Gabe Slaps Everyone Across the Face

[CSN NewsBot]

Gaming blog, Kotaku, got up close and personal with the main man leading Valve, Gabe Newell. In the brief, but interesting interview, Gabe talks smack about the PC, PS3, and 360!

Newell wasn't nearly as happy with developing for the Playstation 3, saying that the console was much harder to develop for than the Xbox 360.



"I don't think they spent nearly enough time talking to developers when they were developing the PS3," he said. "It's less friendly for developers."



And Newell said he believes the issues are hardware, not software ones.



"It's a hardware architectural problem. I don't think they thought through the Cell architecture. The hardware is only as good as the software it enables."

Don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom from Gabe. He did have a few positive things to say, but only about the PC.

[Diamond Dust]

PC ownz, seems like allot of developers are frustrated with the ps3

[omgomgz]

The only problem is you need a $1000-2000 PC to play HL2 on the PC, yet a $279 xbox 360 will play it fine.



P.s. if Gabe loves the Wii so much, why can't he put CS on the Wii or something, so then maybe we'd have 1 FPS that's good.

[orion]

omgomgz wrote..

The only problem is you need a $1000-2000 PC to play HL2 on the PC, yet a $279 xbox 360 will play it fine.



P.s. if Gabe loves the Wii so much, why can't he put CS on the Wii or something, so then maybe we'd have 1 FPS that's good.

Considering I'm sitting on a $280 build I made for a customer that can handle HL2 at a decent framerate on low settings, I find your logic in price mildly off.

[kalabalana]

omgomgz wrote..

The only problem is you need a $1000-2000 PC to play HL2 on the PC, yet a $279 xbox 360 will play it fine.



P.s. if Gabe loves the Wii so much, why can't he put CS on the Wii or something, so then maybe we'd have 1 FPS that's good.

haha it's because console players believe moronic things like this, that an actual argument with them is impossible.

[omgomgz]

Edited by [user="381418"] @ [time="1188000804"]

orion wrote..

Considering I'm sitting on a $280 build I made for a customer that can handle HL2 at a decent framerate on low settings, I find your logic in price mildly off.

You're in a business and probably take apart old computers that people throw away and use the parts.



People who don't own a business aren't going to have motherboards and video cards stacked up in their garage. If you want to build a computer from scratch without borrowing supplies from your neighbors old computer or anyone, it's going to be at least around $500. That includes monitors, keyboards, mice, etc, external things you need.



Also: Maybe if you weren't sitting on it, it would be worth more than $280!!

kalabalana wrote..

haha it's because console players believe moronic things like this, that an actual argument with them is impossible.

The problem is that no one wants to pay $280 for a shitty computer that all they can play on it is HL2 on low settings with an average of 20FPS.

[rizzuh]

I've programmed on the Cell, and I really don't think it's as bad as some people say. The PS3 SDK is harder to setup than the Xbox 360 SDK, and the 360 is a better development platform — easier to work with, etc.



The "most different" part about the Cell is that it has its own memory space. Whereas on the Xbox 360 or PC, a separate core still shares the same main memory with the main processor — which has its own set of problems that are simply more familiar with programmers (and which the general "jobs" paradigm of things has kind of made disappear). So, your data has to fit in 256kb chunks to be processed.



Which means you're doing a lot of copies from main memory to these mini-processors on the Cell called SPUs. This is the hassle people talk about when talking about how hard the PS3 is to work with.



But check this out: all of that 256kb is instant access! There's no cache. On a PC or Xbox, when something isn't in the cache, the processor will effectively stall until the cache is filled with the data from main memory. The SPUs on the Cell do not have to wait at all, which is a tremendous benefit for many of the data-intensive tasks that games required now-a-days.



A lot of the libraries clearly suffer from ugliness added over successive SDK revisions — meaning they weren't well designed — and are only documented on the basic level. But when Gabe talks about the Cell, I think he's talking about spawning jobs and I don't think that is very convoluted or difficult. Working in your own memory space is just as complicated as race conditions or optimizing for the cache, it's just different.



I don't think Gabe's wrong. There's a legitimate argument that the PS3 is too different, and that the Cell is responsible for that. On the other hand, that shouldn't be a surprise — and if a jobs system is designed with the PS3 in mind, it shouldn't matter. I'm guessing, though, that HL2 was programmed primarily for the PC (and Xbox 360)... I'd like to know more of the technical reasoning behind Gabe's comments, though

[orion]

omgomgz wrote..

You're in a business and probably take apart old computers that people throw away and use the parts.



People who don't own a business aren't going to have motherboards and video cards stacked up in their garage. If you want to build a computer from scratch without borrowing supplies from your neighbors old computer or anyone, it's going to be at least around $500. That includes monitors, keyboards, mice, etc, external things you need.



Also: Maybe if you weren't sitting on it, it would be worth more than $280!!



The problem is that no one wants to pay $280 for a shitty computer that all they can play on it is HL2 on low settings with an average of 20FPS.

If by parts sitting around you mean, ordering through NewEgg, then sure. The game plays well, on low settings it runs rather smooth. I never said it was going to push the graphic threshold, but it will give you an enjoyable experience nonetheless. However, you did catch me, my customer is using an old monitor which saves roughly $100 dollars. Go figure, the total cost would've been around $380.

[Diamond Dust]

omgomgz wrote..

