Killzone developer says PS3 dev easier than PS2

What I find ironic about this J-link is that he states he's native to the playstation family and then goes on to state that programming for the ps3 is easier than the xbox 360. Note, being 'native' to the playstation family, he's never programmed on anything but the playstation. Its great of him to talk about how much easier the ps3 is to program than the xbox 360, but having no xbox 360 what experience is he drawing that comparison from?

I'll admit, if I had only programmed in Basic in Dos 5.0 for my entire life, programming in basic in dos probably would be a lot easier to continue programming in Basic than switching to c++ or c-sharp. It doesn't necessary mean the quality of the product produced in basic is better or that I cannot learn c++/c-sharp nor that c++/c-sharp can't be just as easy to easier given a bit of time to allow for the learning curve.
Really, thats like someone whose worked his entire life on a production line A who says production line A is easier than B at some other company. How would he know since he's never worked on Production line b?

Actually Wes, while the key developers from the PS2 Killzone days have never worked on anything else, there are new devs that have joined Guerilla since Killzone 1, many of which have knowledge of PC game development, and as PC is so similar to 360, almost identical as far as I know, I'm guessing they are basing thier facts on the PC gaming development.

@Wes

That isn't completely true. If you are "native" to Europe, does that mean that you have never visited any other countries? No it doesn't. It just means Europe is your home and you know most about it.

@RasenganFury

While what you say is correct, you seem to be suggesting that Europe is a country. It's not! It's a continent, including such countries as the U.K., France, Gremany, Spain etc etc (look at wikipedia if you want to know them all).

P.S. I am a little drunk while writing this...bear with me

Wes, we see where you're coming from, but it's not really all that correct. Programming for the 360 is like programming for a PC with a triple core processor. If you are a pofessional game programmer, you already know how this works. This is how he is able to contrast it against PS3 development, which is structured differently from the conventional PC machine.

@WESI can bet he didn't wake up one day and thought, "I wanna learn how to make games, let's start with the PS2!!!", like all programmers he probably started on PC, or if his older a comodore or spectrum system. Meaning, he would obviously have experience with the 360 in the manner of PC programming beeing the exact same as PC. But then who knows if was in on the engine...Everything else is just design.

I doubt he would have mentioned 360 in his argument if he didn't have some form of experience with it, either directly, or with PC programming.

@haldier, actually, programming well for the Commodore 64 is not unlike programming well for the ps2. Both had a strange architecture with lots of twists and turns that took developers a while to figure out and both had an over ten-year life span.

You guys do know that Guerrilla did a multiplatform PS2/Xbox game before they got bought out by Sony Computer Entertainment, right?

"I doubt he would have mentioned 360 in his argument if he didn't have some form of experience with it, either directly, or with PC programming."

Really? Why do you think so? Fanboys make statements about other consoles they have never owned, therefore, it seems out of fantical devotion, one could just as easily make broad statements about linux having only used windows or broad statements about an xbox 360 being harder to program for than the ps3, with only having programmed for a ps3.

It doesn't make this developer's claims any more credible than a fanboy's claim that the xbox 360 is 100x more fun than the Wii cause its in HD.

"Actually Wes, while the key developers from the PS2 Killzone days have never worked on anything else, there are new devs that have joined Guerilla since Killzone 1, many of which have knowledge of PC game development, and as PC is so similar to 360, almost identical as far as I know, I'm guessing they are basing thier facts on the PC gaming development."

Once again, we are talking about this developer's claim that the ps3 is easier than the xbox 360 to develop for. He himself states he is native to the Playstation brand. If you read the source article, he's not saying that other members of his team found it easier who have experience with both, he is saying he himself feels its easier. However, with no basis of experience programming on an xbox 360, his testimony shouldn't be valued at that much.

If he's talking third-hand about what other people have said about programming, its really just gossip/hersay. Its no more relevant than me saying 'My friend knows all about video cards and he says ati is the ruxor. It totally owns Nvidia. If you spend like 100 dollars on ati its awlays like 4x stronger than Nvidia if you spend 100 dollars. Plus they have the fastest card on the market!! My friend says so and he knows all about it'. (next week on Joystiq, "Gamers state they prefer ATI and ATI's card lead benchmark performance tests").

But then there is no more proof to show that he has not had the experience then there is to show he has, we could argue forever, but it's truth that many of the new developers were outsourced, I'm sure plenty of them have had PC experience in order to help with the development of Killzone 2, so if that is apparent, then he still has a point as PC is the same as 360 which I've stressed several times over.

Most of? Do you have a stat?

