What is said is more or less true, or at least it was true at one time. But if this particular blogger cannot realize that the tides are slowly changing, then he is mistaken.
It would be a disaster if the situation was in Sony's favor at launch, because Microsoft would not have had any advantages for being out an entire year earlier.

In which case, competition wouldn't be what it is today.
Microsoft exists to push Sony towards being Sony.

It might always be easier to dev for the 360, since it is essentially a PC, and some American based 3rd parties may not get around to considering the possible advantages of the PS3 for some time. IMO

This could mean a lot of bad news for Sony.

Just imagine if the reviews of GTA4 and RE5 are (like previous ports) worse for PS3?
These games attrackt lots of fans, of which quite a lot still haven't chosen a HD console. That's the kind of media attention that would draw people to the 360.

@Benga Benga

or imagine them being like COD 4 & Burnout Paradise

excuse me but Rockstar are BRILLIANt devs.

it would be insulting if Infinity Ward could handle PS3 & they couldn't

darthdevidem01 said: @Benga Benga or imagine them being like COD 4 & Burnout Paradise excuse me but Rockstar are BRILLIANt devs. it would be insulting if Infinity Ward could handle PS3 & they couldn't

Yeah, I know there are quality multiplatforms around. I was only reacting to the article and imagining the worst case scenario for PS3.

As for Rockstar: they're probably the worst AAA developer around. Their games are badly programmed and often suffer from glitches and frame-drops (GTA3 anyone?). They create great game experiences, but technically they should do better.

taxman said: Well, at least it's better now that the PS3 actually gets ports in the first place. A year ago developers wouldn't even try...

 That's what I'm thinking.  Developers were hinting at dropping the PS3 last year.  It will be interesting what they say a year from now.  I'm thinking they will love that Euro.  Now, it seems like they know they should support the PS3 if they want to make money.

 

Some of these articles sound very familiar to when the PS2 came out (I'm in no way saying the PS3 has the same market share as the PS2).  Many devs were not sure the PS2 would do the same as the PS1, and wanted Dreamcast or the future Xbox to be the better platform.   

 

 

Well ,some of this may be true .

But I think too that Sony has been working hard to support third parties and to a degree they have succeded .Last summer they sent the new development kits Playstation Edge ,they halved the kits price in two ,they sent their own engineers to the software houses to help them and that proved instrumental in Epic optimizing the Unreal 3 Engine for the PS3 and allowing for a lots of projects to finally be released and future ones to have far less problems ,they have also pushed Insomniac to share their developing know-how to everybody too ...and lets not forget the Engine (free !) that they showed last GDC that allows to easily translate PC games into PS3 games .

I think Sony is working hard in that direction ,although its still lagging behind Microsoft wich is a software company after all .

In any case the PS2 was far worse support-wise and still developers had to crack their heads to harness its power .Now with the PS3 they have it easier and the console is growing faster and faster so no worries about its future .

I think ,though ,that some PC developers are specially bitter with Sony .They are specially easy on their largely know DirectX and XNA tools and with things like that and want that model to impose in the industry .They dont want to learn new arquitechtures ,new programming languages or to optimize anything ...they want things to keep simple and the same .These kind of developers are giving nasty remarks to the PS3 sometimes (as that fat bastard Gabe Newell ) and shows little sympathy for it .Too bad for them that wont change a thing and they will be forced to come back later and behind in the learning curve once the PS3 is the main HD console and thats not too far away .

Other developers ,though ,as Midway ,Criterion ,INfinity Ward and recently Lucas Arts ,have stated they are going to develop first for the PS3 .We will see what happens .

