Try wikipedia or something before taking sony's word for it.

The cell, is a proc. that can handle many teraflops per sec. quickly and efficienty. Simply put, it can hande one heavy aplication eficiently. But only one. It will have hard time taking care of phisics and AI at the same time, and all the other stuff going on in a game.

I'm not accepting the statements of others, I know. I work in this field, I'm in college for this kind of stuff.

So, There you go, you stupid uninformed asshole.

Your explanation of the Xbox 360 processor is very cave-man like. Nonetheless, I will attempt to interact with it. Okay, first of all, sure, we know the Xbox 360 has 3 processors (= 6 threads), and that it can dedicate 2 threads completely to AI. This is what gets people like Christian all giddy about the Xbox 360's apparent advantage in AI.

But what you guys fail to realize is that there are ways to get the SAME AI w/ the PS3 which has 2 threads and 7 subprocessors. It's just that you need to do code that's specialized for the cell, instead of doing normal traditional branching. And there's already techniques out there that give BETTER results in areas where you'd normally use branching in your code. Bottom point, the PS3 won't be at a "disadvantage" for long since there are developers all over the world who are optimizing this method.

And yea, you heard me, the PS3 needs time. I remember when X360 developers were only using 1 processor. Now ...they're still using 1, ha (except Dead Rising). So yea, stfu and wait, it's only been 3 months. The 360 has been out for more than 1 year.

@64
With the tools that they're providing, you'd wish specific code would be better.

With the 360 and XNA, the devs know that they would be devving for 2 potential platforms, so the more need to get it right rather than a cheap port.

Ever since PDZ the 360 has been using 3 cores. I haven't seen any PS3 game have better textures and visual presentation than GRAW. Oh wait- you mean 2 threads and 7 SPEs CAN'T do that with developers tinkering for 2 years?


LMFAO.

BTW I meant for non-critical tasks for PDZ.
First game utilizing all cores for real was Oblivion.

Just to remind you guys... you do know the chipsets in all 3 new gen consoles are ALL made by IBM right?

So i'm sure they know what each one is capable of as they had enough pull to develop for all 3 manufacturers.

So i'm sure each chipset is capable of great things...provided the devs work it. Of course the devs will in time, that just goes without saying... if devs didnt work harder to make better games... we'd still be playing Pong.

The real question is why does Metalmurphy, who only owns a PC and PSP, and not a PS2, PS3, 360 etc. come into every post on Joystiq and Kotaku defending the PS3 as hard as he can with made up BS (and accusing folks like me of not owning a PS3 when I acutally do). As a PS3 owner, MGS4 can not come soon enough. Thank god I have a 360, Wii, DS, PC, and the rest...

Read below article for 'expert' breakdown of the PS3 and 360.

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?cpage=1

Bottom line: 360 easier, cheaper to build games for, better graphics potential. PS3 a little more processing power 'potential', not an ideal gaming console, not up to par with 360 on GPU.

@37
Uh, actually you have that wrong. It's 512mb SHARED between the GPU and CPU, the PS3 has 256mb independant for both GPU and CPU making the console more balanced and not one or the other.

Also guys, if you noticed, it wasn't Joystiq saying anything negative about the PS3, he was actually blaming developers for not utalising or taking time to sort out proper development for the Cell, the quotes, you know... The thing in quotation marks, (if you didn't pass 3rd grade English, that's SPEACH MARKS) means it was taken from another source, not the writers.
Oh and by the way, if you don't want the truth about the video game industry, you can go crawl back to PS3 fanboy and be sheltered from all this harmful news. Unfortunatly, in the real world, all consoles will face a bashing every once and a while, the PS3's continuing teething problems make it a hot topic at the present moment. So don't think the PS3 is being victimised, you're wrong.

By the way, Kojima himself said, when asked if the ps3 was hard to develop for, said (paraphrase) "Yes, it is, but that's how you differentiate your game from other titles. I better not say too much more or Kutaragi-san will be angry"

How do you think the Oblivion developers are enjoying their ps3 port? Seems to be going really smooth. I actually spoke to Carmack at e3, and he said that the bottom line on both consoles was that their ultimate output would be the same (a viewpoint stated by several other developers), but that the ps3 was "a fucking pain in the ass, I don't want to touch it"

Why isn't Resistance 1080p? They ran out of video memory (PSM magazine). Why won't Motorstorm be 1080p and 60fps? It's a racing game, for crying out loud. Sorry fanboys, but Sony has a very clear track record of overpromise, under deliver. In terms of development ease and cost, the ps3 is the n64 this time around. It won't be a colossal failure like many seem to say, but their lack of foresight has clearly cost them a majority marketshare over here. I have a 360, and 0 interest in a ps3 until they show me something I can't already get. I'll take my $600 and buy Mass Effect, Halo3, Bioshock, Crackdown, Blue Dragon, and Forza. Or in the meantime I could buy Oblivion, Fear, Rainbow 6 Vegas, Gears of War, Saint's Row and Splinter Cell. Games the PS3 is STILL waiting for or will never have.

