Developers Unhappy with PS3 Dev kits

[Keiichi]

Related entries: PlayStation 3 (http://playstation3.joystiq.com/), Xbox 360 (http://xbox360.joystiq.com/)
The latest issue of Japanese economy magazine, Weekly Diamond, reveals that developers are unhappy (http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000803061082/) with the state of PS3 development tools, and software is likely to be late in coming for the hardware.”

President of Enterbrain, Hirokazu Hamamura, also said: “We are unlikely to see games exhibiting a level only PS3 can achieve until the end of 2007,” due to the (alleged) fact that “PS3 dev tools have only just started shipping to developers this month, while 360 tools were shipped last summer.”

Comparisons to the PS2 launch were also made since Blu-ray is not as sure a thing as DVDs were five years ago.Taken from here (http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000000065248/).

[William C. Maune]

What concerns me about the PS3 launch date is Blu-Ray. While the balance does seem to be slowly and surely tipping towards Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, both sides are still at times negotiating with each other at times and they are both negotiating with movie studies, computer companies and etc. Thus, the final specs of both formats are still in a state of flux as both sides try to gain the support of various companies. Also, while Blu-Ray is promised to be at around 50 GB a disc (and I don't doubt that it will be by the time it is released), they haven't gotten a disc over about 25 GB out of the lab yet.

It's hard to have a release date for a system when the media that it is supposed to run on is itself still largely in development, and may be for some time.

[Marvin Tikvah]

So it's basically the N64 all over again, only with Sony this time?

[MJC]

So it's basically the N64 all over again, only with Sony this time?
Sounds more like the opposite to me. N64 used an outdated format, while PS3 is maybe using a format too early.

[I.R Joey]

Wasn't the PS2 also "difficult to develop for"? They'll figure it out trust me.

[Romey]

Wasn't the PS2 also "difficult to develop for"? They'll figure it out trust me.I believe that was, in a large part, due to a couple of the system's processors not having high-level language support at the time. The PS3, however, may be in a whole 'nuther league of programming trouble. Even then, stuff like media problems can't be solved by writing a little software. It's not a problem that developers themselves can solve.

Sure, it'll all be figured out eventually... but there may be a lot of unavoidable costs and cuts along the way.

--Romey

[sdp]

there were also rumors that Sony was considering cutting back PS/2 backward compatability. And i think CD/DVD too.

[Curt]

Do we even NEED a new disc format? How long have DVDs been around? 5, 6 years? The quality of DVDs are already perfect. What's the real purpose of these new formats?

[Scythemantis]

Do we even NEED a new disc format? How long have DVDs been around? 5, 6 years? The quality of DVDs are already perfect. What's the real purpose of these new formats?

A futile effort to temporarily jam the cogs of bootlegging?

[LordByronius]

25-50 gig storage capacity sounds about right for HiDef compatability.

Dual-layer DVDs are fine, sure, if you're content with games at 480p. Which, you might be, I dunno. I am.

[Martianinvader]

The reason DVD caught on was because the leap between it and VHS was so gigantic that people had to have it. S-VHS and Laserdiscs never caught on as well, and they came before DVD.

Some reasons people had to get DVD players: instant accessibility of any scene, cheaper and smaller medium, things like bonus features and commentary now possible, and much crisper sound. Whatever first attempts to replace DVD is going to fail miserably, because it will likely have all those things only improved---and no new features, like DVD had. S-VHS was also "the same thing improved". Nobody wanted to pay extra for a difference they didn't care about.

[Psycho Fox]

I believe that was, in a large part, due to a couple of the system's processors not having high-level language support at the time. The PS3, however, may be in a whole 'nuther league of programming trouble. Even then, stuff like media problems can't be solved by writing a little software. It's not a problem that developers themselves can solve.

Sure, it'll all be figured out eventually... but there may be a lot of unavoidable costs and cuts along the way.

--Romey
Correct me if I'm wrong but I though we were past the Sega CD phase of having devlopers worry about how data gets into memory, most system now seems to do this work for them so even if they are writting in assembly they just assume the data will be loaded into memory and just add whatever basic load commands the system needs. I fail to see how even in assembly why there would be much difference from loading from a CD, DVD, HD or whatever as controllers now looks after that.