Diomedes1976 said: Well ,some of this may be true . But I think too that Sony has been working hard to support third parties and to a degree they have succeded .Last summer they sent the new development kits Playstation Edge ,they halved the kits price in two ,they sent their own engineers to the software houses to help them and that proved instrumental in Epic optimizing the Unreal 3 Engine for the PS3 and allowing for a lots of projects to finally be released and future ones to have far less problems ,they have also pushed Insomniac to share their developing know-how to everybody too ...and lets not forget the Engine (free !) that they showed last GDC that allows to easily translate PC games into PS3 games . I think Sony is working hard in that direction ,although its still lagging behind Microsoft wich is a software company after all . In any case the PS2 was far worse support-wise and still developers had to crack their heads to harness its power .Now with the PS3 they have it easier and the console is growing faster and faster so no worries about its future . I think ,though ,that some PC developers are specially bitter with Sony .They are specially easy on their largely know DirectX and XNA tools and with things like that and want that model to impose in the industry .They dont want to learn new arquitechtures ,new programming languages or to optimize anything ...they want things to keep simple and the same .These kind of developers are giving nasty remarks to the PS3 sometimes (as that fat bastard Gabe Newell ) and shows little sympathy for it .Too bad for them that wont change a thing and they will be forced to come back later and behind in the learning curve once the PS3 is the main HD console and thats not too far away . Other developers ,though ,as Midway ,Criterion ,INfinity Ward and recently Lucas Arts ,have stated they are going to develop first for the PS3 .We will see what happens .

Developers put the time, effort and expense into learning about the PS2 hardware, and improving performance, because they had no choice; the PS2 sold well from the start, and dominated the market before any of its competition was released. The best case scenerio for the PS3 is that (for western developers) the PS3 will remain the trailing console in 2008, be somewhat tied with the XBox 360 in 2009 and 2010, and be the leading console in 2011; this will (effectively) limit the consern about producing a decent PS3 version for quite some time ...

Ngai Croal is actually a savvy game journalist, and has been honest about Microsoft's shortcomings, but this alleged lack of 3rd party support among US-based devs is simply an artifact of the later launch of the PS3 launch and the harried schedules of PR personnel, nothing more. The 360 has twice the US install base of the PS3, so of course they'll focus on the biggest piece of the pie first. Over time market shares will equalize, and equal time will become the norm.

Live has some nice features, but no one portal is going to dominate the game industry, and Microsoft shot itself in the foot by selling lots of units with tiny or no hard drives.

Live's subscription strategy is another problem. When you visit a store, do they charge you money just for entering their building? Of course not. Similarly with online gaming: it should be free to visit, with the option to purchase cool stuff. But Live's subscription means their core audience is limited to rich, white, mostly male FPS fans and action junkies - a small minority of the global gaming public.

Last but not least, Sony's toolset and developer support has improved dramatically over the past year, everywhere from Phyre to middleware.

Aside some lazy developers I would say most PS3 versions are up to the 360 quality right now .Just to name a few of the later good PS3 versions :DMC4 ,Burnout Paradise ,Army of Two ,MLBA 2K 08 ,Condemned 2 ,Sega Superstar Tennis ,Viking Battle for Asgard (alreay reviewed in some mags here great game ) ...and the others that are still slighty behind as Rainbow Six Vegas 2 ,Turok are only slighty behind in some texture work or the odd frame rate drop (1-2 frames ) here and there .Even The Orange Box as just received a patch so we can erase that from the suspicious list .

Some of these articles sound very familiar to when the PS2 came out (I'm in no way saying the PS3 has the same market share as the PS2). Many devs were not sure the PS2 would do the same as the PS1, and wanted Dreamcast or the future Xbox to be the better platform.

That is not even remotely close to being something that resembles accurate. The PS2 exploded out of the gate making a mockery of the Dreamcast even though it had the head start, and the PS2 was almost universally supported from the get go. The original Xbox barely got off the ground, and was launched much later in the game. The PS2 benefited from all third parties almost unanimously supporting it as the platform of choice from the day it was announced.

This gen third parties don't know what the hell they are doing. The 360 is viable but only in the US and to an extent europe, but has zero support in Japan. The wii is dominating, but they have no idea what they should be making for it. And the PS3 has been struggling to stay competitive at all. They don't know who to back, to what extent, and how. Third parties have just been bumbling around for most of this gen.