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GDC '08: LucasArts prioritizing PS3, Unleashing Force

Z

ZeroTolerance

Junior Member
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6186606.html

SAN FRANCISCO--In recent months, the PlayStation 3 versions of many multiplatform games have been released after their Xbox 360 counterparts--or canceled outright. Others, like Grand Theft Auto IV, have seen both versions delayed because, having optimized the game first on the 360, the developers encountered difficulties with the PS3 edition.

Though its forthcoming game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, started development on the Xbox 360, LucasArts' "new baseline" will be Sony's console.

"Our next project will use the PS3 as the baseline, and then apply that to the Xbox 360," said Haden Blackman, project lead for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

After some hard-learned lessons in developing The Force Unleashed, LucasArts now has a strategy for future multiplatform titles: develop the PS3 version first.

The new game was demoed for first time in public by the developer -- which almost made a new KOTOR instead.
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Seems more devs are following suit.
 
LucasArts +1
 
So is it because the PS3 is harder to develop for, developers need to do this? I mean, the bonus is that the PS3 versions of multiplatform games will probably look better, right? So having PS3 hard to develop for was a strategy of Sony's all along?
 
SHOTEH FOCK OP said:
So is it because the PS3 is harder to develop for, developers need to do this? I mean, the bonus is that the PS3 versions of multiplatform games will probably look better, right? So having PS3 hard to develop for was a strategy of Sony's all along?
Click to expand...
It's not that it's HARDER to develop for, but it's DIFFERENT to develop for.
 
After some hard-learned lessons in developing The Force Unleashed, LucasArts now has a strategy for future multiplatform titles: develop the PS3 version first.
Click to expand...

As someone that was looking forward to TFU, that's not something I wanted to hear.
 
I couldn't care less which system is their lead console, but I do know Force Unleashed will be awesome. Can't wait for that one on either system.
 
ZeroTolerance said:
Well after all the shit that Sony devs showed at GDC, it would make a lotta of sense for all multiplatform titles to follow suit i guess.
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What did they show? I haven't been keeping up on GDC this year.

Also, what is the benefit of making PS3 the lead platform? Is the porting easier going this route? Wouldn't it be better to have, say, a 50 person team with 10 people exclusive to PS3 platform and another 10 on 360, with the rest working on art assets and level design and stuff?
 
SHOTEH FOCK OP said:
So is it because the PS3 is harder to develop for, developers need to do this? I mean, the bonus is that the PS3 versions of multiplatform games will probably look better, right? So having PS3 hard to develop for was a strategy of Sony's all along?
Click to expand...

:lol :lol :lol :lol

I love it
 
Spike said:
What did they show? I haven't been keeping up on GDC this year.

Also, what is the benefit of making PS3 the lead platform? Is the porting easier going this route? Wouldn't it be better to have, say, a 50 person team with 10 people exclusive to PS3 platform and another 10 on 360, with the rest working on art assets and level design and stuff?
Click to expand...

According to Criterion their life was made much easier when porting BOP because they lead on the PS3. As they pointed out, many developers seem to struggle when going from the 360 to the PS3 while they didn't with the way they ported their game. So it seems like it's easier to go from the PS3 to the 360.
 
Spike said:
What did they show? I haven't been keeping up on GDC this year.

Also, what is the benefit of making PS3 the lead platform? Is the porting easier going this route? Wouldn't it be better to have, say, a 50 person team with 10 people exclusive to PS3 platform and another 10 on 360, with the rest working on art assets and level design and stuff?
Click to expand...
New cross platform tool. Aren't you a dev???
 
SolidSnakex said:
According to Criterion their life was made much easier when porting BOP because they lead on the PS3. As they pointed out, many developers seem to struggle when going from the 360 to the PS3 while they didn't with the way they ported their game. So it seems like it's easier to go from the PS3 to the 360.
Click to expand...

Burnout had no lead platform.

It was a multi-core game built on pc then brought to ps3 and 360 they simply had more ps3 dev kits and forced more of their team to work on the ps3 version because they wanted to take the easy way out and just work with the 360.
 
CowboyAstronaut said:
Burnout had no lead platform.
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Yes it did.

Everyone seems to be leading on Xbox 360. Why did you decide to make the PS3 your main SKU for Burnout?

Channon: We've always led on the Sony platforms. Historically at Criterion we've always done that and we didn't want this year to be any different. We've always loved Sony machines and we've loved PS3 from the start, we think it's a fantastic machine. We felt very strongly about that.

So from the beginning we were always going to lead on PS3 and our transition between the two machines has been really seamless and straight-forward, where as other people have lead on 360 and found it hard to get on PS3.

We've had none of those problems. We really like 360 and if you get the opportunity to play it the two versions are exactly the same. I think we've really reaped the benefits of leading on PS3 because of that.
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http://computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=176610
 
So this is everything AFTER (but not including) Force Unleashed? Do they even have any other highly anticipated titles in the pipeline? What about that upcoming Indiana game?
 
