Penny Arcade dev explains PSN delay Comments by Robert Purchese

Is it just me, or did he not actually give a real reason?

Yes.. PS3 is a pain in the *** to develop for was the reason (but smartly camouflaged ;)

Maybe run your own gaming site Arbiter.

Is it just me, or did he not actually give a real reason?

"Top priority, explained Ceraldi, is getting the game finished as soon as possible - which is why he stuck with PC, Xbox 360 and Linux to begin with."

There you go. He's saying the PS3 is a pain in the ass to program.

I do enjoy playing my PS3, but Sony really did a number on devs. by making it so hard to develop for. The 360 might be pretty much a PC in console clothing, but developers can develop perfectly well on PCs - they have been for quite a while now! I've never read any article saying the 360 is hard to develop for.

I appreciate the PS3 CELL processor might be fantastic at maths, but unless we get games designed for it, perhaps using ray tracing to take load off the GPU, it's just making it hard for devs.

Um, if the Penny Arcade games haven't been well received, what's all the fuss about then? It's like Ubisoft having to defend why they haven't done a Dogz game for the PS3 ;o)

^ they weren't "well received" but it seems they made an interresting amount of money in sales.

There you go. He's saying the PS3 is a pain in the ass to program.

People said that bout the ps2 aswell. Didn't stop them shifting over a billion units of software.

The devs I've worked for and spoken to mostly say a similar thing: the PS3 is a pain in the butt to work on, but whenever a new way of using the cells falls into place their code becomes much smoother. That suggests that the problem isn't so much the machine as the lack of coding support and analysis tools coming out of Sony. Potentiallly, in a year or two we may see some incredible things on the PS3, but at the moment it's still a hard slog to work with.

Regarding the Penny Arcade game... Meh. Who cares whether it gets to PSN or not?

And quick: Nintendo! A game needs a new peripheral to work! Make over-priced hard-drives and sell a billion of them! I'm waiting for them to release the presentation case so we can show off the machine we've bought in monthly installments.

"People said that bout the ps2 aswell. Didn't stop them shifting over a billion units of software. "

Sadly a monopoly does that. Plenty of devs would have given their right arm to make games for another console instead.

"in a year or two we may see some incredible things on the PS3, but at the moment it's still a hard slog to work with. "

You know, as a software guy, that is the definition of crap hardware. I would like to see the face of my customers when I tell them... no worries people, we will be able to write good software on that hardware you just bought in about 2-3 years. Seriously.

I have said so many times before. In the 80s we thought it was cool to get under the hood and play with the hardware. Nowadays we just wanne focus on the software and write interesting high level code. The whole PS3 concept is (badly) thought up by hardware engineers instead of software people (like MS). Sadly the 360 has (had) the opposite problem :)

@Dizzy

Microsoft would know nothing of a monopoly eh?

that is the definition of crap hardware
Might I correct you, the definition of crap hardware is having 1 in 3 units fail.

I thought they'd already given the reason for the ps3 delay, I seem to remember them saying it was because the engine they used to make the game didn't support the ps3 at that time and the moment it did they would release it for the ps3.

>Microsoft would know nothing of a monopoly eh?

Yes they do... nothing to do with argument though.

>Might I correct you, the definition of crap hardware is having 1 in 3 units fail.

Yes also a definition.. but another one (as I mentioned in my post).

Precipice of Darkness is due out on PS3 this autumn, following a rather poor reception on PC and Xbox 360 in May.

It would be accurate to describe it as a mixed reception, but with a Metacritic score of over 75 on both formats calling it "poor" is stretching the truth a little.

"(...) which is why he stuck with PC, Xbox 360 and Linux to begin with."

Wait, what? Windows, Xbox 360 and Linux, you mean?

argh dizzy, you are so so dull. It really has come time to ignore you!

"Honestly, you sound like a lazy coder who simply doesn't have the skills or at least the temprament to work outside the familiar wintel framework. "

ROFL ROFL

Dude.. I programmed on everything. From Z80 in ASM, 68xx and Intels in C/C++, Mobile chips to the new CPU/GPUs in f*cking script languages.