[Duke]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I though we were past the Sega CD phase of having devlopers worry about how data gets into memory, most system now seems to do this work for them so even if they are writting in assembly they just assume the data will be loaded into memory and just add whatever basic load commands the system needs. I fail to see how even in assembly why there would be much difference from loading from a CD, DVD, HD or whatever as controllers now looks after that.
CD, DVD, & HD discs all have their own programming codes, and the system itself needs the proper programming in order to read the codes and make sense of them. So far, neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD has been able to do this as effectively as they promised. Plus, the actual consturction of the discs has been a problem (as was stated earlier, nobody working on Blu-Ray has been able to get to their 50GB limit yet). Getting the laser to read HD-DVDs is easy, getting the processors and harddrive and all that to actually interpret the data correctly is another deal entirely.

[Psycho Fox]

CD, DVD, & HD discs all have their own programming codes, and the system itself needs the proper programming in order to read the codes and make sense of them. So far, neither Blu-Ray nor HD-DVD has been able to do this as effectively as they promised. Plus, the actual consturction of the discs has been a problem (as was stated earlier, nobody working on Blu-Ray has been able to get to their 50GB limit yet). Getting the laser to read HD-DVDs is easy, getting the processors and harddrive and all that to actually interpret the data correctly is another deal entirely.
I still don't see how this would effect devlopers, their asking the PS3 to load the data and really don't care how the PS3 goes about doing that.

[Duke]

I still don't see how this would effect devlopers, their asking the PS3 to load the data and really don't care how the PS3 goes about doing that.
Because the technology they're using, while based off of previous technology, is brand new. They've never had to program HD-DVDs before, which requires different sets of codings and settings than DVDs do. Developers are having a hard time getting their settings right due to the PS3's technology being incomplete and late.

It's the same reason why current DVD players cannot play HD-DVDs. Different formats, different technologies.

[Psycho Fox]

Because the technology they're using, while based off of previous technology, is brand new. They've never had to program HD-DVDs before, which requires different sets of codings and settings than DVDs do. Developers are having a hard time getting their settings right due to the PS3's technology being incomplete and late.

It's the same reason why current DVD players cannot play HD-DVDs. Different formats, different technologies.
Game -> Controller -> Drive -> Controller -> Game

Meaning the Game is talking to the controller (not the drive), meaning the game code should pretty much stay the same as it is up to the controller to get the data for the game.

Or are we going back to the Sega CD days of game code doing controller work?

[EscaflownePilot]

Because the technology they're using, while based off of previous technology, is brand new. They've never had to program HD-DVDs before, which requires different sets of codings and settings than DVDs do. Developers are having a hard time getting their settings right due to the PS3's technology being incomplete and late.

It's the same reason why current DVD players cannot play HD-DVDs. Different formats, different technologies. That makes sense and all, but what I don't get (and I think what Psycho Fox is getting at) is, why should developers worry about this? Wouldn't Sony take care of all these details themselves and then provide developers through the dev kits specialized routines they call on to do this, rather than having to figure this out on their own?

Just like how I don't need to know the first thing about MPEG-2 encoding or the way a DVD player decodes a standard MPG2 disc in order to use an existing encoder made by someone who DOES know in order to burn a video DVD that a DVD player can decode? Or am I way off base?

At any rate, I gotta' say, Sony doesn't look like they're gonna' come out well. Developers are having an (understandably) hard time working with the processor, Sony's using technology that's not at all finalized and very well may not catch on, and it looks like they're coming in late in the generation to begin with. Plus, it supposedly "won't be priced for the household". This doesn't sound like a winning game plan to me...

[Killtacular]

Dual-layer DVDs are fine, sure, if you're content with games at 480p. Which, you might be, I dunno. I am.
Yeah, look at all those PC games that come on more than one DVD. Look at them. Look at the whopping...



..zero.

[Duke]

That makes sense and all, but what I don't get (and I think what Psycho Fox is getting at) is, why should developers worry about this? Wouldn't Sony take care of all these details themselves and then provide developers through the dev kits specialized routines they call on to do this, rather than having to figure this out on their own?But Sony hasn't done that yet. The developers are basically complaining because they have a little under a year to make the games. More than likely, PS3's launch lineup will be moved or ported PS2 games or something similar until 2007.

[EscaflownePilot]

I see. I guess I wasn't following the discussion well.

So, yeah, I can see why the developers would be peeved.

[William C. Maune]

Plus, even if the developers don't have to worry about how the data is being stored, Sony themselves can't release or even start producing the system until storage technology is fully developed and finalized.

[Mog]

Plus, even if the developers don't have to worry about how the data is being stored, Sony themselves can't release or even start producing the system until storage technology is fully developed and finalized. Do you mean when Blu-Ray reaches its supposed 45GB storage, or are you talking about something else? Because if I was Sony I would be content with using a ~25GB disc if that was all I had to work with.