I'll take my games now, thanks, instead of waiting until next Christmas. Maybe by that time the PS3 online won't be a total fucking joke.

Anyone who knows anything about the PS3 and the Cell architecture can tell you that in order for developers to unlock the console's full power you need to pass the bonus level in Elite Beat Agents on Hard Rock mode...

Thank you for your daily PS3 bashing Blake! I wouldn't be able to get through the day without it!

What i dont get about you ps3 fans/owners, is that you guys always defend your system by saying 'it _will_ be good'... 'just you _wait_'... always talking in the future. You're pretty much admitting that the system sucks right now.

If its going to be so good in the future, why not wait to buy it then? Why did you buy the system now when its a $600 piece of crap?

Hey retards, the RSX can access the PS3 main memory with no problems what so ever, Cell can't access the RSX memory but there is no reason why it would need to do so.

If an Xbox 360 game looks superior it is because the PS3 version is in early development.

If the PS3 version looks superior it is because the PS3 is superior to the X360.

Un-fuckin-believable.

@64 Hamza

"And yea, you heard me, the PS3 needs time. I remember when X360 developers were only using 1 processor. Now ...they're still using 1, ha (except Dead Rising). So yea, stfu and wait, it's only been 3 months. The 360 has been out for more than 1 year."

You just proved on your own that MULTIPLE PROCESSORS AREN'T NEEDED AT ALL AND ARE BALLZ

The developers don't even need to use 3
why do you think they need 7?

LMAO

You want to know why the Cell is hard to program? You want to know why the Cell is bad for AI?

The Cell is designed so that data is DMAed into each SPE's local memory, the SPE chews on the data, and signals the PPC when it's done.

Problem #1: The SPEs cannot talk to each other, they can only signal the PPE.

Problem #2: SPEs do not have direct access to system memory, data must be DMAed into each SPE's local memory before it can be processed.

Problem #3: Each SPE can run only one thread. You cannot run multiple threads on a SPE or arbitrarily schedule threads to any available SPE.

Problem #4: The SPEs' instruction set is limited.

Summarizing an article in Spectrum, R:FoM is programmed as follows: Two SPEs are dedicated to detecting collisions from bullets and shrapnel. Most of the time, the amount of work could be done by one SPE, but during heavy battles the number of objects to check can exceed the capacity of one SPE, so two SPEs must be reserved all the time for this work. The SPE must DMA all data it needs about the objects that can be collided. If a SPE detects a collision, it signals the PPE. The PPE inspects the SPE's result, and sends that information to another SPE, which must again DMA the data about the object, calculate the result of the collision, and signal the PPE when it's done so that the PPE can send it the next object to be processed.

Now, tell me that isn't hard to program?

And yes the 360 is SOOOO much powerfull. Thats why it can't even do everything Ageia Physix has to offer when the PS3 can, thats why Havok 4.5 runs 5 to 10 times better on the PS3, thats why GT HD looks miles ahead anything the 360 has to offer, and its only a demo... this within 2 months of the

console release...






to Metalmurphy:


omfg did you evem read the article corect dumbass?
It said5 to 10 times faster then HAVOK 4 not 360 idiot..
and 360 can do ageia physics.. grow up, dont be a fanby

ITS FUNNY HOW PS3 OWNERS JUST LOST THEIR HORSEPOWER ARGUEMENT.

YOU KNOW LIKE THEY CANT SAY SHIT ABOUT ONLINE, CANT SAY MUCH ABOUT EXCLUSIVES (MOST HAVE LEFT), NOT MUCH ORIGINALITY ON THE TABLE, I HAVENT HEARD A SONY FAN TALK ABOUT BLU-RAY ANYMORE EITHER (PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY KNOW IT IS UNNECECARY, OBLIVION ON DVD?).

