Game Developers/Publishers backing hardware?

[TMRNetShark]

I read this article today that stated how PS3 hardware sales were compared to software sales (and compared to 360's respective hardware/software sales ratio).

The entire article was uninteresting except for one time sentence at the end:

...we believe that we are going to have a major player here with EA on our platform – and well over indexed given what we’re doing with them in order to promote that title.

So this sparked a thought. Doesn't Xbox 360 have a similar setup? A similar company that is called Activision that has timed exclusives on Xbox 360? Now that it looks like EA is going to be backing Sony, does this mean that game developers/publishers will finally have push and pull in the hardware market? The PC market is already dominated by publisher/developer Valve with their digital market place that really allows 3rd party developers to easily put their games on Steam (with no real competition in sight except for maybe D2D).

So my question is, if developers get behind a certain product, will this splinter the market between 360/PS3 owners even more by having more exclusives or having the multiplatformed games be better on one system than the other? Hell, even two PC developers want unification of the consoles (I would also like to be able to play with people on the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3 systems in multiplatformed games). I mean come on, the controller setups are the same, the power of the consoles are relatively the same... there is no reason to have developers take hardware sides just because you want to "boost" your own sales. Unification of online multiplatform games would be great... and we'll leave PC gamers out of this because our consoles are too dumbed down for them.

I'm actually kinda hoping the new Counter Strike Global Offense will be cross platform online (even with PC)... if only Microsoft would agree to it... /sigh

[fohfoh]

I've always seen it as being something like...

Learning to program apps
Learning to program Java
Learning to program C++

Choose one, focus and be able to churn out higher quality releases of your chosen platform rather than semi ok/mediocre for all platforms.

[TMRNetShark]

I've always seen it as being something like...

Learning to program apps
Learning to program Java
Learning to program C++

Choose one, focus and be able to churn out higher quality releases of your chosen platform rather than semi ok/mediocre for all platforms.

People still use C++ to program video games today? Really? I thought everything was going towards Java nowadays... but I am no programmer so I wouldn't know for sure at all.

[fohfoh]

ehh... just saying different programming languages.

[AceHigh]

People still use C++ to program video games today? Really? I thought everything was going towards Java nowadays... but I am no programmer so I wouldn't know for sure at all.

Eh... Minecraft uses Java... More complicated games are built on engines that are written in a variation of C. The newest one I believe is C#, but most FPS game engines actually use C++. Java is not as robust and more prone for errors when reaching a large amount of lines and that would make a Java based engine for a modern FPS game a debugging hell.

Excellent for small games for those mobile phones though.

As for the topic, it's nothing new. Ever see those "Works best with Nvidia" and "Designed for ATi" logos when you start up a pc game?

[mgz]

I read this article today that stated how PS3 hardware sales were compared to software sales (and compared to 360's respective hardware/software sales ratio).

The entire article was uninteresting except for one time sentence at the end:

...we believe that we are going to have a major player here with EA on our platform – and well over indexed given what we’re doing with them in order to promote that title.

So this sparked a thought. Doesn't Xbox 360 have a similar setup? A similar company that is called Activision that has timed exclusives on Xbox 360? Now that it looks like EA is going to be backing Sony, does this mean that game developers/publishers will finally have push and pull in the hardware market? The PC market is already dominated by publisher/developer Valve with their digital market place that really allows 3rd party developers to easily put their games on Steam (with no real competition in sight except for maybe D2D).

So my question is, if developers get behind a certain product, will this splinter the market between 360/PS3 owners even more by having more exclusives or having the multiplatformed games be better on one system than the other? Hell, even two PC developers want unification of the consoles (I would also like to be able to play with people on the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3 systems in multiplatformed games). I mean come on, the controller setups are the same, the power of the consoles are relatively the same... there is no reason to have developers take hardware sides just because you want to "boost" your own sales. Unification of online multiplatform games would be great... and we'll leave PC gamers out of this because our consoles are too dumbed down for them.

I'm actually kinda hoping the new Counter Strike Global Offense will be cross platform online (even with PC)... if only Microsoft would agree to it... /sigh

the only way they could really splinter the market is to release MASSIVE titles like call of duty or madden, on one console and not the other. The vast majority of splintering that occurs is either brand loyalty or desire for one or two console exclusives.

