Next Gen Console Game Developer B*tching

[dbdg]

Interesting Article and the Discussion on the forums is worth a read as well.

[I found it interesting, hopefully someone else does as well. ]

Article
Forum Discussion

[Jammrock]

This has been the complaint from the begining. The hardware of the next gen consoles are so different than PC hardware that cross-platform development will be expensive, almost prohibitive, to the point that games will probably only be made for console OR PC, and not both. Which will suck. Because there are a few console games that would be nice to have a PC port.

Of course, if it becomes too hard then the smaller companies will start making games for PCs again

[Gurm]

Of course, if it becomes too hard then the smaller companies will start making games for PCs again

I would be very happy with a return to the game development "scene" from the early 90's, with small independent houses hand-crafting excellent games.

*sigh* NAH, never happen.

[GT98]

This has been the complaint from the begining. The hardware of the next gen consoles are so different than PC hardware that cross-platform development will be expensive, almost prohibitive, to the point that games will probably only be made for console OR PC, and not both. Which will suck. Because there are a few console games that would be nice to have a PC port.

But hasn't this always been the case anyways(i.e. PS2 ports to the PC)? I know the Xbox360 is using DirectX next and make developing games for the Xbox360 and PC easier to port to one another. But how that works out is anybodys guess.

I have this feeling the reason MS went to PowerPC is that 3 cores of PowerPC chips would be cheaper then one AMD or Intel CPU from a PC.

[dbdg]

According to an article I read on Rage3D the x-box isn't using Direct-x, its uses it own custom api and it should be considered seperate to Direct-x.

I'll see if I can find the link.

[dbdg]

Found it PC++

If I have read it once, I have read it a thousand times, “The Xbox 360 is just ATI’s next generation (fill in favorite code name here) GPU.” The simple answer to that is, “No it is not.” While most modern GPUs share many architectural similarities, Bob Feldstein and Chris Evenden of ATI went out of their way to explain to me, no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise, that the Xbox 360 GPU is very much an original creation. While some will try to tell you that is it simply a souped up DirectX 9 GPU, you might be interested to learn that the only API spec that the Xbox 360 hardware meets is its own API. That is correct, the Xbox 360 GPU only meets it own Xbox 360 API specifications. While of course some lessons learned in DX9 and upcoming DX10 were applied, the GPU of the Xbox 360 is very much its own and comparing it directly to anything in the PC world is simply “not right” according to Mr. Feldstein. Obviously the Xbox 360 can be thought of as a very innovative solution specifically for the Xbox and only the Xbox.

[GT98]

Ah must have been a rumor I heard or something....

[Jon P. Inghram]

I suspect the game companies won't be happy until they've got an AI that can slap random graphics and sound around code like this without having to pay real people to do the work...

10 IF FireButtonPressed() = 1 THEN GOTO 10
20 lives = lives - 1
30 IF lives > 0 THEN GOTO 10
40 PRINT "You lost!"

[Heiney]

The gist of it is it's a bitch to code for the CPUs. They designers tore out all the logic that makes unoptimized code run well (out of order and branch prediction) and made it so the CPUs now run unoptimized code terribly. Xbox and Gamecube have CPUs that are almost more advanced than what are in these new consoles.

So we have these crazy mega-cored CPUs that are a horrible bitch to program for. In OTHER other words we have CPUs with fantastic POTENTIAL performance that will be uneconomical to reach really. Like they built them to boast about only.

[schmosef]

I suspect the game companies won't be happy until they've got an AI that can slap random graphics and sound around code like this without having to pay real people to do the work...

10 IF FireButtonPressed() = 1 THEN GOTO 10
20 lives = lives - 1
30 IF lives > 0 THEN GOTO 10
40 PRINT "You lost!"

roflmao! I flashed on my Vic-20 programming days for a second.