You are a funny man...

An experienced man can recognize badly designed hardware. And many devs agree with me there ;) (apparently the Penny Arcade ones.. hence my original post)

"Coding is all about problem solving"

Nope.. coding games is about creativity and doing new stuff with AI and gameplay. Low level crap library coding is from the 80s or for SDK developers.

@Dizzy

Considering the Z80 was released in the 1976 I can assume you are at least mid 30's. Probably over 40.
Aren't you a bit old ot be arguing with people over consoles and using such mature langauge as 'Dude'?

"Developer Hothead Games has dismissed suggestions it's favouring Xbox 360 and PC..."

..and then..

"Top priority, explained Ceraldi, is getting the game finished as soon as possible - which is why he stuck with PC, Xbox 360 and Linux to begin with."

So basicly they ARE favouring Xbox 360 and PC (no matter what the reason was).

@mcbi4kh2 Oohh... nice one! What are you going to criticize next? My spelling?

I would say you are too young to talk about anything technical. Come back in 20 years. BTW have you checked who the people are who design your games? Most of them are all 80s coders ;)

Anyway.. I am outa here... this keeps dragging on.

What are you going to criticize next? My spelling?
Why not, its criticise. (I dont like the yankee version).

In 20 years I will be nearly 39 and thus have moved on from such trivial arguments.
Adding a 'know-it-all' wink at the end of each comment just adds emphasis to your immaturity.

Have you seen the dev diaries for Uncharted? Still one of the best console games there is and not one developer looks over 35.

These terrific 80's coders probably ported the 'Orange Box' to the PS3.
The only person I have heard complain about PS3 is the guy at Valve, he was an old man like you. If you cant keep up with changes, move on.

seriously boring fucking argument now

"Coding is all about problem solving, when that process starts becoming a chore you really ought to consider hanging up your gloves. The truly great and good rise to the challenge, they absolutely do not piss and moan that the standard methods are no longer optima -l which is the precise case with the PS3."

Sorry to say this is purest bullshit.

Coders want to solve problems, yes, but not problems of awkward hardware or shitty SDK's. Programmers want to solve the problems like 'how do I make legs buckle when I shoot knees?' or 'how do I work out the indoor threshold on which to apply echo to audio?'

Programmers do NOT want to 'raise to the challenge' of producing something of equivalent quality on badly designed hardware. They want to produce higher quality software on platforms that make creativity easier.

"People said that bout the ps2 aswell. Didn't stop them shifting over a billion units of software. "

That's nice. What's it got to do with this?

@PearOfAnguish

Wow, do I really have to spell things out to people?

PS2 was being criticised as being difficult at first, then dev's got used to it.

Now the PS3 is being criticised as being difficult, dev's will get used to it again.

@mikeck

tis a shame your being forced to read all the comments and post a reply then isnt it?

@@mcbi4kh2

Bored of having a go at Dizzy are we, moving on to someone new?

Yes I don't have to read them all, but I'll read most comments about a post that initially interests me because some of the posters here actually have something useful to say (obviously you're not one of them). It's when it steers away into a argument that gets boring - sorry for mentioning it though, I'll let you carry on with your diatribe against Dizzy, that's much more important right?

Im not sure, I have no idea what diatribe means?

"Wow, do I really have to spell things out to people?

PS2 was being criticised as being difficult at first, then dev's got used to it.

Now the PS3 is being criticised as being difficult, dev's will get used to it again."

Yes I heard you the first time, but I never said anything about the PS2 or sales figures, I was responding to DFawkes. Don't care whether or not developers are going to get used to it.

I was responding to DFawkes.

Quoting me but responding to someone else? Sorry, I should have got that.

I think you're getting confused, dear. It was you who responded to a post I made in response to someone else, and with a completely irrelevant point, too.

Here, I'll make it easy for you:

DFawkes: Is it just me, or did he not actually give a real reason?

