Carmack: "PS3 = PITA"

[klah]

http://www.totalvideogames.com/news/...8194_0_0.htm

15 Aug 2005

US gaming magazine chats with id Software's Todd Hollenshead...

During a recent interview with the US gaming magazine, Game Informer, id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead revealed a little about the developer?s future plans and their thoughts on the next-generation of consoles.

Revealing that their next title after Quake 4 will be for the Playstation3 and Xbox360, Hollenshead reported that Co-Founder, Technical Director and videogame legend John Carmack?s impression of both systems was ?great? for the Xbox360 and ?pain in my ass? for the more demanding Playstation3.

 

[hans030390]

He's just lazy to program the game properly for all the cores on the ps3

jk

Still, i thought we knew that the ps3 was hard to develop for, and the xbox360 being a lot easier. Hopefully we get some developers that don't complain about the PS3 and actually code the game right to utilize its full power (in which it SHOULD beat xbox 360 then)...but, that's not likely to happen. So I could see the xbox 360 being "better" than ps3. Still, I'm a PS fan...I'll be going with the PS3 (and xbox 360 doesnt have any appealing games to me...not even halo 3).

 

[coomar]

this was obvious from when they annouced the ps3, cell is on intels roadmap for 2010, if multi-threaded apps are a lot harder to code for, think about cell, its 9 cores, its pratically an alien concept

i didn't really understand their decision there, its all about games and the smaller companies that make quirky games are probably going to run into difficulties, sony really needs the ps3 and to take such a huge risk on it seems kind of weird

and i'm a ps2 fan, i hate the xbox controller and i bought a ps2 the week it came out (mine is so old, sigh)

 

[Todd33]

The SPUs in the cell are not like CPUs, it's not 9 cores. the Xbox360 is harder in some respects with three seperate cores all sharing a limited cache. It will take some time to learn both systems, I don't think Carmack is qualified at this point having never used either. IBM already has Linux, gcc, gdb, etc. for the Cell and they are already shipping to OEMs.

 

[Intelia]

Its kinda a 2 edged sword . ya its harder but sony is going to be way ahead of the game when Cell really does take off. My advice buy Sony stock.

 

[Inappropriate4AT]

Well if it's anything true to the original the Xbox 360 will be powered by DirectX and have a Windows API integrated, and therefore be much more familiar to someone like Carmack.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Intelia
Its kinda a 2 edged sword . ya its harder but sony is going to be way ahead of the game when Cell really does take off. My advice buy Sony stock.

when? In 5 years when we'll already have new consoles?

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: Intelia
Its kinda a 2 edged sword . ya its harder but sony is going to be way ahead of the game when Cell really does take off. My advice buy Sony stock.

As the console market has always shown in history is that the first of the next gen console ALWAYS do better than the ones coming after.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Its kinda a 2 edged sword . ya its harder but sony is going to be way ahead of the game when Cell really does take off. My advice buy Sony stock.

Great! We have a 13 year old inexperienced stock broker providing us free financial advice.

 

[coomar]

if the 2 major cpu companies are looking at cell for 2010, what makes you think sony can make this work in 2006, consoles are about the games and right now xbox360 looks to have 2 advantages, free 4x AA (which is huge for TV displays) and its easier to program, probably for the first 12-18 months its out, they'll have one core run the engine, one do the sound and one video/compression/decompression which will ease the programming load

 

[BenSkywalker]

As the console market has always shown in history is that the first of the next gen console ALWAYS do better than the ones coming after.

You are talking about how the 7800 beat the NES?

Or how the Genesis beat the SNES?

Or how the Saturn beat the PSX?

Or when the DreamCast whipped the PS2?

In reality, the first shipping system hasn't ended up winning the generation since prior to the 8bit NES, the Genesis did the best, but only in the Western markets(and even there it lost out).

My advice buy Sony stock.

Sony is losing marketshare in the gamin industry and their consumer electronics division is sickeningly poor right now. What do you see being the viable reason to buy Sony?

 

[Pocatello]

Sony does offer some nice electronics, but nothing better than the competitions. I would not put a cent into Sony's stock, unless I would like to be a penny poorer.

 

[mwmorph]

I just dont understand why buy into cell. It jhas 1 good core, 1 locked system core and 7 basic math cores which makes it utterly inflexible. Unless yur game is completely physics based or a calculator, I dont see how anyone can take advantage of all those cores effectively.

 

[sisq0kidd]

Originally posted by: Intelia
Its kinda a 2 edged sword . ya its harder but sony is going to be way ahead of the game when Cell really does take off. My advice buy Sony stock.

How is that a 2 edged sword?

