Depending on who you ask, the PlayStation 3 is either potentially the console equivalent of the second coming of Christ — or one of the biggest travesties in the history of consoles. Although I’m still in the “let’s wait and see category,” ex-Harmonix developer Jason Booth is obviously of the “been there done that already” mindset.
The latest entry in his own personal blog entitled PS3 misconceptions and spin does more than raise a few eyebrows — It flat out throws a cavalry of fans on the offensive, and boy do they mean business. So what exactly caused such ire? Well according to Jason, Sony has been using clever marketing to “dupe” us into believing that the PS3 is the golden standard of gaming, that of which the Xbox 360 couldn’t possibly ever hope to achieve. In fact, he thinks it’s actually the other way around, but don’t take my word for it:
For those unaware, I’m going to break it down simply and explain exactly why ports to the PS3 will never be as good as their 360 counter parts, and why most PS3 exclusives will likely continue to suck
Hit that jump button, and prepare to see through the eyes of a real-life developer!
Not exactly the best way to start off an argument, but lets see his logic behind this. After all, he is a game developer who has worked on both the PS3 and Xbox 360, right? That fact alone certainly gives him more credence than most commentors on the sidelines that like to go apeshit over anything negative lobbed at the PS3. His key points:
- The PS3’s fill rate is significantly slower than the Xbox 360, to the tune of roughly half the pixel pushing power.
- The cell chip is powerful, but gaming code isn’t ideal for being split across multiple processors.
- Blu-ray is great for storage space, but not as fast as streaming data from the Xbox 360’s DVD drive.
So what’s the bottom line? Well… it’s not exactly pretty.
“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.”
Talk about an ending quote! If true, this is certainly damning for Sony. After all, Jason isn’t exactly the first developer to spout off about his displeasure with coding on the PS3. Then again, I think Sony has seen a similar situation in the past with the PS2 — and that tricky machine turned out some pretty amazing games when all was said and done.
Trouble is, that was then, and this is most definitely now. More than a couple of PS3 games have had their release date pushed back, while the Xbox 360 version is (or will be) on store shelves. As much as I want to shrug this all off as another anti-Sony propaganda piece to put a feather in Microsoft’s hat, I’m apt to believe at least part of what Jason is trying to tell us.
He might be completely off base with his comments that Sony is forever doomed to a fate of sucky games and laughable ports that will never look or play as well as their Xbox 360 counterpart — which I refuse to believe — but we cannot ignore the writing on the wall as it pertains to Sony at this snapshot in time. Sony has a lot of work to do, and it sure would be nice for a change to see developers coming out of the woodwork to defend the PS3 platform.
So now I leave you with this question: Is Jason just the disgruntled former programmer for the PS3 platform that many people would have you believe, or is he yet another voice of reason trying desperately to remove the wool from our eyes? Oh great Internet Matlocks…I’m more than interested in hearing what you have to say about this.
[Via N4G]
