Valve's Stance on PlayStation 3 Development

[Shawn Zipay]

As if you don't already know what Valve's stance is on developing for the PlayStation 3, they are more than happy to remind everyone.

The Orange Box was developed by the UK branch of Electronic Arts, and the original Left 4 Dead was never planned for the PS3. Why all of the PS3 hate from the team? Designer Tom Leonard gives a clear answer.

The PC and the 360 are just more straightforward. We can focus on what we want to do, which is make game experiences, instead of sweating bullets over obscure architectural decisions they make with their platform. [...] I didn’t come into this business in the 90s because of some technical fetish. I came in because I wanted to give people experiences that made them have fun.

Many developers have claimed that coding a game for the Xbox 360 and PC are quite similar in nature, and that designing a game for the PS3 is quite a bit more difficult. At least now gamers know once more why there is no PS3 version of Left 4 Dead and won't be a PS3 version of Left 4 Dead 2.

[Ev!L ErN!E]

Re: Valve's Stance on PlayStation 3 Development

screw all those lazy bastards who won't make a game for the PS3....

[K-16]

Re: Valve's Stance on PlayStation 3 Development

From what I've learned about the PlayStation 3, the design is actually rather unusual from a technical standpoint, since it's somewhat redundant and unnecessary. Of course, this is entirely from my perspective so there's reason to argue with me here. Nevertheless, here's what I know (whether it's right or wrong will require someone else to confirm it):

All DMA access has to be done though a single PowerPC core before being individually broken up and given to the SPEs/7 vector-unit based co-processing nodes (each can only address their own independent 256KB cache), along with the instructions on what to do with it. There's obviously power there, but the work to get it running is where it gets unusual. By unusual I mean, the PlayStation 3 is the only system that requires you to split the darn thing, rather than just have it running through the single core unit. The system memory is segregated between the Cell and the RSX. Given that the XMB is around 85MB of RAM there's less than 170MB of world/physics/AI data that can be dynamic (once you take into account the game engine itself). This also means there isn't a lot of room to put high definition textures into the game without sacrificing game performance or overall world geometry, despite the Blu-Ray discs easily having the necessary capacity for it (unless you seriously want to ask the developers to stream high-definition textures, but uh... This is going to make your game run as fast as Porky Pig reading the Karma Sutra).

So yes, you could optimise the game to run very well on the PlayStation 3, but for the most part, the game needs to be designed for the PlayStation 3 to begin with, in order to adapt to the strange restrictions (note how Metal Gear Solid 4 still has loading zones). Why is the system so convoluted to develop on to begin with, when it gives no actual benefit in terms of the overall result of the finalised product (by that I mean the game)? An easy example of this is Devil May Cry 4, with the 20-minute install requirement for the PlayStation 3, while the Xbox 360 runs right off of the disc. Capcom's excuse involved seamless load times, implying it has a loading advantage to the Xbox 360 version. This is true... By about 4 seconds per loading screen, and this is being generous. It did not go as fast as "Super Nintendo speeds" as previously claimed, but it did load fast... Just that consumers lost 5 GB on their hard drive and the initial 20 minutes just to load faster than the Xbox 360 version by about 4 seconds each. Clearly, the wasted potential in the design itself is what bothers developers the most. And it's also why EA can't seem to get the performance down when attempting the PlayStation 3 ports for VALVe's games.

Side note: Most developers port their PC Games to Xbox 360 and vice-versa because their XDKs are designed to be similar to developing a PC title. Whether that's programming, design, interface, or all of the above is unknown to me. Please note how Nintendo's Wii development is really just another GameCube though slightly improved. Unfortunately, Nintendo's market pretty much requires a new control interface for the game to be remotely profitable, as well as some sort of adaptation to their online service, since admittedly speaking, it's the worst.