[Low Roller]

I've read about complaints from developers regarding the PS3, but Valve's Gabe Newell takes this to a whole new level .


"The PS3 is a total disaster on so many levels, I think It's really clear that Sony lost track of what customers and what developers wanted. I'd say, even at this late date, they should just cancel it and do a do over'. Just say, This was a horrible disaster and we're sorry and we're going to stop selling this and stop trying to convince people to develop for it.'"


id's John Carmack has complained publicly too, though not this harshly. I guess PC devs really, really hate the Cell CPU. I can't imagine Gabe being on Sony's '07 Christmas card list.

 

[Jetrii]

Console developers are accustomed to platform changes every few years. Even if they don't like it, they have to get pass the hate and work on it. PC developers on the other hand have a pretty secure platform, things are more predictable.


However, most of the big advances in gaming do tend to come from PC developers. In Sony's defense, the cell processor did not come out as they hoped. It is not nearly as powerful as they hoped. Had everything gone according to plan, I don't think he would have complained.

 

[TwinTurboJosh]

And yet Valve is wasting their time porting HL2: Episode 2 to said failure.

 

[Low Roller]



Quote:
Originally Posted by TwinTurboJosh /forum/post/0


And yet Valve is wasting their time porting HL2: Episode 2 to said failure.

More than that, they're porting HL2, HL2: Ep. 1, and the new Portal as well. I'm not sure if CS:S or the new Team Fortress will be included, but everything else is being bundled in one package for both the PS3 and XB 360.

 

[LynxFX]

This coming from the guy that had his source code stolen a month or so before the release of HL2 and says he has to delay the game a year so he can rewrite the code? Okay then.


Gabe is the definition of dramaqueen and calling the PS3 a total disaster is about as overtop as you can get. Stick to PC's.


And I did like HL2.

 

[TomGreen321]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Low Roller /forum/post/0


More than that, they're porting HL2, HL2: Ep. 1, and the new Portal as well. I'm not sure if CS:S or the new Team Fortress will be included, but everything else is being bundled in one package for both the PS3 and XB 360.

Valve farmed off the PS3 port to another developer. They are only working on the PC and 360 versions.

 

[jedimastergrant]

So the ps3 is hard to develop for and everyone knows this. I am not convinced that this drawback actually matters too much. The developers will be pissed about it, but they will still make games for it because they can't afford not to. The ps2 had about 70% of the market last gen and it will continue to hold a good share of this gen as sony fans are very brand loyal. The bottom line is the developers will go where the money is. It's a business and it is not about what you would have a good time developing for. I will concede that maybe a few exclusive titles could be lost to competitors because they want to be lazy but I don't see it putting a huge dent in their market share.

 

[Hmerly]

I think the biggest thing that bugs Gabe is the fact that developing on the PS3 is probably costing him a lot more money than developing on the PC/360. Its the only reason he'd come out and say something like this. Its obvious getting the PS3 up to the level of a current PC or the 360 is difficult, if not impossible, and this means more time and man power to work through the complicated mess that is multi-threaded programming on the scale of the PS3.


This is bad for us PS3 owners in that a lot of smaller development houses will not be working on PS3 games. They will look at this thing and say to themselves, why bother throwing so much money at something which currently has a much smaller install base than its competition when they can spend a lot less money, and make a product for the 360/pc/Wii which will have a bigger install base.

 

[MaliciousBraham]



Quote:
Originally Posted by TomGreen321 /forum/post/0


Valve farmed off the PS3 port to another developer. They are only working on the PC and 360 versions.

So what that means is he's just covering his own butt for the quality of work he didnt do.

 

[jedimastergrant]

I hadn't considered the extra cost of developing for the ps3 so good point. It is dissapointing for me that Valve has farmed off the port to someone else. It probably won't be as good and so I will be forced to buy it for the 360.


While I like my 360, the ps3 has the potential to have the better version of cross platform games due to the sixaxis controller. It probably won't make a difference for the majority of cross platform games, but in the hands of the right developer who really wants to use the sixaxis to enhance the game it could be the ace in the hole.


Of course the 360 has an advantage for online cross platform games in xboxlive, at least for now.

 

[mboojigga]



Quote:
Of course the 360 has an advantage for online cross platform games in xboxlive, at least for now.

This is going to be an advantage for a couple of years at least IMO. It took Live 5 years to get where it is today for all it offers. Sony is still trying to get through the issues of the online service now. If it has taken Sony 5 years to come out with what they have now for the service then I can't expect it to be a drastic change anytime soon. Hopefully, but doubtful.

 

[FrankJ.Cone]

Gabe hates everything. He hates Vista, he hates the 360 and now he hates the PS3. Oh the exception is the Wii. Cool Gabe lets see how well you can port Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 to the Wii!

 

[Hughmc]

R:FOM owners can attest to the fact of how good the game is and that is just one game. Think about that and how that destroys Gabe's credibility. He needs to get out a little from behind that PC.

