| Hyams said: Well, apparently: Development of the cross platform tech wasn’t easy though, as Atkinson says. “It’s been tricky, but we’ve got a strong PS3 engine with all the major systems running on SPUs. With middleware, what you want is for someone else to do all that so the developer can just concentrate on making games. We have parity between the platforms now: both run at the same speed.” Although this ’same speed’ clearly depends on what the engine is doing at that particular time. “If the game’s shader-heavy it runs a bit faster on 360; if it’s compute-heavy with physics and particles, then the SPUs take over and it’s a bit quicker on PS3.” -- http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2009/05/17/cryengine-3-ps3-vs-360/ Can't wait to see what games devs make with it. |
I wish PS3 fans who continually claim the PS3 has a distinct advantage, graphics performance-wise, over the 360 would pay attention to the bolded part above. "it runs a bit faster on 360" and "it's a bit quicker on PS3". A "bit", meaning slightly. Not, "it's definitely faster" or "it's significantly quicker".
In other words, the performance differences are subtle, not significant. The developer states plainly what they were finally able to do with a lot of hard work on the PS3, "it's been tricky, but we've got a strong PS3 engine... we have parity between the platforms now: both run at the same speed". So it was tricky to get the PS3 engine up to parity with the 360 engine.
The reason the OP keeps hearing that the PS3 is much better/more capable than the 360 is because of three factors, none of which have anything to do with actually game performance:
1. Until recently, the PS3 has been much more expensive than the 360, prompting PS3 fans to try and justify the extra expenditure.
2. The PS3 was expected to come out of the gate with DRAMATICALLY better visuals than the 360, but this simply hasn't happened. They're both very capable HD platforms, and other than true die-hards pointing out subtle differences that few gamers would ever notice, there is little difference between what can be accomplished on either platform. This fact adds to the pressure on PS3 fans who want to claim their console is definitely superior to the 360.
3. The PS3 was expected to blow the 360 out of the water, sales-wise, when it released. Other than surges driven by MGS4 and price cuts, the PS3 hasn't done all that well against the 360. In fact, the PS3 was about 5 million behind when it launched, and now it's about 8 million behind, so overall, it's lost ground. Again, more pressure on the PS3 faithful to explain why the "clearly superior" PS3 is soundly in third place this generation.
The above is why you will hear the following CONTINUALLY from many of the hard-core PS3 fans on the message boards:
1. The Cell gives the PS3 much greater graphical potential than the 360
2. When game X or game Y finally releases on the PS3, sales will skyrocket past the 360
3. Blu-Ray is much better for games because it has so much storage compared to DVD
4. The PS3 is a much better "value" than the 360 because it includes WiFi and Blu-Ray
5. 360 hard drives are expensive (very true, although the prices have come down some)
6. The RROD has caused 126% failure rate of 360s j/k about the percentage rate 
What you will never hear from a PS3 fan is:
1. Blu-Ray drives are slower than DVD drives under some random-access scenarios
2. The extra storage of Blu-Ray drives has seldom been used, to a large extent because it costs money to add more content, textures, etc. to a game.
3. All 360s can have hard drives added, so even Arcade/Core units support hard drives if the user is willing to spend the money
4. MS has added hard drive installs, which can offset the single-disc advantage that Blu-Ray provides for a very small number of games
5. WiFi can be added to all 360s... the original 20 GB PS3 owners will NEVER be able to add WiFi to their consoles... the best they can do is to add a second wireless router directly to their PS3.
6. All 360s have backwards compatibility for a large number of original Xbox games... the early PS3s had this, but Sony had to pull backwards compatibility early on to get the price down. Whenever this is brought up to PS3 die-hards, they will jump through incredible flaming hoops to explain why this feature isn't important.
I'm sure others could list more, but this gives you a general idea why you will continue to hear arguments such as "the 360 can't do graphics like the PS3" as long as the PS3 is on the market. Considering how often some of PS3 die-hards post, I have to wonder how they even have time to admire those amazing PS3 graphics...
