7 ms·

> It is important to understand why the PS3 failed That's a weird assertion for a console that sold 87M units, ranks #8 in the all-time top-selling consoles li

by m000 2y ago

> It is important to understand why the PS3 failed That's a weird assertion for a console that sold 87M units, ranks #8 in the all-time top-selling consoles list, and marginally outsold Xbox360 which is compared against in TFA. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...

JohnMakin 2y ago
It’s clear from one of the opening statements that the author considered it a failure for developers, not in the absolute sense you are pointing to. It’s not that far into the article. > The PS3 failed developers because it was an excessively heterogenous computer; and low level heterogeneous compute resists composability.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  It just isn’t a solid thesis at the beginning of the article, and in todays attention-span media consumption narrative, it… serves its purpose?
  - dcow 2y ago
    The PS3 was a technical failure. It was inferior to its siblings despite having more capable hardware. This was super obvious any time you’d play a game available for both Xbox and PS3. The PS3 version was a game developed for Xbox then auto-ported to run on PS3’s unfamiliar hardware. It’s an entirely fair hypothesis. Maybe in 15 years someone crazy enough will be delving in and building games that fully utilize every last aspect of the hardware. Like this person does on the N64: https://youtube.com/@kazen64?si=bOSdww58RNlpKCNp https://youtube.com/@kazen64?si=bOSdww58RNlpKCNp
    - nottorp 2y ago
      > The PS3 version was a game developed for Xbox then auto-ported to run on PS3’s unfamiliar hardware. Yes, especially exclusives like Uncharted, Demon Souls, Heavy Rain, Ni No Kuni, Metal Gear solid 4. They were definitely developed for Xbox, that version was kept secret and only the PS3 version was published due to Sony bribes. I'd like to thank the above devs for going through the pain of developing those titles that entertained me back then...
      - wtallis 2y ago
        Your snark would be inappropriate even if you weren't completely ignoring the sentence immediately preceding the one you quoted.
        nottorp 2y ago
        Maybe I'm just pointing out the world is full of crap ports but it's the exclusives that sell consoles, not the hardware specs... did I really have to spell it out?
      - dcow 2y ago
        You joke, but I read stories at the time of developers saying their studio did just that. I shit you not. Because developing a “traditional” pc-like game for pc-like hardware on a pc is what their teams were tooled to do. Studios didn't sit down and train up new teams of devs on how to maximize the cell architecture. The result is games that are very poorly optimized for the PS3. Even some of the exclusives (though I was only specifically calling out the cross-console games as an obvious example). There were some gems. I owned a PS3 and had tons of fun. Nothing in this discussion speaks directly to the entertainment value of good Sony exclusives or cross-console ports. Many people don’t care one ounce about a minor performance deficit. Deep breath.
        masklinn 2y ago
        > Studios didn't sit down and train up new teams of devs on how to maximize the cell architecture. Yeah usually only first party studios have the time, money, and access for that (Naughty Dog being a prime example thereof in the Sony universe).
      - ziddoap 2y ago
        You forgot to quote (and maybe read?) this part of the parent comment: "a game available for both Xbox and PS3." The "both" part means they aren't talking about exclusives.
      - Lammy 2y ago
        > They were definitely developed for Xbox, that version was kept secret and only the PS3 version was published due to Sony bribes. Funnily enough the opposite of this did actually happen at least once: https://archive.org/details/gears-of-war-3-ps3 https://archive.org/details/gears-of-war-3-ps3
    - Cloudef 2y ago
      Heck PS3 had even trouble with some PS2 remasters because it couldnt do the same graphical effects as PS2 with its insane fillrate. MGS having frame drops during rain and the rain looking worse etc..
- dkersten 2y ago
  I’m not even sure that’s entirely true either though. By the end of the PS3 generation, people had gotten to grips with it and were pushing it far further than first assumed possible. If you watch the GDC talks, it seemed to me that people were happy enough with it by that point (relatively speaking at least) and were able to squeeze quite a bit of performance out of it. It seems that it was hated for the first while of its life because developers hadn’t settled on a good model for programming it but by the end task based concurrency like we have now started to gain popularity (eg see the naughty dog engine talk). Is cell really so different from computer shaders with something like Vulkan? I feel if a performance-competitive cell were made today, it might not receive so much hate, as people today are more prepared for its flavour of programming. Nowadays we have 8 to 16 cores, more on P/E setups, vastly more on workstation/server setups, and we have gpu’s and low level gpu APIs. Cell came out in a time when dual core was the norm and engines still did multi threading by having a graphics thread and a logic thread.
  - xmprt 2y ago
    Naughty Dog has always been at the forefront of PlayStation development. Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted couldn't have been made if they didn't have a really strong grasp on how to use it. I love rereading this developer "diary" where they talk about some of the challenges with making Crash: https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/ https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/
    - dkersten 2y ago
      Oh yeah, I loved tasting that too! They really had to pull some tricks to make everything work so well, but damn did they pull it off!
    - ElCapitanMarkla 2y ago
