Brad Grenz
Member
If the PS3 had launched with dev tools just as good as the 360's, it still would have been a bigger pain to program because the underlying hardware was more complicated. If MS is shipping the Durango with more complicated underlying hardware than Orbis, the quality of the dev tools won't necessarily make up for that fact, especially when Sony has reached near parity (reportedly) with the tools for their last two platforms.
Trying to keep 8 cores fed alone, versus 4 on Orbis alone would pose certain challenges, but if they're also adding multiple, additional (programmable?) exotic hardware blocks to the system that is an additional challenge. If all that' automated, I might question the utility or desirability of what they add, and if they're highly flexible the burden will be on the programmers, which makes me wonder if they wouldn't simply prefer a 50% more powerful GPU.
Trying to keep 8 cores fed alone, versus 4 on Orbis alone would pose certain challenges, but if they're also adding multiple, additional (programmable?) exotic hardware blocks to the system that is an additional challenge. If all that' automated, I might question the utility or desirability of what they add, and if they're highly flexible the burden will be on the programmers, which makes me wonder if they wouldn't simply prefer a 50% more powerful GPU.