 

[Lawguy]

Valve has made some of the best games out there but I think that Gabe is overstating the problem with this "do over" talk. Yes, the PS3 is harder to develop for. Yes, this costs him money because extra work needs to be done on PS3 ports. I don't know why Sony didn't see the advantage of appeasing developers. But, they will develop for the PS3 if there is a large enough base so that they can hope to sell copies of games.

 

[ninjanki]

Lots of developers are pissed with the fact that the PS3 not only requires multi-threading / parallelization, but it also requires that this multi-threading take in consideration the limitations of the SPE units. Does it means Sony is doomed and they did everything wrong???


No, not really. New architectures, that force people to do things differently always get that kind of reaction. Carmack did not like the first few graphics accelerators either. The PS2 had one hellish to program CPU. And PCs, like it or not, will become multi-core(4+) beasts with multi-gpus this year, or the next. And I can tell you, it will be a whole new world for programmers, and they will whine a lot. Drama aside, the Cell has tons of untapped power, and all you need is a good software programming strategy, new ideas to explore the SPE capabilities in a game, and some patience/money to optimize it all.

 

[chap]

People are assuming he's mad because its hard to develop for. From his point of view I would think it would be a disaster because of sales. Sony was originally saying about 8 months ago that they would have available right now. That number changed to 2 million, and they only got 1 million done which now aren't selling well.


So basically sony has less then a quarter of units in peoples homes then originally intended. From a developers standpoint that needs those units out there and in peoples homes to make money, thats probably a disaster.

 

[gamelover360]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Hughmc /forum/post/0


R:FOM owners can attest to the fact of how good the game is and that is just one game. Think about that and how that destroys Gabe's credibility. He needs to get out a little from behind that PC.

I agree. I am no techno wizard when it comes to console architecture, I just go by the games...period. If a system runs a game that is impressive then the architecture worked in that case.


Case in point: RFOM. This game is long (I keep expecting the end of game CG cutscene, but it won't come!), progressively harder (the best progression of difficulty I have ever experienced in FPS.....keeps you very challenged but not overly frustrated), silky smooth animations, real time physics (I guess thats the buzz word but either way.....the best physics I have seen in a game personally), sweet weapons (probably the best ever for me.....except Goldeneye for N64), fantastic art direction (the world they created is so creative a blend of WWII era Europe and aliens....who woulda thunk it, but they pulled it off in a big way), and overall great graphics.


This is my favorite game I have ever played. Maybe Insomniac is totally to credit and they made the PS3 architecture do things it won't soon duplicate or exceed. But if this game is at least half due to the hardware then I am very happy.

 

[HorrorScope]



Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankJ.Cone /forum/post/0


Gabe hates everything. He hates Vista, he hates the 360 and now he hates the PS3. Oh the exception is the Wii. Cool Gabe lets see how well you can port Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 to the Wii!

That is true, the guy for being the "tech guy" sure seems to hate new things and progress. Hey here's the upside to the PS3 if it is hard, "you still only have to debug it for a single set of hardware". The PC if it were easy you still have to throw in the curve ball of all the configurations, which that is over-played by many in total numbers but is still a real issue. So PC vs. PS3 it's a tradeoff, making I guess the 360 a simple device to program for. Oh yeah but wait he's badmouthed the 360 to. What I hear from Gabe is a person that doesn't want to do his job much longer. FWIW I'm a pc guy, with a 360 and no PS3 at this time, nor a wii.


Face it they aren't as young and hungry as they used to be, ID started doing cell phone programming. They want things a lot easier. Does Gabe even program anymore, that is worth noting?

 

[HorrorScope]



Quote:
Originally Posted by ninjanki /forum/post/0


And PCs, like it or not, will become multi-core(4+) beasts with multi-gpus this year, or the next.

They've already been multicore for going on two years, unless you mean they will be forced to actually start programming for them. Yeah that is happening now, less smaller companies like EA and Blizzard (lol) which stay focused on lower-end hardware which seems to work in a huge way for them. So for all the bleeding edge people out there a lot of developers like the low-end which there are even more people but simply talk less in forums. Hence Gabe and the wii love, Valve has boxed themselves into the high-end tech corner in the PC/360 world meaning they have to be the best of the best or get lambasted, maybe the Wii allows them to mold a simpler gentler Valve in the Wii world, something much easier for them to live up to. Back to Gabe = easy = one foot out of this biz.

 

[Shape]

The interesting thing is that as amazing as the visuals of the Source engine are, the engine really doesn't need all that fast of a PC or video card to produce a very smooth frame rate.


My P4 2.6GHz with an NVidia 6600GT was fine for Half Life 2. It chugged a bit on the HDR in the lost coast demo, particularly with the commentary turned on. But it worked fine for Episode One.


Of course, now I have a Conroe E6700 with a 7900GS, which makes these games really fly.


But my point is that Source isn't really all that demanding on hardware. It shouldn't be hard to port to any console, so long as that console has the right tools to do so. Perhaps that is his beef with the PS3.


I don't think I'd ever play a HL game on a console. It just wouldn't feel right.