I wouldn't take it as being anything more than spin on the statement 'We brought out this tech before the auxiliary tech (compilers, middleware, etc) had a chance to be specialized for the hardware'

"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?"

I know he will never stop surprising people with what he says.

Kaz can't possibly be stupid, or egotistical, enough to actually believe what is written here. I don't know if the source interview was conducted in English and Kaz doesn't speak English well, or if the source was in Japanese and this is how it wound up translated, but what Kaz is allegedly saying here really makes no sense on a number of levels.

You don't deliberately make a console difficult to develop for just to prolong the development lifecycle and artificially inflate the learning curve. I can only assume what Kaz meant was that Sony went with the most powerful thing they could offer, and if the developers can't figure it out, so be it, Kaz isn't going to apologize for Sony pushing the envelope.

Obviously, the jumps from Resistance to Killzone 2, or even just MotorStorm to Pacific Rift, suggest there WAS a HUGE learning curve, and probably still is to tap all the power of the system.

Krazy Kaz reigns! Krazy Ken weeps.

No, the problem was different. The Cell was planned as the main processor while for the normal small scale graphics stuff they planned a so called companion chip, a kind of small scale graphics processor while the SPUs in the cell were designed for all bigger graphic operations. But when the cell was finished Sony realized that they were unable to make the companion that would have been manufactured by Toshiba and they had to buy an existing GPU. In this moment their programming modell broke down. GPU and cell were never designed to work with each other.

In a way Killzone 2 obviously emulates this behaviour. But I think for most games this is simply too expensive.

I don't think they make it purposefully difficult to work with at all. I think they know something that the rest of the world seemingly doesn't for a long time come sure, but purposefully difficult is now how I would describe it.

Sony consoles in the past have never been the go to for learning curves. But they way Sony does things always manages to impress for a long time to come. To me it's fascinating :P I like that they think differently, and in a way I can see what he's talking about. I mentioned numerous times in other threads, if you make your console completely open, then there's very little discovery to be brought around. Your not going to "find" some magical pool of resources.

Sony's a company that's helped pioneer many a products over it's lifespan. They're not quite known for taking the beaten path. It makes them interesting IMO :) Most developers don't understand how to work on the PS3 properly, and it's completely understandable why. However, some developers have had an absolute blast working with something different and getting to pioneer new tech in uncharted territory. Take Criterion for example. They love that little black box >_>

@ ChronotriggerJM

.....couldn't of put it better myself

Are you trying to say there is more potential with Sony's brand of uncharted tech, or are you saying developers should find it adventurous to walk off the beaten path and learn a new tech every generation?

That's like saying it's more important to learn about paint, than about painting. It's ridiculous unless you make paint.

nordlead said: As a computer engineer I hang my head in shame to think people like Kaz exist So rather than make your console have good games as soon as possible, you make programmers lives miserable, games take longer to develop to achieve the same quality, costs skyrocket, along with a host of other problems that gain you absolutely nothing but grief. Now, I don't really think they thought this when they first designed the PS3 with the CELL and RSX chip (or whatever their graphics chip is). I think this is Kaz making lame excuses on why it is so hard to program for the PS3. Also throw in marketing probably forced them to make "the most powerful" console, and I'm sure some Sony engineers are sorry they made it how they did.

^ This.

However, let it be said that I don't believe what Kaz said. It's most likely just spin, they didn't really make the console hard to develop for on purpose.

Of course, they didn't really care much about development ease either, which is almost as big a problem.