WHAT ESLE CAN THEY DEFEND? NOT THE PSP EITHER? I MEAN DAMB, WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT A PS3 NOW? THERE IS NOTHING GOING FOR IT. THE OWNERS MUST BE PISSED, THEN TAKE OUT THEIR ANGER ON THESE BOARDS, HOPING SOMEONE WILL SAY, ITS OK, EVERYTHING WILL BE OK, THE PS3 IS GREAT. TELLING YOURSELF LIES, SIGH................................

#53 Metalmurphy,

You're making bad assumptions. I guess you're saying that Havok 4.0 on the PS3 is just a tad less powerful that a triple core 360 by looking at that picture (although this shows the reverse):

http://www.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/64305/Havok%205_qjpreviewth.jpg

All this show is a Cell by using BOTH of its PPE thread and FOUR SPE ran at 4.2 ms while a *PC* with using three core ran at 4.6 ms (although the clock speed or brand isn't specified and that's critical when doing comparison with a PC CPU).

Keep in mind the 360 CPU was designed solely for gaming where they favored single precision floating points calculation. The 360 CPU in that regards is more powerful than a similarly clocked PC CPU.

You're going by assumptions against to help your 'cause'.

The Havok 4.5 was optimized for all three platforms, the PS3, 360 and Wii, not just the PS3.

Are you blind?

"Game developers using Havok Physics and Havok Animation products to develop for PS3 will be able to harness the full power of all the SPUs, while maintaining the complete flexibility of the Havok SDK. Havok architecture now scales strongly across all SPUs and runs between 5 and 10 times faster than Havok 4.0 for a typical game scene on the PS3."

http://www.havok.com/content/view/448/53/

Where does it say anything about PC/360/Wii? No where. They optimized the engine for the Cell how hard is that for you to understand?

There are a lot of moronic comments on this thread. The PS3 has AMPLY demonstrated in the mere 2 months of its life thus far that there is amazing potential to be tapped in the system. Games like Resistance feature enormous maps, large amounts of physics and even 40 player online play. GT: HD demonstrates 1080p, superlative graphics that are virtually photorealistic. The likes of Motorstorm demonstrate amazing physics and particle effects.

Wildly extrapolating from a single game that the PS3 sux0rs is just ridiculous when there are games already available on the PS3 which would test the 360 to its limits.

I love how PS3 fanboys compare what's going on with the PS3 games today to the 360 games last year! Last year there wasn't another "Next-Gen" console on the market except for the 360 so what ever games that came out crappy or not they were the ONLY next-gen games to play so ppl bought games like Madden but you can't use that EXCUSE today with the PS3 games because guess what WE have other console choices and the games are better on the other console and to say that MLB2K7 is a second gen game on the 360 and a first gen game on the PS3 is just a pathetic cop-out and gives me more of a reason to wait for the PS3 and buy a 360 to get the better games!

I don't get the fuss. So what. Remember that basketball game on the xbox360? Remember how it couldn't even maintain a steady 30 fps? Remember how the basketball game on the ps3 is 1080p with 60fps, and it doesn't skip?

Oh, remember Ridge Racer 6, for the xbox360? Remember how it could barely maintain a 30 fps framerate and looked like a shitty computer?

Ever play Tomb Raider on the 360 and scan the jungle? We're lucky if that was 20 frames per second.

Remember PGR3, which looked like GT4 and played about the same?

Have you ever noticed the low dynamics of xbox360 games? Cinemetographers would, and it shows in even the first generation games. But the 360 continues to look like a computer, including the glitchy framerates.

So the developer made a crappy version for the ps3. It's going to be like in the past, the only good games on ps2 were always the games where developers were devoted to that machine. Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Digital Polyphony... until these companies release a game, the kind that Sony fans like (sports and fps, buy a 360; anything else, buy a Sony), you're going to see this. The developers don't care. Look at Psychonauts, one of the worst programming examples on the ps2 I've seen in recent times. Most reviewers had little to complain about. People don't notice.

I remember when CD's came out, most people couldn't tell the difference from cassettes.

You keep your cassettes, we'll spot for the CD player.

You know, this is the main reason why I usually avoid these threads. You have both sides being completely fucking oblivious (by the way, Bangin Gin and Juice... how can you be going to Westwood College and being in the business at the same time? Oh, damn... someone caught your lie...) as to true facts and using randomized quotes to show those effects.