Do not really care about Lucas Arts, but if other devs follow this, I wouldn't mind as long as all the power of the 360 is tapped, and the game looks as good as it can get on my platform of choice. What is wrong with the PS3 version looking similar?
SHOTEH FOCK OP said:
So is it because the PS3 is harder to develop for, developers need to do this? I mean, the bonus is that the PS3 versions of multiplatform games will probably look better, right? So having PS3 hard to develop for was a strategy of Sony's all along?
Click to expand...
We don't know this yet. If all the devs will gain is a role reversal in quality, then why attempt this? They are still selling more with the 360.
 
so if by leading on ps3 gets you a game that is exactly the same as the xbox 360 version, then where's the real benefit of being a lead platform?
 
davepoobond said:
so if by leading on ps3 gets you a game that is exactly the same as the xbox 360 version, then where's the real benefit of being a lead platform?
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That it will look at least as good as the 360 version and not worse. Look at Turok. My brother got it for the PS3 a while ago... never again. The PS3 excells in graphics with its exclusives, so I do not think this fact speaks of the capabilities of the machine.
 
davepoobond said:
so if by leading on ps3 gets you a game that is exactly the same as the xbox 360 version, then where's the real benefit of being a lead platform?
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Apparently that's enough benefit for the dev having nearly identical copies. Rather than taking heat for inferior ports on consoles that they like to say are basically equal in power, making them look like they're slacking.

I never really expect 3rd party porterhouses to really push system software anyways. For that, you'll have to look at exclusives to see what your machines can really do.
 
Spike said:
Also, what is the benefit of making PS3 the lead platform? Is the porting easier going this route? Wouldn't it be better to have, say, a 50 person team with 10 people exclusive to PS3 platform and another 10 on 360, with the rest working on art assets and level design and stuff?
Click to expand...

Basically it comes down to the differences in the CPUs and the types of data they like to be fed.

I've posted this a few times but it bears repeating, John Carmack (not exactly a fan of Sony software or hardware) summed it up for everybody roughly 3 and a 1/2 years ago... albiet begrudgingly. ;)

Carmack said:
Now the tough decision that you have to make is how you deal with the CPU resources. Where you might say that if you want to do the best on all the platforms, you would unfortunately probably try to program towards the Sony CELL model, which is isolated worker threads that work on small little nuggets of data, rather than kind of peer threads, because you can take threads like that and run it on the 360. You won’t be able to get as many of them, but you can still run, you know you got three processors with two threads, or three cores with two threads in each one.

So you could go ahead and make a game which has a half dozen little worker threads that go on the CELL processor there, and run as just threads on the 360 and a lot of PC specs will at least have hyper threading enabled, if you just let the threads run it would probably work out ok on the PC, although the OS scheduler might be a little dodgy for that...

And that’s kind of an unfortunate thing that that would be the best development strategy to go there, because it’s a lot easier to do a better job if you sort of follow the peer thread model that you would have on the 360 but then you’re going to have pain and suffering porting to the CELL.
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hukasmokincaterpillar said:
Basically it comes down to the differences in the CPUs and the types of data they like to be fed.

I've posted this a few times but it bears repeating, John Carmack (not exactly a fan of Sony software or hardware) summed it up for everybody roughly 3 and a 1/2 years ago... albiet begrudgingly. ;)
Click to expand...
From your quote: "Because it’s a lot easier to do a better job if you sort of follow the peer thread model that you would have on the 360"

:( kinda sucks to know that.
 
davepoobond said:
so if by leading on ps3 gets you a game that is exactly the same as the xbox 360 version, then where's the real benefit of being a lead platform?
Click to expand...

You get identical versions which means no negative press when it comes to one version of your game.
 
SHOTEH FOCK OP said:
So is it because the PS3 is harder to develop for, developers need to do this? I mean, the bonus is that the PS3 versions of multiplatform games will probably look better, right? So having PS3 hard to develop for was a strategy of Sony's all along?
Click to expand...


How can I put this. Developing on the ps3 produces optimizations than can be carried over to the 360 more so than if they developed on the 360 and carried over to the ps3.

Its a win win.
 
It's easier to make PS3 version first because the 360 is more powerful.
OMG I went there!! MAN THE FIRE HOSES!!! SDF ASSEMBLE!
 
Using PS3 as a 'lead platform' is the right thing to do if you are going to make a game that has to run on 360 and PS3.
The reason is very simple: on PS3 designing your data structure in the proper way is paramount to achieve decent performance (and to scale up..), while your PS3 friendly data will be also 360 friendly data in the vast majority of cases.
This is a big win cause you will definitely be able to get the most from BOTH platforms.
 
Carmack called it 3 years ago.

But for all the people that always like to highlight that PS3 version of games are gimped because they are on the 360 as well.

It seems that leading on the PS3 just means that both version will be slightly "gimped".
 
sprocket said:
How can I put this. Developing on the ps3 produces optimizations than can be carried over to the 360 more so than if they developed on the 360 and carried over to the ps3.

Its a win win.
Click to expand...
Not according to Carmack. Read his quote in this thread. According to him is because you can divide the 3 cores of the 360 into threads to emulate the work done by the SPE's. However, you cannot make 2 SPE's work as once core due to deadlocks.
Vast Inspiration said:
Carmack called it 3 years ago.

But for all the people that always like to highlight that PS3 version of games are gimped because they are on the 360 as well.

It seems that leading on the PS3 just means that both version will be slightly "gimped".
Click to expand...
THIS.
 
Vast Inspiration said:
It seems that leading on the PS3 just means that both version will be slightly "gimped".
Click to expand...

You're crazy if you actually believe that. ANY multiplatform title will always be behind exclusive titles for their respective next-gen systems.
 
chubigans said:
You're crazy if you actually believe that. ANY multiplatform title will always be behind exclusive titles for their respective next-gen systems.
Click to expand...
CoD 4?
 
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