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Sony - We made the PS3 deliberately difficult to program for

March 04, 2009 in News comments 20

While complaints have dwindled over time, when the the PS3 was first released, many developers - even first-party - remarked at how difficult it was to 'unlock' the power of the console. However, Sony chief Kazuo Hirai has claimed that this is a deliberate strategy on Sony's part in order to increase the longitivity of the hardware. With games such as Killzone 2 only just beginning to harness the power of the PS3, just how much further will future games push technical boundaries? It wouldn't be surprising if Killzone 2 was merely the tip of the iceberg - after all, critics would have scoffed at the idea of the Playstation 2 running games as demanding as God Of War II when first released.

Speaking to the Official PlayStation Magazine, Hirai explained that the move was a conscious decision to ensure that programmers had to work hard to uncover its power.

[...]

"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that they want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine and half years?" he said.
Taker4ever via digitalspy.co.uk »
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  • 0
    HisServant77 Mar 4, 09
    Wait . . . Didn't I read this a few months back?

    Okay, I didn't read the article, so those who did... tell me if I'm right.

    Does The article say Sony made it hard to program for so that they don't use up the full potential at the start?
    • 0
      Sayyed Mar 4, 09
      The news is old. The article isn't.
      • 0
        HisServant77 Mar 5, 09
        Ah, that explains it. I was wondering about that. Sometimes I begin to wonder if I somehow tapped into the future and knew news before it happened! So I had to make sure

        (That was a joke there, just in case)
  • 0
    Gamesta100 Mar 4, 09
    Well they deliberately made the PS2 hard to program for so I'm not surprised they did it for the PS3 as well.
  • 0
    JPATT0N Mar 4, 09
    It's time lined. Now it may be hard but by the end of next year games will be flying out for the PS3, which means not every game will have some sort of decency and we'll start getting cheap cop outs simply made for the sake of being made. Games made by nobody you know and nobody buys them.
  • 5
    Onvacation Mar 4, 09
    Oh yeah, because having awesome games like killzone and GOW3 from the start would have been REALLLLLY bad for sales.

    I for one am glad they decided i had to put up with poorly made titles for 2 years so they could roll out such a grand plan
    • 1
      Storm Mar 4, 09
      It wouldn't have been possible, really. Since the PS days, I don't see a console's true potential until about 2-3 years later. Having heavy-hitters such as Killzone 2 and GoW3 would have been great for the beginning, but we're talking about before the PS3's release here. That would have been a bit of a disaster if you ask me, the dev teams not having enough time with the consoles and such. Sure, some launch titles are good, but most...are quite avoidable.
      • 1
        Onvacation Mar 4, 09
        But this article just said, It would have been much easier to acheive from the start had Sony not made the PS2-3 purposely hard to program for, sure maybe not get them straight away, but defenitely sooner
        .
        • 1
          HisServant77 Mar 5, 09
          And yet who wants to enter with a BANG, then fizzle out about halfway through it's projected life?

          I sure don't. I'm glad they make their systems this way. It makes it longer lasting.
        • 0
          Onvacation Mar 5, 09
          How would you know it would fizzle out, Chances are muh more likely it would continue to have great games through out its life span, I don't see why games would suddenly become rubbish half way through.

          Much better then entering with a pitiful wimper i'd say
        • 2
          HisServant77 Mar 5, 09
          It wouldn't fizzle out due to no longer having good games. It would fizzle out due to the whole "Been there, done that" thing and the "Where's the progress at? None of these 4th and 5th generation games are much better than the 1st and 2nd generation games!" People would become bored and have very little to look forward to, since they've already been shown all the cards.
  • 0
    Blaze Mar 4, 09
    It's either a really bad john, or utter genius. I vote for the second one.
  • 6
    BANDITO ATTACK Mar 4, 09
    lol what a crock of shit. "yeah - its hard to work with man we did that on purpose"
    really. just so it can gradually work better over time. please. almost every console starts to look nicer as the developers get more familiar with it.
  • 4
    redneonfish Mar 4, 09
    And i'm a banana.........
  • 4
    pyramidreaper Mar 4, 09
    I guess Sega also deliberately made Saturn hard to code for.

    way to go!

    oh wait a minute, who said this, Hirai? ah, nevermind then...
  • 0
    Darknet Mar 4, 09
    Wow. I have nothing else to say except that.
  • 0
    Red 9 Mar 4, 09
    Sony, you took everything that was good about you...and you shat on it.

    You Fail.
  • 0
    Drogo Baggins Mar 4, 09
    Honestly, I think it wouldn't be a half-bad strategy.....but I very much doubt it was actually planned from the start. I could be wrong, though.
  • 3
    FinalFantasyFanaticc Mar 4, 09
    Wow, you know, i was starting to warm up to Sony once more....

    That is until this Diarrhea spewed from their mouth.
  • 0
    Bale Fire Mar 5, 09
    I hardly think it was a deliberate choice, they probably knew it would be hard to code for, but thought it worth the trade off.

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