[Killtacular]

Also, the price for getting into PS3 development is something like 2 billion yen, and that isn't even covering the cost of the development kit itself. Restricting the PS3 to the wealthiest companies. The price for ultra-super-too-early-next-gen is that only Sony and Konami are going to enjoy it. The 360 can pull off that Metal Gear real-time footage, but it prefers to build up to it instead of forcing devs to climb a mountain of an incline just to wow gamers with the next Fantavision. That's why it will win, ultimately. It's like a bobsled team, it's running at the pace of where PC games are currently at, then when developers get a feel for it, they hop in and blast off.

[Noukon]

Do we even NEED a new disc format? How long have DVDs been around? 5, 6 years? The quality of DVDs are already perfect. What's the real purpose of these new formats?
DVDs are far from perfect, they're just the best format with mass-market viability.

Down the line, next-gen graphics will be constricted by the DVD format, but it won't be a big deal. Sony is going overboard with BluRay because they think having it in the PS3 will help them push the format.

[Duke]

The price for ultra-super-too-early-next-gen is that only Sony and Konami are going to enjoy it.What about EA?

[Artimus Gigan]

What about EA?and Square-Enix? and Namco?

[EscaflownePilot]

Do we even NEED a new disc format? How long have DVDs been around? 5, 6 years? The quality of DVDs are already perfect. What's the real purpose of these new formats?In the area of video DVDs, there are actually quite a few annoyances and limitations.

First off, if you ever watch a DVD movie on a High-def television, you'll notice some artifacting on even some of the best-compressed movies. It's nothing terrible or even all that distracting, but it's certainly not suitable for when HD-TVs become standard. Additionally, as was said earlier, there isn't enough space on even a DVD-9 for 720p HD video, so again, not suitable for the advent of High-def content. Well, unless another form of compression (such as WMV-HD) became standard... but even then, few if any DVD players ATM can decode anything other than the standard MPEG-2 disc, so an upgrade in the technology is required.

Finally, from an anime perspective, the current DVD format's subtitle limitations are VERY annoying. Basically, you can only get basic formatted text with, I think, only 3 colors on screen at one time. Although I have NO idea if either new format will fix this, it would be great to have a completely free subpicture format that allowed for .SSA style effects to be rendered through the DVD player, and for other things like, for example, pop-up video style features rendered through the subpicture stream. Or rather than a bunch of seperate subtitles on the screen to translate on-screen signs, they could just do a fully removable overlay that makes it look like it's an English sign to begin with, for example. None of this is possible currently.

[Duke]

Finally, from an anime perspective, the current DVD format's subtitle limitations are VERY annoying. Basically, you can only get basic formatted text with, I think, only 3 colors on screen at one time. Although I have NO idea if either new format will fix this, it would be great to have a completely free subpicture format that allowed for .SSA style effects to be rendered through the DVD player, and for other things like, for example, pop-up video style features rendered through the subpicture stream.I believe that one of the new formats (or perhaps both) have 256 colors that can be used for text, and can use all sorts of fonts and effects, so all those fancy effects fansubs use the official companies can also use.

[Killtacular]

and Square-Enix? and Namco?
Square already supports the 360, Revolution, and DS, so I don't know what they'd plan for the PS3. Do they even have anything coming out for PSP?

EA probably would have something for PS3 but I don't know about Namco. Also, EA already had to rebuild their team just to handle the 360, I'm not sure their PS3 games will be anything more than ports of 360 games with minor bugfixes.

[Romey]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I though we were past the Sega CD phase of having devlopers worry about how data gets into memory...You might think so, but at the time of the PS2's launch, you also might have thought that the days of being forced to code in assembler for a processor (if you wanted to use it) were long over. Consoles can be incredibly complex pieces of hardware. It's not hard to imagine how new implementations of old technology can take a while to catch up.

I still don't see how this would effect devlopers, their asking the PS3 to load the data and really don't care how the PS3 goes about doing that.Under ideal conditions, perhaps. Unfortunately, hardware abstractions can often be leaky. If there really are problems with blu-ray right now, I'd expect things to be very leaky indeed. What's a developer to do if the abstractions can't be trusted?

Heck, for all we know, the software interfaces to the drives don't even exist yet...

In other cases, the provided interface might not be suitable for the needs of the game. If a developer needs data to be streamed off the disk in a certain way to meet their engine's needs, they might have to resort to good ol' low-level access.

...why should developers worry about this? Wouldn't Sony take care of all these details themselves and then provide developers through the dev kits specialized routines they call on to do this, rather than having to figure this out on their own?In an ideal situation, sure.

