By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
WilliamWatts on 20 February 2010
Edit Thread
binary solo said:
WilliamWatts said:

They don't lack the technical expertise... they just have a large range of PC systems they have to cater for and they are generally following a similar programming model to the Xbox 360 which is a few general purpose cores with a stronger GPU. It takes a lot of testing to get systems ranging from GTX 7600s all the way to HD 5870s working well and as the PS3 doesn't fit into their programming model it would take a lot more work than its worth for them to do it.

I think you're confused between talent and expertise and so became defensive towards what I said. Valve currently lacks the expertise to make a stellar PS3 title. But it doesn't mean the folks at Valve lack the talent. If they put the time and effort into getting their people up to (or close to) the Naughty Dog / Santa Monica level of PS3 expertise (or they hire some PS3 developer experience) then they have the talent to make an amazing PS3 game. Even if they get up to Infinity Ward expertise on PS3 they can do some great things. To put it in RPG terms: Valve is like a Fighter (PC & Xbox) but with high dexterity. They have the talent to multiclass into a fighter-rogue, but they lack the rogue (PS3) expertise because they haven't yet taken the multiclass option. By your logic no one who works on PC and Xbox should bother developing for PS3 because it's not worth the effort. Seems Bioware thinks it's worth the effort and they are a major PC developer.

I'm not quite sure how you think everyone is better off if they stick with PC and Xbox. PC and Xbox gamers might be better off, but that's not everyone. Of course if all they'd do is bring more FPS to PS3 then they are welcome to continue ignoring PS3, and PS4, as far as my gaming interests are concerned.

In this case they are a fighter but they already have an amazing sword (PC market) so they have no reason to change into a fighter/rogue because learning the bow is counter to their long term interests. They don't scale their engine beyond a couple of cores because thats what their market has and they follow a GPU first, CPU second model of development like a typical PC developer. If they go Rogue then they also have to chang their allignment from lawful good to more chaotic neutral which means they lose the technical support of Microsoft.

I didn't say that everyone would be better off sticking with PC/360 and leaving the PS3 out of it. However Valve makes games which scale from lower end laptops all the way up to significant and powerful computers, from DX9.0c to DX10.1/11. Bioware doesn't do this and if they spend more time on another platform it takes away time they can spend optimising their primary platform which is also responsible for significant revenues in the case of Steam and they would not be wise to make it appear that they are sacraficing an ounce of quality for console ports as PC gamers are a sensitive and whiney bunch.

Btw, one could argue that Dragon Age: Origins would have sold better on 360 if it was exclusive and completely offset the lost sales on the PS3 as that SKU sold quite poorly. So in that case Bioware may have actually been better off going PC/360 rather than doing all 3.