kars on 28 March 2007
drago said:
If the specs map well if would just a matter of the game changing resolution, texture details, etc. automatically - imagine PC games, only that they come preconfigured. As for Blue-ray: For example 50% of the games could fit on DVD or they could do an alternative version with multiple disks. Hard disk: Could improve your load times, but with a nice drive it would not be mandatory. And it goes on and on. All PC games have managed to do that, so why should it not be possible on a console?
It is not so easy as you think. PCs have some advantages that play a big role in this:
All PCs are more or less universal. Their processors and even their basic architectures are structured in a way to make programing rather easy. Everything goes through standard libraries to hide the plattform from, the software. The more complicated the platform, the higher your costs, because the costs of a plattform always depend on ther number fo bugs you have to find and fix. In this case both plattforms have disadvantages, which result inh higher costs. Especially the SPUs of the cell are very selective. If you want to make a generique plattform you have to limit their power considerably. While the Xbox isn't very friendly either its basic architecture is much simpler and easier to hide. This raises the reuseability of code and makes the development cheaper. So if you want more power and abilities you have to be ready to pay a higher price. And on these platforms the costs raise considerably. In fact if you would ask this way, most developers would probably ask: "Why shouldn't we write for PCs and drop these consoles with their complicated hardware?". It would probavly be a better and cheaper approach. Every additional feature raises the costs considerably, because you have to test everything at least two times (one with the feature on, the other with the feature turned off).
Do you really think that the customers would be ready to pay the higher price?
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