Just like how I don't need to know the first thing about MPEG-2 encoding or the way a DVD player decodes a standard MPG2 disc in order to use an existing encoder made by someone who DOES know in order to burn a video DVD that a DVD player can decode? Or am I way off base?Think of it this way... Is it a coincidence that all that stuff just works? Hardly. Countless people worked years so that all those standards would behave properly. The technology had been mature for a few years before DVD hit the consumer market. Sony's now trying to squeeze in unproven tech. Problems should be expected.

--Romey

[William C. Maune]

Do you mean when Blu-Ray reaches its supposed 45GB storage, or are you talking about something else? Because if I was Sony I would be content with using a ~25GB disc if that was all I had to work with.

Sony won't do that though. They've spent too much time pimping the 45-50B storage capacity and its part of the promise they've made to all the companies they've been able to line up as backers of Blu-Ray against HD-DVD. If the promised capacity is cut in half, there would likely quickly be defections to the HD-DVD camp.

[Jmanunknown]

Square already supports the 360, Revolution, and DS, so I don't know what they'd plan for the PS3. Do they even have anything coming out for PSP?

EA probably would have something for PS3 but I don't know about Namco. Also, EA already had to rebuild their team just to handle the 360, I'm not sure their PS3 games will be anything more than ports of 360 games with minor bugfixes.
Square Enix is on the list of publishers making games for the PS3 thats posted on IGN from TGS and surprise surprise its a Final Fantsy game. Also Square Enix has a Final Fantasy game in development for the PSP thats slated to come out in June 2006. I believe the game's title is Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core . Surprisingly the only EA game that was on the list was Fight Night but, this list of games is for the Japanese market. Also Namco has 4 games in development for the PS3. Anyway Sony will be fine they sold nearly 3 times as many consoles as Nintendo and Microsoft combined this current generation. They know how to sell consoles even if some of them are defective.


Also heres two's link to the list of games announced to be coming out in the future on the PS3

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/651/651540p1.html (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/651/651540p1.html)

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/09/16/news_6133515.html (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/09/16/news_6133515.html)



Heres a rumor about the price of the PS3

PS3 Under $400 in Japan?
According to Cool Gamer, quote will be revealed in upcoming Famitsu.
by David Karlin, 10/25/2005

In the past months, the Japanese blog CoolGamer has been a dependable source of early information regarding the Japanese game market. Not once has their news turned out to be a false lead, so that's why it was pretty important today when the site updated with a small notice saying "PS3 price set below 40000 Yen," which is about $400 at current exchange rates.
In the update, the blogger writes, "In the latest Famitsu, a very important person mentioned that the PS3 price would not be over 40000yen". This information correlates to a previous comment from a Sony rep a few months back, who mentioned the same price. With any luck this will turn out to be the case, and Japan will see the PS3 in the spring of 2006 for slightly under $400.

One thing to note though is that the PS2 was also released in Japan for a bit under 40000 yen, but when it came to the U.S. it was sold for a hundred dollars less at $299. It's not out of the question that same sort of pricing scheme will be employed this time as well. http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3145024 (http://1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3145024)

[Frank Castle]

Square already supports the 360, Revolution, and DS, so I don't know what they'd plan for the PS3. Do they even have anything coming out for PSP?
Square did the FF7 tech demo ealier this year so I think they might get in. As far as the PSP goes, Square does have the FF movie on UMD and I thought that there was an FF shooter type of game coming out as well.

[Dark Fact]

The one thing that irks me about the whole PS3 fiasco is that in the near future, developers wouldn't know how to make proper games that would be compatible for the PS3's majestic hardware. The Sega Saturn was faced with these exact same problems and eventually forced the system into early retirement.

It was a damn shame though...because the Sega Saturn was a great system with even greater games.

[Psycho Fox]

Under ideal conditions, perhaps. Unfortunately, hardware abstractions can often be leaky. If there really are problems with blu-ray right now, I'd expect things to be very leaky indeed. What's a developer to do if the abstractions can't be trusted?

Heck, for all we know, the software interfaces to the drives don't even exist yet...

In other cases, the provided interface might not be suitable for the needs of the game. If a developer needs data to be streamed off the disk in a certain way to meet their engine's needs, they might have to resort to good ol' low-level access.

--Romey
You can't expect devlopers to try and hack a fix for hardware that is not even finalized yet. Sony can made alot of changes to the hardware in this respect or worse Sony uses a hack a devloper comes up with and uses it as a "temporary" fix. Of course the rule is "temporary" fixes most always turn out to be permanent as once it works there is little incentive to properly address the issue.

The best devlopers can do is work around it, for example work with off a hard drive instead then once Sony finalizes the hardware look into getting it to work off blu-ray.