Fact 1: Gabe Newell. People love throwing this quote around as a fact, but it's not a fact, it's an opinion. John carmack and Gabe Newell are both rapidly becoming the Lorne Lanning of this generation. Yeah, Lorne Lanning... remember him? Remember how he spent many years hyping Munch's Odyssey while whining like a child about PS2 all the way until his game got chopped to roughly 10% of what was promised (like.. say... Fable?) and then spent another couple years trying to switch from whiny outsider to legitimate game designer failing yet again to obtain mass market appeal with a niche product unti he finally went crying all the way to the movie industry where he wanted to be in the first place? Carmack is talking about something else being a fucking mess? Apparently he's forgotten about Doom 3 and all the promises of "more power for your PC equals better running game" when, no matter how good your system is, it still remains horribly inconsistant code, as evidenced by the properly developed Quake 4? Gabe Newell.... until he bashed PS3, nobody fucking cared about him. Now, all the sudden, he's a unifying cry for your fucking movement? You realize, at this point, just how sad you fanboys have become, right?

Fact 2. The whole arguement is based on a fucking sports game, possibly one of the most developmentally lazy sectors of game development. Next thing you know, you'll be using Xbox Live Arcade games as a validation to your cause... oh wait, someone already mentioned Geometry Wars. Fucking pathetic, the whole lot of you. And keep in mind, this is directed towards Sony fanboys as well. And, incidently, to those who claim this wasn't happening before....
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/324/324069p1.html
http://cube.ign.com/articles/165/165722p1.html

In other words, expect it to be the norm for quite some time. It all hingest on the Sony dev tools which are taking great leaps but are still not where they need to be to make these occurances the exception, not the rule.

Personally, I find it all hilarious to watch these things go down. I have all three so I have a vested interest in all three. Let me explain why I bought each one.

Xbox 360. It was the first. Simply put. I eventually reach a point wher I looked at my Xbox collection, saw games like Psychonauts, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and Crimson Skies and thought "why wouldn't I want that tradition to continue?" Joke was on me though because 360 has been cranking out the kind of shit that normally stays out of my collection. The new Midway game is something much more interesting to me than Mass Effect could ever be so I have high hopes come Wednesday. Eventually the more unique titles will come and that will validate the 360, in my opinion, as it's own console rather than the place to buy the multiconsole games. While I played Gears Of War, (just past the corpser), I found it rather unimpressive since it constantly turned from same crap to same crap with a framerate about as steady as Carrie Fisher. The only sequence where I felt like the game had potential was where I had to shoot the propane tanks to fight back the darkness (wondering where Vin Deisel was through all this though) and that was it. Nothing else wowed me beyond the initial 15 minutes of cool from when I first started the game. All in all, my 360 experience hasn't really been excelling, it's just been there. And I know that, in 10 years, if I have the hankering for Prey, it will be as simple as pluggin in the console, hoping it still works (given the performance so far, doubtful), and playing Prey unlike the PC arena where I will be forced to either reverse engineer the current OS or simply uninstall Microsoft Windows PC Vulnerability Premium Ultra to reinstall Windows XP long enough to play it...

Wii is more potential for the future because right now, the Minigames are annoying the everloving piss out of me. But it's like the DS when it launched. The meaty games will get here, it's just a matter of waiting long enough. It will happen but with region locking, Nintendo has made "when it will happen" suddenly shift to "when/if it comes out stateside."

And finally PS3. I am likely to be flamed for this but I don't care. Sony happens to be one of my favorite developers. They are willing to throw money at game concepts which other companies would cringe at. In fact, I love in the interview Lorne Lanning gave to David Jaffe, Lorne kept trying to push Jaffe into saying how Sony doesn't foster creative ideas but Jaffe wouldn't do it. He kept saying how Sony has been super supportive of most of the ideas that come their way. In fact, short of independant developers, I don't know of a single company pushing for gameplay innovation more than Sony. And yes, Wii is very innovative while we are all flaying our arms like a spastic trying to beat minigames continually recycled to us in Mario Party 11 but despite the hype behind the console, I've yet to see something as breakout insane as Ka: Summer At The Yamada's (also known as Mr. Misquito in the states) or even funding titles that are pretty much expected to fail like Frequency (the fact that Sony supported Harmonix in their humble beginnings might as well put a "thank you Sony" label on Guitar Hero). fact is, not even Nintendo is willing to throw the kind of cash Sony does behind the game concepts most other people won't support. You want evidence? How many companies would have kept shoveling out cash to a project as massively failing as God Of War? Ask the developers formally on Starcraft: Ghost. And for all Sony's faults (and yes, they do crank out some duds), they've been delivering consistantly high quality games throughout the PS2s lifecycle and PS3 is looking no different. I mean, ask yourself, how many companies would front the cash needed to develop Eye Of Judgement? How many companies do you know would shell out the kind of cash needed to complete a project like Getaway 3 despite the rather lacking sales of the first 2 (they made money, but barely)? How many companies would seriously look at something like Lair from it's early development and say "yes?" And hell, the entire arguement gets the complete win with one title, still shrouded in mystery and yet has me completely entranced... Afrika. You can call me a fanboy but this last generation, Sony surpassed Sega and came within a stones throw of Nintendo territory. You can call me foolish for buying a PS3 for the Sony First Party but they were the primary purchase on PS2 (aside from RPGs) and I hardly expect that to fall short on PS3.

