Its been 3 and a half years and NOW there understanding the Cell?!

[Reasonable]

Twistedpixel said:

Reasonable said:
Depends on where the developers starts. If, for example, you were centric to PC then it's a real slog I'd say, which is why I think Valve have been reluctant to touch PS3 and Epic's Unreal engine initially struggled on PS3 more than 360.

If you're coming from PS2 it's still a big slog, too. On Uncharted (number 1) there's some good ND 'making of' stuff where they explain all the stuff they had to learn just in the jump in graphical techniques never mind then learning the cell.

So, while it seems long, it's not really. As some devs would have been learning the spending maybe 18 months to 2 years getting their first title out (if not longer).

Arguably the PS2 centric developers would have had it easier as well because they're used to programming graphics effects in software on the PS2 in a more CPU like fashion. It was stated that it was easier than developing on the PS2 however in the PS2s case there was no convenient and easier Xbox variant at the time of release for most titles and the PS2 had greater time on market before the Xbox even released. Many PS3 exclusives shared the flaws of the multiplatform games but there was no convenient Xbox 360 version to compare against. In this generation multiplatform developers had to struggle to get their games up to speed and this accelerated forced learning curve is likely the major source of the complaints.

I'm basing my comments on video docs from Naughty Dog on moving from PS2 and PS3, and they made it sound like a slog to me!  From what I've read it sounds 50/50 to me.  Developers coming from a PC background would be far more familiar with advanced graphical techniques but would find the console architecture weird while developers coming from a PS2 background would probably find the basic architecture less of a pain but would have to learn a whole heap of new techniques.

Mind you, having watched the docus on ND, played Uncharted (which was very solid but had some obvious screen tearing, etc) then looking at Uncharted 2 I have to admit ND are clearly very, very good developers in terms of what they ramped up on, building a whole new engine and set of tools from scratch in the process.