Me: "Top priority, explained Ceraldi, is getting the game finished as soon as possible - which is why he stuck with PC, Xbox 360 and Linux to begin with."
There you go. He's saying the PS3 is a pain in the ass to program.

Your response: "There you go. He's saying the PS3 is a pain in the ass to program."
People said that bout the ps2 aswell. Didn't stop them shifting over a billion units of software.


A fascinating fact, I'm sure, but nothing to do with the Penny Arcade game being delayed.

I think Im on a slow day I still dont understand.

First thing I see from you is this:

"People said that bout the ps2 aswell. Didn't stop them shifting over a billion units of software. "
That's nice. What's it got to do with this?

Then I respond to it.

The you say "I was responding to DFawkes

As I said, my fault.

heh, you can always tell those who actually work in games development from those who read about it on wikipedia in these kinda discussions...

Jeez is Dizzy still on here slagging off Sony and the PS3??? He was the first person on my ignore list years ago with his bitter, opinionated rantings.Let it go man, get on with your life.

Didn't the devs originally say the reason it wasn't on PS3 was due to the Torque engine they used not being available on PS3?

@Arbiter

Fortunately for us developers your opinions on development are quite wrong.

Yes the Amiga was the more powerful machine, purely by virtue of it's blitter and copper chips. However, because of the SDK's available it was also far easier to produce fast-fills and hardware sprites through the blitter (something the ST could not do) and produce a larger usable color spread by changing region pallettes via the copper.

The Amiga was a sinch to program for (Yes, I did 68k programming), as the bespoke hardware was well integrated into the architecture and there were great SDK's.


"The PS3 is based around a processor with 7 3ghz cores ffs."

Aha, so we get down to the 'mysterious power of teh cell' again, eh? Purest hogswash is what that line is.

Cell is a single general purpose processor core and 6 DSP's, and despite what bullshit PR you may have fallen for, that does not equal unlimited power waiting to be tapped. It's also not the quantum leap from the 3 core (@3.2ghz), 6 hardware thread architecture of the 360 that some like to think, due to the phenominal amount of bottlenecking the PPE/SPE design inherits.

The cell is not revolutionary in any way, it's just standard multicore tech with a slight twist that all the cores but one are rainman idiot savants that need constant tending, and the PPE is Tom Cruise, desperately trying to get the rest of the cores to not piss themselves in public.


Nice try at bullshitting Arbiter, but sorry, your argument carries no weight.


"Fuck off you ignorant shit-for-brains"

You can take your smug comment and shove it up your ass. Come back when you've actually done some fucking development you arrogant twat.

Plus the PS3 has kind of a weak GPU, hence the general lack of antialiasing.

The PS3 may or may not be a bitch to develop for, I'm not in a position to say. But I do know that multicore programming is a pretty new paradigm for most PC developers in general, not just game developers. And more cores, tends to make synchronisation of work more difficult. So even though in theory 6 cores should give you more power then 3 cores, itactually makes life much harder.

Also the fact the X360 devs have access to one of the most feature packed & mature IDE's also gives them an advantage.

Of course they can't use vTune which has some very nifty tools for analysing and arranging workload across cores.

"...following a rather poor reception on PC and Xbox 360 in May."

Did I miss something? I thought it did good? Or are Eurogamer just talking about their own review as if it was the entire world? :P

@monkie_king - totally agree.

Sony deserve a sharp kick in the nuts for not adding HW based AA to their console. There was huge debate about the lack of it on PS2 and they still haven't got the message.

Although it probably stems from the fact that the GFX side of the PS3 was a bit of a last minute cludge.

@oreillymj

Programming for multicore processors is really not that different to writing multithreaded code on single core processors. Multiple hardware threads on single processor cores have been around for ages.

Hell, if you want to take the analogy farther back, ever since the late 80's databases like Informix and Oracle have allowed concurrent users. The multiple user/single database design is effectively a multithreaded architetcture. Same pitfalls, which are bottlenecks and deadlocking.