The only problem is you need a $1000-2000 PC to play HL2 on the PC, yet a $279 xbox 360 will play it fine.



P.s. if Gabe loves the Wii so much, why can't he put CS on the Wii or something, so then maybe we'd have 1 FPS that's good.

My computer runs bioshock on all high settings at 1680x1050, and I built it for around $700 a year ago, you can prob build the same for at least 200$ less now. A bit more expensive than a xbox 360 but certainly better performance. I like consoles just as much as the PC (especially for the price of low end PC you get medium/high performance and allot of user friendly things) but I do prefer FPS and RTS games on the PC, you just can't get that precision and speed with a controller that you can with a mouse and keyboard.



Also he doesn't mention the Wii anywhere in this article.

omgomgz wrote..

it's going to be at least around $500. That includes monitors, keyboards, mice, etc, external things you need.

You need to add a television to your xbox360 price then, because that is also worthless without a tv, not to mention a HD tv

[omgomgz]

Diamond Dust wrote..

Also he doesn't mention the Wii anywhere in this article.

Exactly, this article is about the consoles he doesn't like. He has voiced his opinion about the Wii before and apparently really likes it.

You need to add a television to your xbox360 price then, because that is also worthless without a tv, not to mention a HD tv

True, but I'd take a stab in the dark and say that more people in North America have TV's in their home than computers. TV's have a primary purpose, watching TV programs, movies etc. and are not specific to gaming. You'd expect someone who wants to buy an XBOX 360 already HAS a TV, correct?

[ma_cherie]

i built my computer for ~300$ ($40 mobo, $100 gfx, $100 proc, $60 ram) already had the hd's and everything as most people here should... and i can run hl2 on high just fine... keep in mind this computer is about 2-3 years old

[omgomgz]

Most of you are not including small stuff which adds up. Let's say for example, you get a cheap monitor, mouse, keyboard, and we'll also assume that you're using onboard sound. That'll be close to $100 (plus $10-20 for cheap headphones/speakers), and that's if you get them cheap. If you don't have a hard drive, you'll have to buy that, then you have to fork over another $100 for Windows XP. Sure, you could have a copy of XP around and just use that, but the whole point of this is that you are building it from scratch which is what I was setting my price range on.

[Crilix]

Edited by [user="194305"] @ [time="1188017299"]

I think that if there isn't a computer already in the home, chances are no one will buy any electronic game period. How many households don't have any kind of computer to even surf the internet, but buy new technology like the XBbox 360 and new games?



That being said, even if there isn't an existing computer in the home to borrow the "basic stuff" from, the technology is still *very* cheap to buy a new computer that'll handle HL2, that comes WITH the basic peripherals (mouse/keyboard/speakers).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a...2E16883103055



Still, that only requires a monitor, but those can't possibly cost enough to even enter the $1000-$2000 range (if you're getting something entry level to match your system).



But yes you are right. It still does cost less to get a 360 and play with full settings than it does to get a computer that will match it. If you want to be on par with the XBox, the $1000-2000 for a upper-range comp does sound accurate.



But you *can* play HL2 on a PC for less, and in my opinion, the computer has so much more funtionality that every dollar spent over that of a 360 is well worth it. Not to mention the PC has free multiplayer whereas you'd have to pay for a XBox Live account.



Also, if you're assuming everyone has a TV keep in mind that the average set it a standard, low-res 640x480 unit that you wouldn't want to play games on either.

-Cril

[Barret80]

I think Gabe is kind of being stupid about this in a way. Because maybe the ps3 is harder to develop for if they start on the PC or XBox360, but companies like Insomniac (made Resistance Fall Of Man) and other game companies that develop exclusively for the PS3 seem to have no problems with it because it was first built for the PS3. I think the technology is different and people just wanna go out and say its so much harder to develop for because they are just used to something else that could be lower or higher in standards for developing.



In my opinion I think you could do more with the PS3 than the Xbox360, its just the Xbox360 was out first and the developers think it should be just like the Xbox360 developing standards, which it is not because the ps3 has the Cell Processor and other different hardwares inside.

[Thortok2000]

In terms of PC versus console, I prefer PC, generally. I like being able to swap between my video game, chatting with my girlfriend online, checking my e-mail, visiting my webcomics daily, checking CS-Nation comments daily, etc.



Console, to me, is more fun if you have a freakin' awesome TV, a multiplayer game, and some friends. It's more fun to play in-person multiplayer with a console than with LAN party. Easier, too.



Not that LAN parties are bad, they're great for more than 4 people.



It really isn't a comparison. The 'casual gamer' will either get a game that can run on the PC he already owns, or he'll get a console and probably 2-3 games for it. The hardcore gamer, on the other hand, is more likely to have both PC and consoles anyway.



One thing I got is a TV Tuner, and I hook up my consoles and play them on my computer monitor. I can even record directly from the games I play as well. Fun stuff. Best of both worlds, in my opinion. =P



~



As for the PS3 being hard to develop for, I've heard that a lot, but also, mostly from Valve. I think it's a matter of old dogs learning new tricks. =P Changes and improvements in technology often seem 'harder', or not worth the energy to do it differently, etc.



Not that I have any clue that the PS3 is any better, I'm just basing that off what I gathered from rizzuh's comment.



I will say that it interests me, as I want to get into video game programming...don't think it'll ever happen though...*sigh* My life just isn't headed in that direction. -.-