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Adinnieken on 07 July 2012
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Aielyn said:
Adinnieken said:
The Xbox 360 has not been the weaker of the two systems.  If anything it is on par with the PS3 in terms of performance.  The PS3 does have the better CPU, but that CPU is hurt by the memory architecture and GPU.  Contrast that with the Xbox 360, which offers a better GPU and unified memory and its tri-core processor with six hardware threads compares rather favorably to the PS3.

The reason the Xbox 360 is the lead platform for most third-party games is because it is the easiest of the two to program for.  Getting a game to work on the Xbox 360 is meaningless when porting it to the PS3 because in order to get the game to work on the PS3 you need to build the game so it takes advantage of the SPEs, that requires significant management of processing and resources. 

Some early 3rd-party games in the PS3 life-cycle were direct ports of the Xbox 360 version and they were horrible.  Instead of taking advantage of the SPEs, the games used the sole PowerPC core (PPE) for all the work.  The Cell isn't like a Intel processor with 8 cores or the Xbox 360s Xenon with 3 cores.  They would be symmetrical processors.  No, the Cell is a parallel processor that uses the PPE to manage the code running in the SPEs.  There is a lot more work involved in getting code to run on the PS3, which is why some games are led with the PS3 rather than the Xbox 360.

Your logic doesn't make sense - one wouldn't develop a game for the easier-to-develop-for platform first, because it would mean more additional effort to make it work on the other console afterwards. The only reason to do that is if you're willing to drop support for the harder one, which evidence shows didn't happen - pretty much all of the big titles that weren't first-party or second-party were put on both systems.

Just as you don't make a game for the higher-power system first, because then you have to do extra work to get it working on the weaker system.

The PS3 was harder to develop for, sure, but the reason why it wasn't the lead platform was because it would be harder to port to the 360 from the PS3 than vice versa. And that means that there were power considerations, because there really wasn't anything else to distinguish between them.

It's 6 of one, a half a dozen of another. 

The benefit to leading with the Xbox 360 is that you release a game to retail sooner for at least one platform.  The problem with leading on the Xbox 360 is that you can set performance levels that aren't obtainable on the PS3.

The benefit to leading with the PS3 is that you get all of your problems out of the way first, but you may end up with longer development time.

Most games where the Xbox 360 has been the lead have looked reasonably as good on both platforms and played as well on both platforms.  One notable exception is Bayonetta, which lead on the Xbox 360 but had significant performance issues on the PS3.  Whereas most games where the PS3 has been the lead have looked good on the PS3, but have looked poor on the Xbox 360.  Final Fantasy XIII and L.A. Noire being the most notable, which graphically looked significantly worse than their PS3 counterparts.

The PS3 is not the more powerful system.  The Cell may be the more powerful CPU but only marginally, especially when constrained by the memory architecture and GPU.  The only thing the PS3 offers is the opportunity to utilize Blu-Ray, which means uncompressed textures, full-motion video, and other graphical elements.  The Xbox 360's GPU runs rings around the PS3.  Only within the past few years has MSAA given PS3 developers a respectable means of AA at the cost of a softer/blurrier, image.

http://www.pvcmuseum.com/games/vs/ps3-vs-xbox-360-gpu-specs.htm

The GPU specs for the PS3 actually are reduced, if you read through you'll see where they talk about the GPU clock speed and memory throughput.