"Also the fact the X360 devs have access to one of the most feature packed & mature IDE's also gives them an advantage."

Aye, as well as getting the best performance from the hardware throuigh the SDK, the IDE will be where the speed of development is decided.

I know fuck all tech wise, so it's quite fun to read through both Arbiter's and farticus' comments and try and guess who actually knows what they're talking about. Or is it that they both know, but they disagree on specifics? Hmmm, the intrigue.

Got it for OSX. Still haven't played it much. I like Penny Arcade, but they have given a new definition to long-winded with this game.

Edit - Good post Arbiter

@Arbiter

"Farticus is *not* a developer."

Hehe, oh how wrong you are. I've been in professional development since 1990. I've developed (and been paid for) in BBC basic, 6502 assembler, C, Informix 4GL, VB6, ASP, Java, and currently develop in VB.Net and C#.

"There was a whole lot more to getting the most out of the Amiga above and beyond simply reading through the manuals (SDK? fucking L-O-L) as it was all about "hitting the metal"."

Dont make me laugh you ignoramus. The blitter had very good routines in the API. There was no layer between the API and the hardware so it was as fast as it could be and WAS infact directly 'hitting the metal'. The copper was a bit more basic as it operated on a scanline level, so most of the time there was no avoiding blocks of direct code for that, but every visual trick on the Amiga was a combination of using the blitter and using the copper to replicate blit operations.

Admittedly I've never been in professional game development but I was part of the Amiga demo scene (writing in 68k assembler) and the demo coders arguably produced more technically accomplished code than the majority of game developers so I knew plenty about writing for the Amiga and using the hardware, thank you very much.

It's blatantly obvious you know fuck all about development OR hardware, and are currently digging yourself into a hole you have no way of getting out of, so please shut up or produce some credentials, or you will embarass yourself further.

Farticusmaximus is 100% right about the Amiga. That is actually the reason why it was the "better" machine. And no, let's not get into that. I had an Atari and an Amiga BTW ;)

@Dizzy - I always envied the ST as it had Oids, which was simply brilliant. :)

Sadly a monopoly does that. Plenty of devs would have given their right arm to make games for another console instead.

You speak as if Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 never happened.

@Farticus

So just to be clear about this, you've never actually developed a game, despite running around a gaming site claiming to be a 'developer'.

Pretty much like working for Burger King and claiming to be a Chef.

"You speak as if Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 never happened. "

Hehe.. sadly only a few devs got the right to develop on those consoles.

"Getting back to the point though, a big part if the skill of a great coder is to pull the absolute best out of a piece of hardware"

You are in the wrong business. I would look for a job in embedded stuff, compiler development, middle ware libraries or maybe join the Linux kernel people. Great coders can do that... they just do not want to spend their time on small hairsplitting stuff any more. I prefer to spend my time on actual interesting stuff now and not on forcing my VGA card into some weird undocumented graphics mode so I could run in a higher resolution. Or write my own version of Bresenham or play around with the refresh rate of the borders in a Speccy game so that we could expand the size of the screen (some people will probably know what I am talking about sadly :) and those who don't. People do not do that any more in the games business unless they have to.

Writing a clever procedural AI routine like in Left4Dead or a procedural creature system like Spore is a lot more valuable in todays games than that 2% extra polygons. Hence designing hardware that make middleware unavailable or a problem is a mistake imho. Also a lot of stuff cannot be hand tweaked any more... it would just take way too much time. We are not talking about 32K games here.

Are you actually still writing software?

We all did the same as you on the old machines (probably because we had no other option)... but I have better things to do now. Things at a much higher level. If my console SDK can't deliver that, I won't write code for them.

I just find it very strange that Sony could actually build a very good machine with the PS1. Coder friendly, great SDK and some slick hardware (versus the nasty Saturn). Who decided to change that?

Will Krazy Ken please stand up.

I know what Sony have done wrong, they didn't consult with Eurogamer forums on what should and shouldn't be included in their latest console offering.

Seriously, you guys remind me of people in pubs who think they are the worlds best football manager.