An article was posted about the perceptions of developing for the PS3 being harder than the 360.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14326

Here are a few choice quotes:

"If the game starts life on PS3, then man-hours per feature or costs related to asset production are comparable with industry norms", going on to suggest: "Since PS3’s Cell processor allows MORE features - better physics, more complex graphical processing, lighting or sound, etc. — there is inevitably going to be more cost in supporting those extra features. It’s not that PS3 is harder to write for, it’s just that you can do more with it."

The Sony developers note: "If your game starts on Xbox 360 you will have to re-engineer aspects of the game to run properly on PS3. This means additional effort. Some developers have been complaining about this but I don’t believe we can solve that. Xbox 360 is a different machine with good, but lower powered hardware in a different architecture. Developers have to view them as two different machines not as a common platform."

Finally, Sony does concede that online infrastructure is currently done best on the Xbox 360, commenting: "XBL provides more and better standard libraries for online gaming to developers. For the same features on PS3, developers have to do some extra work. We’re catching up, but there is a difference."

At the end of the article, Gamasutra contacted Microsoft for a reaction. This is what they said:

[UPDATE: Gamasutra contacted Xbox's Director of Games Platform Strategy, Andre 'Ozymandias' Vrignaud for reaction, and, while declining detailed comment, he noted:

"Sony is facing the fact the Xbox 360 (thanks to being available a year earlier) is the default development platform for almost every game studio and publisher in the industry. It’s been built into the tool chain and processes, and primary development is happening on the Xbox 360 for almost every game you can find.

There’s a reason why the Xbox 360 version is almost always the version shown to press and analysts for new titles – often, the PS3 version isn’t even started yet, or is well behind in development."]

It's an interesting article to read, and it references the new PS3 blog that started just recently. What are your thoughts about development efforts between the two systems, as well as their online offerings?

That year head start is going to make the 360 much more succesful than the Xbox last gen. They took a note from Sony, who launched the PS2 ahead of the GC and XBOX. Hell, if they had cought on in Japan, it would almost be over for Sony. But, Kojima and Square Enix still show preference to Sony. One interesting gen, this is...

Ultimately, it comes down to which console maker is providing the most incentive to the companies, and they are responding accordingly.

Sony is trying to defend the archatecture. The issue is, that Sony has provided little, if any incentive to make exclusive 3rd party games on the platform - a stark contrast from the PS1 (easy development, great storage capacity, strong desire to grow), PS2 (huge marketshare allowing for near-certain profits).

This time around, Sony has given devs the 1-2-3 screwjob. The hardware, although powerful, is far too advanced for a typical studio to utilize the technology in any advantage over the 360 for many years, until studios are large enough to support 300-400 people per game (and costing $30m or more), or Sony provides enough help on the dev side to allow for much more efficent use of the cell to render a large advantage in capabilities over the 360, without increasing costs (unlikely.

2ndly, Sony has not given devs a financial incentive to make a game console-exclusive. I am sure to Capcom, SE, Namco et all, it was the obvious choice on which console to garner most exclusives, as PS2 always led on userbase, therefore was the easiest to get investors and managers the go-ahead, as many many games did well on the PS2 platform, even though the archatecture wasn't nearly as good (dev wise, no regards to power), as the much easier GameCube, and more advanced Xbox.

Thirdly, MS is offering more end-game support for franchises, which I believe, is, and will be, a huge boon to developers, and hopefully smaller ones in the future. When a company like Epic, Bethsada, or Rockstar, are able to create and distribute trailers, demos, and pay-for content for their games, they are given a huge incentive. Sony does have some of this, but since MS has about a 4 year lead (with the 1st Xbox), they have invested far more money, time, and effort into building such a huge userbase for the content (somewhere around 5m connected users by now, all willing and able to buy, and view the big companies content). Financially, this is important for companies to sell extra content like Shivering Isles for Oblivion, and extra content for Grand Theft Auto, as most of the content is made on the cheap (somewhere around 10% of the staff needed to create a game is needed for the extra content). This allows for millions of dollars to flow into their pockets, and keep a virtual presence and sales for even the most weak of games.

I'm merely comparing this in a PS3-X360 sence. Obviously many of these rules apply for the Wii. The userbase is growing, and is large, the cost of developing a game is cheaper, but #3 isn't there, and won't be for many years (even vs. the PS3), as Nintendo isn't really providing for these solutions (512mb ring a bell?).

To investors, it comes down to this:

Spend $20m on a Playstation 3 game, that has a 3.5m installed user base @ 3.0 attach ratio, with only minimal DL content profits
Spend $20m on a Xbox 360 game, that has a 10.0m installed user base @ 5.5 attach ratio and maximal DL content profits
Spend $10m on a Nintendo Wii game, that has a 8.0m installed user base @ 3.0 attach ratio and no DL content profits or availability.


Right now, which one(s) look like the best ones to shareholders? It's obviously the Wii, or 360. The worst, by far, is the PS3. Therefore, Devs would most likely use the 360 as the lead console, and port to PS3, as it'll gladly, and easily cover port costs, and make them money.

Overall, even if a game goes multi-plat, it goes strongly in favor of the 360. Why? Japan. The Xbox had great MP support last gen, and is used to it. But in Japan, it was content starved. With Namco coming full-force with J-games, it bodes well for the 360, as even if hardware sales due to MP PS3/360 games were a 4:1 ratio (which is way too much in the PS3s favor), it still better than the fact that there were none, if any, MP Xbox/PS2 games last gen.

And it all comes down to the fact that MS launched 1 year earlier. They are ahead of the game.

I think what's happening now (the X360 shift) would of happened without the early launch, but it would of been at a much much slower pace. Not only that, I just don't see how MS would of launched at the same time vs. the PS3/Wii.

Comes down to if you want to make a good multi platform game, you make it on PS3 and them port. Porting from 360 to PS3 is much harder. But devs have not proven to be all that smart so it might take them a while to figure it out.

I think that was the most unbiased statement I have ever heard from a Microsoft employee.

Blue, but platforming from X360 to PS3 is better, as the typically, the X360 version is slightly cheaper, and will garner far more sales.

I remember the numbers:

360 development Cost like 10 millon USD And just 1 or 3 millions to port make a port to the PS3
PS3 development Cost like 14 million USD And just 1 or 2 millions to port to the 360

development costs go way down if they use a multiplatform engine, but w/e.

i think that development started on 360 for almost everything since ms had more, better tools out faster. Im not giving sony an excuse cause it is clearly their fault for not helping devs make good ports or making them want to make good ports. as people learn the ps3 architecture they will start games on the ps3 and port to 360.