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Resident_Hazard on 18 November 2008
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NJ5 said:
joshin69 said:
Mendicate Bias
I think you may be wrong on that one. How much difference was there between the first games released on the xbox and the last? not a huge difference. And difference between the first games on the PS2 and the last? Very noticeable. The same will happen with the PS3 and 360. Devs will find and have said that the 360 is easy to code for and end up getting a high end of capability out of it. The PS3 is renowned as a bitch to code, as the PS2 was. Still it will be a while yet before devs really learn to ring the neck out of the PS3.

While that observation about the last gen is correct, I think it's also misleading. When the last gen started, console developers had almost no experience with 3D engine programming, which is one of the reasons why there was such a big difference between the initial and later PS2 games.

In this gen, the best 3D programmers have already had a few years solid to work on the PS3, and the learning curve is only based on the hardware, not 3D engine programming itself which eluded many console developers in 2001.

 

 

 

What are you talking about?  There was a whole generation prior to the PS2 where developers cut their teeth on 3-D gaming.  Not to mention constant PC advancement.  Developers had been working with 3-D and polygonal gameplay since the 16-bit generation at the very least with titles like Doom (which did feature 3-D arenas, but 2-D characters), StarFox, Stunt Race FX, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Out of this World/Another World, and Flashback to name a few.  The reasons the games looked so different from first gen to last on the PS2 are thus:

1.  Discounting the Dreamcast, it was the first to market, so effort was made to quickly capitalize on it.  Early games were made to get to market quickly and learn the hardware, not push or optimize the hardware.  By the time the Xbox and GameCube hit, developers were very comfortable with the limits and strengths of the generation.  (A similar pattern happened this time as the Xbox 360 featured a lot of launch titles that were barely an improvement over the Xbox, and once developers learned the strengths of the system, it was easy to carry those over to the PS3--by the end of this gen, the Xbox360 will appear to have improved more than the PS3.)

2.  The PS2 was notorious for being the hardest hardware to work with last generation.  Figuring out how to unlock all of it's secrets and quirks was a much more difficult task for developers than on the high-ceiling limit of the Xbox or the effeciently crafted, developer-friendly GameCube (built to address the issues that the N64 was notoriously difficult to use in the previous generation).  This means that jumping on-board with the PS2 with high-quality hits immediatly was almost impossible.  The learning curve was too high.

3.  The PS2 was the highest-selling, most-used, first-used system.  Multiplatform games were generally built on the PS2 first, meaning that the GC and Xbox ended up getting a lot of ports that could've actually looked much better.  The PS2 was also the highest-selling and therefore, most heavily focused system from developers meaning they had a lot more time to unlock it's secrets than they did with the GC or Xbox which were generally secondary considerations for multiplatform titles.

4.  Time.  The PS2 is still kicking (and still a small thorn in the side of the PS3).  It's been around for 8 years.  That's 8 years for developers to pry out every available secret, trick, and quirk of the console.  The Xbox lasted 4 and the GameCube only 5.  Those two systems were killed off before they'd been fully tapped.  Imagine how much more advanced Xbox or GC games could've looked if they hadn't been killed off early.