Tecmo on PS3 Development

[bapenguin]

Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/08/24/news_6131844.html) has a story regarding some comments Tecmo made on PS3 development. Tecmo hasn't confirmed they are developing anything for the system yet, and Tecmo president Junji Nakamura had this to say:

Nakakura stated that development of Xbox 360 games will cost 20 percent more than current platforms.

When asked about developing for the PlayStation 3, Nakamura commented that the console feels different to gamer creators than the Xbox 360 and current consoles. He believes the developers will need to change their ways of thinking to adapt to the PS3's architecture.
A Sony system that is difficult to program for? Shocking!

[RichardTowler]

lets hope we don't have a situation where only 2 developers can actually program for the console and the other 90% of games end up looking like slightly updated ps2 games, but I actually doubt that will happen this time around:)

[MosBen]

No, what we're actually going to get is 90% of games looking like 360 or Revolution games, whichever is the lowest common denominator.

[Vandenh]

>change their ways of thinking to adapt to the PS3's architecture.

In many ways 360 is the same... but MS has much better tools than Sony, that is how they are trying to win the "console" war. Better dev support and better end-user experience. Sony can design good looking products, but have always struggled with good designed hardware. I am a bit amazed actually that it looks like they are going to pull a PS2 again. I was hoping they had learned their lesson.

Like someone said on EG.. the 360 has Visual Studio, the PS3 has an assembler. :rolleyes:

[Bydo_Empire]

>Like someone said on EG.. the 360 has Visual Studio, the PS3 has an assembler.
If you've ever had vs.net just up and die on you while you're in the middle of typing a line of code, you might say that's a good thing. ^_^ Plus, ALL platforms have CodeWrite. Since I would guess 99% of next-gen developers are going to be using middleware of some sort, I think it's a little early to be saying how much of an impact dev tools will make. Although MS's tools have been generally pretty good compared to Sony.

[Xerxes]

No... Tecmo is I think two main groups mind you. Team Ninja being the flagship group, the other group made digimon games for ps2. The both sorta have free reign I guess all the other group, aren't out spoken and have been making monster rancher games all this time. Sounds like shut up and do this. Team Ninja led by Itagaki is outspoken and seems to picks a system and sticks with it until switching to another. I think the shut up and do it group did the Fatal Frame games or there maybe another group in place now.

[Dracula-X]

Does "feels different" necessarily mean "difficult" ? CPU issues notwithstanding, there is no DirectX for PS3, you've got OpenGL, that's different and actually easier than DX at the same time. </devil's advocate>

[Vandenh]

>that's different and actually easier than DX at the same time.

Hu?

Anyway... "feels different" is just a politically correct way of saying "more difficult" for Japanese people ;)

[Crenor]

lol, so PS3 will cost WAY more than 20% to develop for

[Dracula-X]

>that's different and actually easier than DX at the same time.

Hu?
I've always found OGL to be less problematic, but my bias goes back to DX 3.0 when it was not much more than a persistant headache to work with (granted, DX has come a *long* way) and seeing as Sony has adopted OpenGL/ES for it's api I was trying to make the point that it can't be *that* much more difficult than the 360, but the CPU issues are a whole other matter.

Anyway... "feels different" is just a politically correct way of saying "more difficult" for Japanese people ;)
yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what it is, I just wanted to chime in and champion OGL for a second or two. :) Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

[Xerxes]

Wait, what the hell is XNA again...

[Worldcrafter]

It's an API designed for game design. So if a developer wants to quickly do collision detection, he can just call the XNA functions that make it so. It's the DirectX/OpenGL of game design.

Weren't developers making the same complaints about the PS2 being hard to develop for when it first came around? I'm sure they'll figure something out. If nothing else, we'll be playing nothing but Unreal Engine 3 based games on the PS3.

[Twigz'N'Berries]

The SPes do seem more difficult to program for if you listen to the developers. That Gundam game for PS3 had stated they were only working off of the main processor. They hadn't gotten around to implementing effects on the SPEs yet. To me, that sounds as if they had gotten that far on the central cpu because they were having issues (or saw no reason) programming on those 7 little buddies...yet. They said they were going to start farming out duties to the SPEs later in development.

[Rangoth]

Having looked at the design specs that Sony has released for the Cell chips and everything I would have nightmares coding for it.

[mister_slim]

Aside from Ninja Gaiden, the non-Team Ninja stuff from has always impressed me more.

[Twigz'N'Berries]

Aside from Ninja Gaiden, the non-Team Ninja stuff from has always impressed me more.

Really?
Hmm...the DOA series is the biggest contribution from TN now that I think of it. That is basically a take-it-or-leave it franchise. I guess I would have to agree with you.

[Xerxes]

I like the DOA series, the volleyball game, and ninga gaiden...

[Zanzibar]

Does "feels different" necessarily mean "difficult" ? CPU issues notwithstanding, there is no DirectX for PS3, you've got OpenGL, that's different and actually easier than DX at the same time. </devil's advocate>

Anytime someone is saying 'You have to change the way you're doing something you've been doing the same way for years,' you are going to find it inherently difficult.