Oh yes, and incidently, the guy who said PS3 won't boot up games that require force feedback, you're full of shit man. I tested my entire PS2 catalog (213 games.... clearance bins rock) along with my friends on my PS3 and the only thing we noticed when running games was, while the graphics were shit (thanks 1.5 firmware), the framerate on many a game became magically fixed and the PS3 properly emulates the multitap... so suddenly games like Twisted Metal Black had very little framerate issues on PS3 even when running four player. Which is more than can be said about Halo 2.

I like how the fans are being blamed for Sony's lack of success.

Sheppy,
Your posts always amaze me. They are fairly well written, long, but full of terrible logic and points. I mean, your argument starts with Mass effect sucks, Gears of war sucks, but Battlestations Midway looks like it will be the best 360 game yet. Xbox pumps out junk while the PS3 is pumping out great titles. How detatched from reality are you?

You finish your argument with saying Sony is the most innovative developer out there. You are lost in space kid.

You see, this is where I love the constant black and white people must put to everything said. My opinions, as such, are just opinions. Let's put it this way....

These are my top five Xbox games...

Jet Set radio Future
Crimson Skies
Psychonauts
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Mechassault 2

That's my top five picks from my collection. Here is my current Xbox 360 collection (getting Lost Planet next week along with Midway).

Prey CE
Gears Of War CE
Oblivion CE
Ridge Racer 6
The Outfit
Perfect Dark Zero
Call Of Duty 2
Chromehounds
Full Auto
Kameo
Tomb raider Legends
Dead Or Alive 4
Big Bumpin
Burnout
Sneak King
Saint's Row

Now, what in my current 360 collection looks like it can compare to my top five Xbox games? Now, if you noticed, you'll see several multiconsole games got the 360 preferance.

Incidently, if you notice, I didn't say Gears Of War sucks, just that I couldn't get into it. Likewise, not a big fan of Bioware, so Mass Effect looks great if I was watching a game, but Midway has more appeal for me.

Also, where exactly did I say PS3 is currently rolling in the hits? I just stated, of the three, PS3 has more stuff down the road that appeals to me as a gamer. Everyone is different. If everyone had my gaming habits, the industry would be a much more different realm than it currently is today. But they don't, so it's not. And truth be told, sometimes not even I will know what I like and don't like until I've played it (TRL is the first Tomb Raider game I enjyoed) which is why the demo system is so great for me. It allows me to test out games I normally would not try and hopefully find a game I would enjoy or even disuade me from a purchase (like Blazing Angels on 360.. what seemed like a perfect game for me was completely killed by poor presentation and craptacular voice acting).

And the statement I made about Sony being one of the greatest places to foster innovation, I stand behind that. I mean, hell. Look at the kinds of games they've either developed or published over the last gen. I mean, seriously. Gripshift. How many companies would have giving a greenlight to a game described as "you mix racing with puzzles and platforming?"

I have all three consoles and I don't plan on getting rid of any of them. All of them serve a purpose (it just so happens the PS3 purpose for right now is the preferred method for PS2 multiplayer games and BluRay... c'mon Feb 20th...). But that's the problem people have with me. I can look at my consoles objectively and not think "sucks" or "not sucks." I mean, hell. My last console purchase was an FC Twin.... a bootleg console that plays NES and SNES cartridges (and does an outstanding job... even if you are forced only to use SNES controllers).

This fanboy shit annoys me. Yes, I'll weigh in with my opinion but at the end of the day, it's all about the gaming.

