October 26th, 2007
Jason Booth Hits Home On PS3 Development
by Torrence Davis 
“So, the common theme is this; developers must spend significantly more time and resources getting the PS3 to do what the 360 can already do easily and with a lot less code. “
Jason posted on his blog about the realities of why it’s difficult to develop games on the PS3. It’s pretty informative and not for the faint of heart PS3 fanboy. He did point out that developers who are willing to take the time to get quality games made for the PS3 will be successful, but it takes a lot of time and money to do so. Click the link for the full story:
Source: Jason Booth Talks PS3 Development
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One Response to “Jason Booth Hits Home On PS3 Development”
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I was very unimpressed with Booth’s article. I know that criticizing grammar and punctuation are typically pitiful internet flame tactics, but given that the man is trying to give a /reasoned/ discourse on why PS3 development is laggard and sometimes has unimpressive results, it’s a little hard to respect someone who takes this intellectual stance, but then can’t write a sentence to satisfy a 7th-grade English teacher.
Further, his numbers smack quite frankly of fudge. Lots of fudge. PS3 has half the pixel-pumping power of 360? Half? Somehow I find that /extremely/ hard to believe, especially given stuff like R&CF:ToD. We see more exaggeration (or sounds like it anyway) with the criticism of Blu-Ray seek speeds. Yes, a high-speed DVD can potentially seek and retrieve data faster than a BD disc, in certain circumstances related to the position of the data on the disk. The numerical advantage, as I have read it posted elsewhere, was certainly not even close to /twice/ the speed.
Stating that the 360 has better performance “naturally” is quite close to absurd. The 360 is a PC with a jimmied-up OS - Microsoft themselves will tell you this - so if you’re strong at PC development, you will be strong at 360 development. Every Sony game system yet released has come under criticism for its development tools and software libraries. PS3 is no different.
I’m not saying that Booth doesn’t make some good points, or at least have good points to make, but I was rather unimpressed with his presentation, and the figures he cites just make me think he is exaggerating the issue hugely. Similar comments came from Gabe Newell about PS3 at Leipzig IIRC… but then, Gabe’s a OC developer to the core. Which system do you /think/ he’s going to like better? Not to mention, again IIRC he had almost as much negative to say about the 360, while basically preaching the gospel of PC. You’re sort of got to filter content by source. I don’t buy Booth’s bash, at least not to the letter, not really even to the word. It feels too much like a thinly disguised fanboy rant.