 

[skace]

I believe it would be a pain in the ass for Carmack because he is making a game for multiple systems, and he probably can't simply port it to the PS3, he is going to have to make major changes to get it to effectively utilize the system, that translates to ass pain. If someone is going in writing an exclusive game for only the PS3, it is not going to be as bad for them because they only have to write the game to run on that one type of architecture.

Also, I don't think DirectX API has anything to do with why Carmack likes the Xbox360, considering they use OpenGL in all their games. Carmack has slammed DirectX enough times in the past.

 

[bersl2]

What I hear is that if you figured out how to code for the PS2, you'll have no problems with the PS3.

Carmack is not a game console programmer. Nor should he necessarily become one.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Didn't Carmack criticize both Microsoft and Sony for using the processors they are using? It is interesting but having a lead game programmer such as Carmack come out and say what he did is a pretty big coup in the marketing FUD that is XBOX 360 and PS3.

 

[blckgrffn]

I don't think anyone here can call Carmack a lazy programmer, either

Really, he has been someone who squeezes hardware tremendously every time he creates a game engine. He is super dedicated to his vision, hardware limitations be damned. I wish I was half as smart and a quarter as driven as he is. It will be a sad day when he leaves the PC industry.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: michaelpatrick33
Didn't Carmack criticize both Microsoft and Sony for using the processors they are using? It is interesting but having a lead game programmer such as Carmack come out and say what he did is a pretty big coup in the marketing FUD that is XBOX 360 and PS3.

As did Anand, although the article was pulled from the site almost immediately. From what I remember, it was said that the Xbox 360's CPU would be roughly twice as powerful as the current Xbox's CPU. That puts it behind PC processors from 3 years ago. The good news is that the GPU will be pretty powerful. Just look what developers have been able to do with the GPU in the original Xbox which is basically a GeForce 3. Games like Forza running on a 733 MHz Pentium 3 with a GeForce 3 video card and only 64 MB of RAM... that's pretty amazing.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I think if rumours of ps3 hard disc being optional then it would be harder to program cause no swap file, reading game data from dvds/blue ray is slower than hard disc.

Xbox360 is more similar to PC then PS3 is, id software mainly does pc games so it would be easier for them.

Then again PS2 won eventhough it was harder to program than xbox. But this generation will be different, game companies know Microsoft are now reputable game console company while before xbox they didnt know what to expect.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: DrZoidberg
I think if rumours of ps3 hard disc being optional then it would be harder to program cause no swap file, reading game data from dvds/blue ray is slower than hard disc.

Xbox360 is more similar to PC then PS3 is, id software mainly does pc games so it would be easier for them.

Then again PS2 won eventhough it was harder to program than xbox. But this generation will be different, game companies know Microsoft are now reputable game console company while before xbox they didnt know what to expect.

PS2 won what?

 

[DarkKnight]

i find it funny that when gabe newell and john carmack, 2 of the best programmers in the industry that have both made beautiful and efficient engines, criticize the next gen consoles, console fanboys call them both lazy developers, even though most of the fanboys have never tried writing complex code in their lives. luckly most of the ppl on anandtech are not this stupid, but go into an xbox or ps forum and its filled with them.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

You are talking about how the 7800 beat the NES?

Or how the Genesis beat the SNES?

Or how the Saturn beat the PSX?

Or when the DreamCast whipped the PS2?

I would probably drop your Sega generations down one. NES - Genesis. Saturn - SNES. DC - PSX. Nothing - PS2.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: joshsquall

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

You are talking about how the 7800 beat the NES?

Or how the Genesis beat the SNES?

Or how the Saturn beat the PSX?

Or when the DreamCast whipped the PS2?

I would probably drop your Sega generations down one. NES - Genesis. Saturn - SNES. DC - PSX. Nothing - PS2.

I wouldn't... NES wasn't comparable to Genesis... Genesis competed with SNES. Nintendo didn't really have anything to compete with 32X or Saturn or 3DO. It wasn't till 3DO, Playstation, and Dreamcast came out that Nintendo made the N64.

 

[DarkKnight]

Originally posted by: joshsquall

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker

You are talking about how the 7800 beat the NES?

Or how the Genesis beat the SNES?

Or how the Saturn beat the PSX?

Or when the DreamCast whipped the PS2?

I would probably drop your Sega generations down one. NES - Genesis. Saturn - SNES. DC - PSX. Nothing - PS2.

I think u have ur generations wrong there.

its

NES, Sega Master system?
Genesis SNES
Saturn PSX N64
DC, PS2, XBOX and GC

there maybe other systems in there, but i think the Sega, Nintendo, and Sony ones were the biggest.