Probably because they develop the core SKU on the 360 and port to the PS3, when it would have been easier to start on the PS3 and port to the 360.

Not quite sure why the number of games they put out on the PS2 matters.

Not really, for what has been reported, apparently to squeeze more power out of the PS2, studios were developing games in so many different ways to work around the hardware limitations...this is one of the reasons (or excuse) that Sony gives as to why it is rather hard to provide PS2 BC without the EE

@ Kodros, because let's say it's someone who has put out 30 games on the PS2 and is now working on PS3 games. I'd say that person easily has a significantly better frame of reference and would be more believable than someone who has put out 2 games on the PS2. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Im with Markez on this one.

2 games, which means finished product put out on the market for retail. Factor this in with experience, and you have to take what is said here with a grain of salt compared to other dev's (Not the Gabe Newell types either).

Either way there is no excuse for any team to not want to learn the tech, or let the Ps3's innards deter them from making games for it.

Not necessarily Markez, Bungie dumps its first game on the Xbox and it is a renowned success, others had been pumping out games on the console as well as 360 and still haven't reached the greatness that is Halo.

Just for an example.

You could be making 30 games, but if they are all similar and you are not willing to push your levels further or try new things, those 30 games will do nothing for your expereince. Killzone 1 wasn't all that, Guerilla tried to rectify those mistakes with Shellshock, before they could do another game to rectify the mistakes of both the two, along comes PS3.

Markez, the first game is always the hardest one to make simply because you are learning the architecture as you go. Unless you work at EA Sports, most devs only put out a handful of games per console generation at the most.

You may have an arugment if this was their 3rd PS3 game, but it's their first. Having created 2 games for the PS2, implies that they spent more time with the PS2. So, having spent more time on the PS2, gives them more credibility when they come out and say that the PS3 was easier for them.

Simply put, Guerilla had to go through a complete overhaul as a games developer in order to overhaul thier games, which started off by giving the devs that were new to PS development training and seeking outside help from other experienced devs eg. insomniac and Naughty Dog as well as getting the financial help and marketing etc all via Sony, thier new owner.

To be fair, considering the devs in Guerilla knew little or nothing about console development, or gaming development at that before pushing out Killzone 1, I don't think they did half bad, Bungie at least existed years before Guerilla and has developed on PC, PS2, Xbox and 360 as far as I know, so had time to make up for games that didnt do to well eg. Oni with games that did incredible eg. Halo.

2 Games from developers new to console gaming isn't really enough to call them experienced, but it is enough for them to work on and improve on. eg. Killzone 2

@ Maverick

Sure, makes sense. That makes sense for them then, that for Killzone 2, their own experience was that they had an easier time developing on the PS3 after there experiences than they did on the PS2.

I'm just saying I don't think that necessarily equates to saying across the board that PS3 is an easier console develop for than the PS2. I don't even necessarily think that's what he was trying to say anyway, so no biggy. It's just their own anecdotal experience.

Fair points by you all though.

I agree, but I still think its pretty easy to tell whether something is easier or more complicated to work on then another form of coding.

I could use PHP for example, if I worked on PHP before I did basic HTML, I'd notice that the HTML is far easier to work on, different though they are, both using my experience from PHP plus the fact that HTML is nothing compared to PHP would lead me to think that HTML is pretty clear cut. Also, remember that PS3 programming is different to PS2, had it been the same like Xbox was to 360 or at least similar, developing wouldn't have been half bad for all those complaining companies as they would have had experience from PS2 days, there would have been less delays overall and more games available at PS3 launch. But PS2 programming was deemed inferior to PS3 programming because of its limitations I'm guessing. PS2 wasn't easy to develop for and neither is PS3, but up till now, I haven't heard any devs say that PS2 was easier, if anything, I've only heard some saying its just as hard, this is the first I've heard of PS2 being more difficult then PS3

But Im pretty sure that it is, or at least was, harder to develop for the PS2.

It is always like that, its just like how it was harder to develop for the PS1 than it was for the PS2, and how it was harder to develop for the SNES than any console afterwards...

To say otherwise is just silly

Markez

How does the amount of games developed even matter?

He is saying that after developing for both platforms it's easier to get better results out of the PS3. Having made 10 games isn't a pre-requisite for forming an opinion based off their own experience.

@Maverick Saturn
Actually, one of Bungie's first console games was Oni, and it came out on PS2 less than a year before Halo came out on the 360. I like the PS3, but I doubt the programming bears any similarity to the PS2's programming, hence the BC problems.

I would have thought it was just normal for development to get easier and at the same time harder, harder in the sense that with more graphics = more detail and attention to detail, all the tiny things that could be simply covered up with a colourful background on PS1 can no longer be acceptable (eh em - Tekken).

