I have decided that if theres a noticeable difference its the fault of the developer rather than the capabilities of either console. The number one issue here is that most developers make every attempt to make both versions equal, because bad press on one version is always bad for the sales potential of both versions.

So my questions are.

1. Should developers be making every effort to make both versions equal even spiting obvious advantages of either console for the sake of fairness and equality?

2. Am I right that multiplatform development differences stem mainly from faults in the development process rather than the mechanics of the individual consoles because equality is usually the intention anyway?

1 - To a degree. Developers should make the game look as good as possible on both platforms. They can't have major differences between the two versions for sales reasons, but cutting too much out of one version isn't really fair for the better console.

2 - It is partly the developer's and the console manufacturer's fault. The developers should really have seperate teams working ground-up on both versions. However, had the 360 and PS3's hardware been closer to the PC in tech, the games would cost less, they would look similar, developers wouldn't lose as much sleep, and more games would come out on PC, damnit.

1. I agree, I suppose. But they did it last gen, and I don't see why they won't continue to do it this gen.

2. I'm sure this varies greatly per game. Things range from familiarity with each console, Sony's lacking development tools early this gen (and still quite lacking, in some people's opinions), and sheer laziness or lack of know how. In the end, it will be impossible to get things 100% identical, whether it's the ps3's warmer tone rendering, or differences in AA methods between consoles.

1. The consoles both have their strengths and the end result is about the same.

2. Multiplats should be developed on the PS3 first, imo. It's harder to develop for, so moving from the PS3 to the 360/PC is far more efficient.

As for faults in the development process causing multiplat inconsistancies, yes, but not necessarily in the most obvious ways.

2. The reason is that the best coding practices for the PS3 work well on the Xbox360, you never run out of memory if you base it on the PS3s capabilities and there are a few similarities between the SPEs and the VMX units in the Xbox360.

1. Personally, I wish all console games were exclusive, for this very reason. My top ten favorite games are exclusives. The other two would have been better if they were.

2. Due to CPU's hitting a wall in how fast they can become, we have moved to a world of distributive processing. The 360 does it in a way where you can get 1/3 of the power out of it without even doing this. The PS3 requires developers to distribute there code. This requires developers to embrace the future now if they want to make a PS3 game. Developers with poor distributed development understanding can still make a good 360 game. So it's no ones fault really, we were just in a few year span where developers had to learn something new. I think that's mainly over, as all the mulit-plat games going forward seem to be the same.

@2 I think its also a question of architectures. You're also comparing symetrical multicore to asymetrical multicore. There are lines of debate as to whether the future lies in either so I won't get into it, but the issue is still there.

Kind of. If the 360 was made up of 20 cores and not 3, the probelm would be the same for the 360 as it is for the SPE's. It's not that they needed to code diferently for the SPE's, it's that they needed to distribute there code.

Its more work but several developers have shown it can be done and done well it takes a lot of work