#81 Metalmurphy, am *I* blind?!? From the SAME link you gave!

Fully optimized for Sony PLAYSTATION®3, as well as Microsoft Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii, Havok 4.5 dramatically accelerates the development of cross-platform, cutting edge electronic games, meeting the needs of the world’s top developers and producers.

Take off those blinders of yours little fanboy...

Wow, I didn’t know that I would get so many responses. Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Also, I’ll elaborate on one of the points I made in my last post since it seems that so many of you have questions about it.

The main one was regarding the Cell processor being able to perform AI effectively in a game. First, let me say that both the Xenon (Xbox360’s chip) and Cell are both highly capable microprocessors and, in the hands of clever developers and software engineers, both will be able to perform far beyond that which we have yet to see.

However, that also goes without saying which one of the two processors will be the easier to develop games. Thus, it is important to look at the architecture of Cell and Xenon. I will focus more on Cell since that seems to be where the bulk of most people’s comments are coming from. I will also address the AI issue that I seemed to have stirred up.

For the purposes of simplicity, I will approach this discussion with the expectations that those reading this are well-informed about the architecture and execution style of today’s microprocessors. If I lose some of you with some of the detail, I apologize, but some of the concepts with microprocessors take a degree and many years working in the industry to understand—I will try to stay away from most of that.

Regarding AI:

In general, microprocessors (MP) that are able to perform parallel processing exceed in tasks such as AI. In fact, processors that are designed for parallel processing are able to better perform more scientific based tasks better than other processors. This is why you will see super computer systems (which were designed for parallel processing), such as IBM’s Blue Gene, working to accomplish tasks like modeling human proteins. Parallel processing involves tasks being distributed over multiple CPU’s.

This normally works well for AI since different behavioral patterns are best dealt with by having multiple processing units resolve each of the behavior patterns simultaneously. Computers are not “smart” in the way how humans can easily assess a situation by omitting the consideration of random possibilities; however, since there is still a possibility of the rarity occurring, it must be programmed for the computer to process. Parallel processing for AI comes in when it can consider all of these possibilities rapidly by having all of its processors arrive at this conclusion rapidly.

The shortcomings of the Cell processor come into play when considering its architecture. Though it is true that Cell can parallel process, the way it has been designed hinders this ability. For example, unlike most modern microprocessors Cell was designed as an In-Order MP as opposed to an Out-of-Order (OOO) MP. In the execution of various instructions, as they are read in by the MP, the processor can, after the instruction fetch, basically take a look at the queue of instructions coming in and then optimize them for the MP’s use.

For example, if you had the following code:

LW R8,0(R5); Loads R8 from the memory addressed by R5
LW R11,0(R4); Loads R11 from the memory
SUB R5,R4,R7; R5=R4+R7
ADD R1,R9,R3; R1=R9+R3

If the memory addressed by R5 was neither in the L1 or L2 cache it could take a great number of cycles to load this value from main memory (for example 25 cycles). Let’s also assume that the memory addressed by R4 is also to be found in main memory.

Since R5,R4,R7,R1,R9, and R3 are not affected by these load operations, then they could effectively be executed by the MP since the data unit is stalled waiting for the memory to return the addressed value. This is due to the fact that the ALU is not needed after the load instructions so both the subtraction and addition instructions could be re-ordered by the microprocessor so that both of these will have been executed before the second load instructions is sent and further stalls the microprocessor.

If these instructions were taken in order, then 50 cycles would be wasted on waiting for memory to load the values to registers. This is restructuring of instructions would affect how nearly all programs run on the microprocessor, including AI software. Cell does have some methods in its compilers that compensates for this deficiency; however, it is nothing compared to the efficiency of an OOO MP.


Furthermore, the Cell MP also lacks the ability to branch predict as normal MP’s do. This heavily affects its ability to cut-down on executing meaningless loop iterations or subroutines that could have been avoided. This definitely plays in to AI as the behaviors of characters are repetitive in nature can often be predicted, thus allowing the CPU to detect what set of instructions to execute next.

Branch predictors are important because they can effectively cut-down on the wasted instructions executed by the MP which translates to more efficient cycles/sec. Now, Cell does have some form of a branch predictor; however, it is performed by the software and is limited in its capability since it is a work around for the usual hardware that would have performed this.

Now, in all these things, Cell is still a powerful processor; however, it does indeed have shortcomings that can hinder it from effectively accomplishing certain tasks that are more related to general applications processing. Cunning developers will find ways around these issues as they have and will more effectively do in the future.