The fact that the ps3 went with the cell processor instead of a off the shelf intel processor made programming for it a lot more difficult of a task vs the xbox, and that same reason is why you dont see hardly any cross-console games because programming the two together and making them work happily together is a pain in the balls

[TMRNetShark]

I read this article today that stated how PS3 hardware sales were compared to software sales (and compared to 360's respective hardware/software sales ratio).

The entire article was uninteresting except for one time sentence at the end:

...we believe that we are going to have a major player here with EA on our platform – and well over indexed given what we’re doing with them in order to promote that title.

So this sparked a thought. Doesn't Xbox 360 have a similar setup? A similar company that is called Activision that has timed exclusives on Xbox 360? Now that it looks like EA is going to be backing Sony, does this mean that game developers/publishers will finally have push and pull in the hardware market? The PC market is already dominated by publisher/developer Valve with their digital market place that really allows 3rd party developers to easily put their games on Steam (with no real competition in sight except for maybe D2D).

So my question is, if developers get behind a certain product, will this splinter the market between 360/PS3 owners even more by having more exclusives or having the multiplatformed games be better on one system than the other? Hell, even two PC developers want unification of the consoles (I would also like to be able to play with people on the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3 systems in multiplatformed games). I mean come on, the controller setups are the same, the power of the consoles are relatively the same... there is no reason to have developers take hardware sides just because you want to "boost" your own sales. Unification of online multiplatform games would be great... and we'll leave PC gamers out of this because our consoles are too dumbed down for them.

I'm actually kinda hoping the new Counter Strike Global Offense will be cross platform online (even with PC)... if only Microsoft would agree to it... /sigh

the only way they could really splinter the market is to release MASSIVE titles like call of duty or madden, on one console and not the other. The vast majority of splintering that occurs is either brand loyalty or desire for one or two console exclusives.

The fact that the ps3 went with the cell processor instead of a off the shelf intel processor made programming for it a lot more difficult of a task vs the xbox, and that same reason is why you dont see hardly any cross-console games because programming the two together and making them work happily together is a pain in the balls

So how is that an excuse now? The alien technology that is called "Cell" was able to be programmed to communicate with PC's to play Portal 2? PC's have a wide range of hardware... so why would it be any harder to program it to communicate with an Xbox 360? (Besides the point that MS is being a dick about having inferior hardware)

[rkruger]

People still use C++ to program video games today? Really? I thought everything was going towards Java nowadays... but I am no programmer so I wouldn't know for sure at all.

One word: Speed

The fact that the ps3 went with the cell processor instead of a off the shelf intel processor made programming for it a lot more difficult of a task vs the xbox, and that same reason is why you dont see hardly any cross-console games because programming the two together and making them work happily together is a pain in the balls

Well, assuming you are referring to the Xbox 360, it does not use a x86 (intel) based processor either. Both the Cell and Xenon (used in the 360) are actually PowerPC based architectures.
It's not the CPU that makes it "difficult", it's the development environment and APIs.
You can target both the Xbox 360 and PC using DirectX, meaning it's relatively straightforward to port between those two platforms.
The PlayStation on the other hand, uses OpenGL and other APIs. I would also guess that integration support into Visual Studio is more difficult, as it goes against Microsoft's interests.
But yes, you are right, it's a "pain in the balls" to go cross-platform with the time limits and budgets in the video game development segment.

So how is that an excuse now? The alien technology that is called "Cell" was able to be programmed to communicate with PC's to play Portal 2? PC's have a wide range of hardware... so why would it be any harder to program it to communicate with an Xbox 360? (Besides the point that MS is being a dick about having inferior hardware)

Cross-platform porting issues aside, I read that the real problem is that Microsoft is not keen on letting any competitor onto their "Live" platform.

[Saras]

People still use C++ to program video games today? Really? I thought everything was going towards Java nowadays... but I am no programmer so I wouldn't know for sure at all.

Java requires a virtual machine to run, C++ does not. And if you want fast computing at an accessible coding speed, there's nothing that beats C++.

And, as TMR said, speed. No program coded in a high level programming language can compete with a program coded in a low level programming language. The higher level languages offer efficiency in writing said programs, but none of that remains upon their execution. Hell, even in the year 2011, it's not that uncommon to see core aspects of vital software for banks or the military to be coded in Assembler of all things.