Excellent posts MikeB and Procrastinato, I wish I knew that much about the PS3's hardware :(

@ theRepublic

I was talking with regard to low-level development, high level developers are of course dependent on the work already done for them by low-level developers. So if you ask a high level developer, you are basically asking about the current state of the middleware / game engine they are using.

So opinions can then differ a lot as different companies will use different middleware. And middleware can dramatically improve, like is already the case on the PS3. So one year such a dev may say it's incredibly hard to work with and the next year say it's the easiest games platform to work with by far.

So IMO it's much better to ask the technically more knowledgable developers who are well familiar with the architecture, they are also the ones who will provide the high level devs with advancements, thus IMO it's most important they can work well on the platform.

Good reading material from GDC 2009:

* A Killzone 2 Case Study:

http://cmpmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/vault/gdc09/slides/GDC2009-vdLeeuw-KZ2SPUsCaseStudy.pdf

Insomniac:

* Physics: http://www.gdconf.com/conference/Tutorial%20Handouts/200_insomniac/gdc09_insomniac_physics.pdf
* Prelighting: http://www.gdconf.com/conference/Tutorial%20Handouts/200_insomniac/gdc09_insomniac_prelighting.pdf
* Software for Cell: http://www.gdconf.com/conference/Tutorial%20Handouts/200_insomniac/gdc09_insomniac_software_for_the_cell.pdf
* Gameplay: http://www.gdconf.com/conference/Tutorial%20Handouts/200_insomniac/gdc09_insomniac_spu_gameplay.pdf
* SPU Wrangling: http://www.gdconf.com/conference/Tutorial%20Handouts/200_insomniac/gdc09_insomniac_spu_wrangling.pdf