Midway Dev Says PS3 Development Is "A Huge Pain In The Ass"

[Crotale]

Who can blame the developers for making console games? In this day and age, that seems to be where the most money is made. At one time, most if not all console games were either cheesy and/or for kids only. Nowadays, console graphics/sound rival PC capabilities, and in many cases surpass the capabilities of the average home PC. Heck, even adults who lead professional careers (doctors, lawyers, etc.) are playing games on console rather than dicking around with a PC. It is of little wonder that developers have taken the console route in droves.

 

[Hyrage]

We shouldn't bitch that way about consoles.
The Next Generation (2011 and after) is going to be one of the biggest time we ever known in the gaming history, simply because those next gen consoles are going to have totally dedicated cores for the job what will nearly unleash a maximum potential [symbolic] for every thing in the game.

Instead of having a game with amazing lighting
Another game with awesome physics...
Another game with crazy AI
Previous games were optimized for specific aspects, because they can't handle all of 'em. Plus, consoles will be exclusively dedicated for running games... ouch.

It will change, but like a jump instead of a little step.
I hope we will get similar technologies for PC.

 

[Dark Pulse]

lesse... Xbox 360: Windows NT5 kernel with DirectX API

Playstation 3: Linux Kernel with OpenGL ES and GCC compiler provided by Sony

***

Now, I'm not exactly an expert on this, but unless I miss my guess, the majority of major publishers, and by major I mean the typical ESA-Type member with average game sales of 1 million units and up, haven't exactly been big Linux supporters... and haven't exactly been using OpenGL.

Actually, a quick look through the recent history of games finds companies like EA and NCSoft paying off Transgaming to do "Mac" ports, which really allows them to offer Linux support without actually coming out and saying "LINUX SUPPORT" for all to read. Many publishers and developers when confronted with asking when you say PC, do you mean Windows, or Windows AND Linux? tend to get nervous and shy away from the question. Many of the major developers just don't have a handle on how to program for Linux, or use OpenGL.

So when it comes time that they have to use technologies they've pretty much ignored, as on the Playstation 3, there's really no big surprise that many of those major publishers and developers suddenly find the task harder, or different.

I seriously doubt this guy's problem with the memory loading is really that difficult, if Midway knew what they were doing with the underlying OS and graphics API.

And yes, I've had the pleasure of catching Valve on this a while back and watching their press guy squirm as he was caught up on the whole we don't actually employ anybody who knows the OS and Graphics API. However, given the revelation that was made in the Left 4 Dead demo, http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=steam_confirmation&num=1 : and some various job hirings, http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html : it seems even Valve caught on that they would need people competent in the base platform if they wanted to have a good product output.

I think you're reading into this a bit too deeply.

If a game is made for PC first, or even 360 first, then a port one way or the other is fairly easy. If it's 360 to PC, just beef it up a bit and make some coding changes as appropriate. If it's the other way around, tone down the graphics details a bit and again, coding changes. A fair bit of code can probably be reused with some tweaking.

Then you get to PS3, which uses memory differently, runs on different architecture from the PC, and in general is more cutting-edge tech. APIs are different, memory access is different... in short, far less, if any, of the code can be reused or modified slightly. A fair bit of it has to be rewritten.

Yes, it is due to it being OpenGL and Linux based, but it's not because of developers "hating" Linux... it's basically the same reasons and logistics you'd deal with on a PC-to-Linux or PC-to-Mac port: Different architectures that you have to replace, such as graphics and sound subsystems that on PC and 360 are all more or less unified under DirectX.

 

[SuperDre]

Playstation 3: Linux Kernel with OpenGL ES and GCC compiler provided by Sony

Many of the major developers just don't have a handle on how to program for Linux, or use OpenGL.

So when it comes time that they have to use technologies they've pretty much ignored, as on the Playstation 3, there's really no big surprise that many of those major publishers and developers suddenly find the task harder, or different.

Seriously you really have no clue what you are talking about... GameOS which is the OS the PS3 is running ISN'T Linux.. You can install linux on the PS3 if you like, but because of the hypervisor you can't access the RSX (the graphix/mediachip) or any DMA stuff..
Also even if the PS3 was running Linux, it isn't as simple as just taking a linux variant of your gameengine and recompile it.. Also the memory isn't the main problem, it's getting all the informatie to and from the SPU's and that's a big problem if you aren't used to doing stuff like that, a SPU isn't like a normal CPU (like the cores in the xbox360) it can only do some specific stuff (vector calculations etc. but it's VERY good at that), the PS3 only has 1 normal 'cpu' which is the PPU (it's like the proc the Mac G5 uses only with lesser paths), and that PPU has to control all the communications between the SPU's/memory/etc.. and getting that communication working properly and efficiently is not easy if you are used to x86 programming, it's a whole different way of thinking.. but once you grasp it, it opens up a whole new world..

In regard to Linux and OpenGl, if you have a good gameengine in C and are using rather straightforward hardware like the PC/xbox360, it shouldn't be a big problem to port it over... but as I said the PS3 isn't as straightforward as the PC/xbox360, and that's exactly what a lot of porting companies are trying to do, and then complain that they can't get it to work properly on the PS3..