But at the same time, programming should be getting easier, there are less limitations, more options, more development kits available, more expereinced devs to seek advice from, more great games to use as technical standpoints or targets to reach and all while the console developers, Sony, Micro and Nintendo make thier software easier and more fluent to work with, learning from past mistakes etc. Without doubt, PS4 will be easier to work with then PS3, either because the programming will remain the same as PS3 or it will be changed to offer more options and advantages over the PS3 programming.

Yeah Johnny, I agree, basically what I was trying to say in my last comment in this thread.

Distinction being I'd intially thought he was throwing out a blanket statement, rather than one strictly about their own experiences.

@ cheese - True, but Bungie was making games for PC before PS2, and PC shares similarities with Xbox, no suprise there considering Windows was specifically developed for PCs to begin with, so its only natural they would use the same programming, they just used thier PS2 and PC developing knowledge when attempting to make Halo for Mac and then evetually Xbox.

Unlike Guerrilla who didn't even have PC gaming development knowledge, they were new to the entire scene, most of them just came out of college from studying game development. Only now does Guerilla have that experience and knowledge to push themselves and make claims.

Markez

I gotcha buddy.

ps2 more difficult because of insane architecture. The first 128-bit-wide data bus, where computers had only 32. Remember ps2 runs at only 297 Mhz. And two little weird quasi-cell processors which would only run machine language. The papers for ps2 run to hundreds of pages. PS3 has 7 powerPCs with their own memory, and has much better compilers with the help of IBM and such. Learning from ps2 and working with more memory and better tools from the outset, ps3 at it's worst had to be better than ps2, though ps2's architecture, once everyone got used to it, shines-- just look at GT4 or Jak & Dax or God of War, R&C, etc. Compare those to the first Ridge Racer for ps2, ugh!

But all of those games already had robust engines running from games of the same series that were also previously released on the PS2, so to get to that peak it took a while..

Well the game took iirc 2 full years to complete. They did work on KZ: Liberation between that. Don't forget that they became a kind of R&D sector to Sony's First and Second parties. Yes they had time to experiment, but most of it was building one of the most solid engines available (don't deny it fanboys it's true, though CryEngine 2 is obviously superior.) It's like the God of War Guys (Sony Santa Monica). They've spent the last 4 or so years working on the GOWIII engine while producing GOWII.

That and GG have been thanked in many Sony games (Uncharted and Resistance 2 have a shout out, and I think LBP does as well) for tech help.

They could be right, it may be easier to develop if you are focused and know what you want to do, BUT you need to be able to adapt to using SPU's for everything rather than the main PPU. The SPU's are more powerful than I think some people imagine.

Yeah didn't Naughty Dog make the Edge Libraries with Uncharted which got thrown in with the PS3 SDK.
It's just seem multi-platform dev's that are having any issue's. Killzone 2 has been hailed by even you guy's as pretty sweet looking, and Uncharted is pretty stunning for a launch title.
Multi-core's are the future, come on i7's are expected to scale upto 12 cores by 2010, so if these dude's are having issues with 8-cores now they really gonna have issues in 3-4 years time when the 720 n PS4 come out. PC's will be 24 core's by then.

They did get help where needed, but most of the journey was ridden solo with the help of those experienced with PS2 Killzone and other devs that joined Guerilla with game making experience, so they have thier own little tricks, otherwise, Killzone would have looked or/and played like Resistance which of course, it doesn't.

@deanb: I don't think multi-core programming is the issue here as most good programmers know, you only have three choices 0, 1, and n. As long as you can program on 2 cores, it scales pretty easily.

Personally, the PS3 split memory is the only valid issue I have heard so far against the PS3's architecture. Everything else seems like a comfort zone issue. If I were an IA32 assembly wiz and I was asked to develop for a totally different architecture, I am most likely going to b*tch about something. I am not saying that the PS3 isn't difficult to develop for, I am just saying that I haven't heard many points validating this claim.

I think what Andrew was referring to was this:

http://nocturnal.insomniacgames.com/index.php/Main_Page

It has been reported that other studios share their knowledge with other studios, but Insomniac makes some information available to the public as well.

All of Sony's devs help out each other, Naughty Dog in particular.

Like you would know anything about Sony living in your echo chamber.

well i see that my attempt to get your attention was successful. :) how ya doin, buddy?

Call me if you still want Adam Sesslers sex tape, aw man sum it up in two words!!


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Tactics you douche, I'm on IM all the time; just say hi and we can bicker like the good old days!

KILLIAN IS LYING TO YOU