However, smaller developers who are looking for and easy platform to develop for will not find it with Cell because of its radical and vastly different architecture. It is much different from some of the best processors out there, such as those offered by Intel or AMD, thus making it more difficult to utilize. Processors, like the Xenon, stick more closely to these conventional processors (as in MP cores not SPE’s), which make it easier to develop for, especially when combined with Microsoft’s development tools.

Though there are existing engines out there that have been created for this console generation, developers that want to create their own gaming engine will find it much more difficult to develop for the PS3 due to its vastly different architecture.

In the end, gamers will not really be able to see much of this since developers will most likely not release their games half-way finished, but until they have found a more working-version (and hopefully finished) product. Probably the largest way that this will affect gamers is that they might see more software titles released exclusively for the Xbox360 and they might also see more titles that were designed for the Xbox360 only to be ported to the PS3. Both of these scenarios are already occurring, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out later on this console generation. I would lean that it will continue to occur; however. . .

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|. . .Only time will tell. . . |
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Sheppy, thank you. You r the first guy I know who actually said something about the GoW framerate issue. I finished the game and I am surprised that so few people out there discuss this flaw. Yes GoW is the best looking game in existance, but it's also telling me that the 360 has maxed out. GoW is as good as you can get on a 360.

Christin, while Cell is no OoO processor, so is the 360's triple core ppe. So what you say about the shortcomings of Cell apply to 360 too.

I love the fanboys' statement about M$ developed the 360 cpu specifically with game in mind. The reality is M$ picked a dumbed down multi core PPE from IBM to cut down 360's manufacturing cost. Both $ony & M$ are guilty of cutting corners though. Look at the lack of RAM on both systems (somehow the short of RAM has been a long running console tradition way back from the beginning)

gregori0, saying that GoW has maxed the 360 CPU is not knowing that multi core game design is still a work in progress and will require several generations before its power is fully tapped.

Before multiple core CPUs, multi threaded games where designed where one thread would run most of the game code (ie, AI, physics and rendering) while other threads would run out of sequence tasks like sound effects, player inputs and multiplay. These threads are basically dormant most of the time or takes very little CPU power so they don't interfere too much with the main thread activity.

Since the CPU only had one core, this was an ideal solution at the time. With the arrival of multi core CPU, writing games that way simply means the other cores will simply sit almost idle while the main core will keep doing most of the work. Developers now needed to break their main thread into smaller threads and disassociates one from the other so the physic thread for example doesn't slow down the rendering thread . By breaking down the AI, physic and rendering code into their own threads and running them on a core by itself, all that the game developers need to have to run at 30/60 fps is the rendering thread churning frame at that rate while any other threads can run at their own pace. The difficult part is making sure a thread doesn't starve other threads for data by locking that data for too long.

gregori, I never stated Gears framerate is evidence of the 360 being tapped out. After all, Kameo had framerate issues and we all know where 360 has gone from there. I suppose I can drag up one of my previous points to further this point.

Doom 3. Doesn't matter what kind of system you're running, Doom 3 will hiccup and just about implode on almost everything. Glitches range from VSync issues (my current) to downright horrid and inconsistant framerates. I will not bash Doom 3 for being a bad game (because I'm one of the few who enjoyed the game) but I will bash it for being the rather stumbling first steps of the engine itself. They had this fresh new engine and needed a game to chuck it in. Evidence of this fact can be found no further than Quake 4. Same engine, same basic effects (actually more) and yet the framerate is, on a whole, much more consistant (provided you are playing on a PC and not 360 where it was just a lazy port job... see original topic of this thread) and yes, even runs on systems lower speced than Doom 3... but I never said it ran well on systems lower speced than Doom 3. Doom 3 was the first outing for the engine, just as Gears Of War is.

I don't really hate the inconsistant framerate, but rather wish it was slightly better. Especially as more things fill the screen. I mean, seriously. I played through Gundam on PS3 for fucks sake. Framerate issues mainly annoy me when I get killed because of them. I more eagerly anticipate UE3's next debut.

And, incidently, there has only been one game created beyond the ability of the console as far as I know and that's Killzone. Seriously... play it sometime. It looks better than an Xbox game. But the framerate kills.... but in PS3? Steady framerate plus those graphics? Dream! Too bad the gameplay is shit and the weapons are about as creative as your avergae PopCap game...