      That is a fantastic read. I usually end up stumbling upon and rereading it once a year
  - MindSpunk 2y ago
    Cell was a failure, made evident by the fact nobody has tried to use it since. Comparing the SPEs to compute shaders is reasonable but ignores what they were for. Compute shaders are almost exclusively used for graphics in games. Sony was asking people to implement gameplay code on them. The idea the PS3 was designed around did not match the reality of games. They were difficult to work with, and taking full advantage of the SPEs was very challenging. Games are still very serial programs. The vast majority of the CPU work can't be moved to the SPUs like it was dreamed. Very often games were left with a few trivially parallel numerical bits of code on the SPEs, but stuck with the anemic PPE core for everything else.
colejohnson66 2y ago
OP is talking about developer experience. From right after the image: > The PS3 failed developers because it was an excessively heterogenous computer; [...]
tekla 2y ago
Sales wasn't what the article was referring to if you take the context of literally the very first sentence of the article
- miltonlost 2y ago
  No wonder tech people need LLMs so much if they are incapable of reading more than 3 sentences and comprehending them.
santoshalper 2y ago
Where a console rates on the all-time sales leader board is pretty irrelevant, since the industry has grown so much in absolute terms. As when looking at movie box office revenue, you need to look at more than one number if you want to judge the real performance of a console in the market. Here is a good example: The PS3 sold only slightly more than half as many units as its predecessor, the PS2, did. Most businesses would, in fact, consider it a failure if their 3rd generation product sold much more poorly than the second generation. Sony's rapid move away from the PS3/Cell architecture gives you a pretty good reason to believe they considered it a failure too.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
notatoad 2y ago
perhaps a better headline would have been "why the PS3 architecture failed". if it was a success, they wouldn't have abandoned it for the next generation.
jchw 2y ago
The PS3 maybe wasn't a failure in the long run, but at launch it was a disaster all around. Sony was not making a profit on the PS3, and the initial sales at its initial price were not looking good[1]. With the Wii as its primary competitor, the Wii absolutely smashed the PS3 at launch and for a long while after, and it still maintains the lead. Sony mainly kept the competition close by slashing the price and introducing improved models, but in the long run I think the reason why their sales numbers managed to wind up OK is because they held out for the long haul. The PS3 continued to be the "current-gen" Sony console for a long time. By the time Sony had released the PS4 in late 2013/early 2014, Nintendo had already released its ill-fated Wii U console an entire year earlier in late 2012. I think what helped the PS3 a lot here was the fact that it did have a very compelling library of titles, even if it wasn't a super large one. As far as I know, Metal Gear Solid 4 was only released for PlayStation 3; that stands out to me as a game that would've been a console-seller for many. So while PS3 was not ultimately a commercial success, it was clearly disliked by developers and the launch was certainly a disaster. I think you could argue the PS3 was a failure in many regards, and a success in some other regards. Credit to Sony, they definitely persevered through a tough launch and made it out to the other end. Nintendo wasn't able to pull off the same for the Wii U, even though it also did have some good exclusive games in the library. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20161104003151/http://www.pcworld.com/article/140253/article.html https://web.archive.org/web/20161104003151/http://www.pcworl...
- xmprt 2y ago
  While the PS3 has a soft spot in my heart (free online multiplayer!) I can't help but wonder if the subpar launch gave Microsoft Xbox a leg in the race where otherwise the Xbox 360 might have been the last console in their lineup.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    Everyone I knew had a Wii. But they mostly had a 360 as that generations “real” console. In fact, I can’t recall anyone who had the PS3. Lots of PS2.
    - 2y ago
kbolino 2y ago
The Sony-Toshiba-IBM alliance had much grander plans for the Cell architecture, which ultimately came to naught. The PS3 wasn't just a console, it was supposed to be a revolution in computing. As a console, it did alright (though it's still handily beaten by its own predecessor and marginally by its own successor), but as an exponent of the Cell architecture that was supposed to be the future, it failed miserably. Sony yanked OtherOS a couple of years into its life, and while a Cell supercomputer was the first to break the petaflop barrier, it was quickly surpassed by x86 and then Arm.
miltonlost 2y ago
This is a weird assertion that the author meant "failed to sell consoles" when he simply said "the PS3 failed". He later clarified "failed for developers" literally 2 sentences later.
- chasil 2y ago
  The approach used by Cell was attempted exactly once in this market. This does imply an architectural misstep, and one of IBM's last. AMD vanquished IBM from the next generation of consoles.
dfxm12 2y ago
There are a lot of different measures. The Wii (the 7th gen Nintendo console) outsold it considerably, as did the 6th gen PS2 (which far and away beat out all other consoles in its generation). Going from such market dominance to second place is not good. Not being able to improve upon your position as the industry leader is not good. Failure might be strong, but I certainly wouldn't be happy if I was an exec at Sony at the time.
bsder 2y ago
I know a lot of people who only bought the PS3 because it was the cheapest BluRay player for a remarkably long time.

by m000 2y ago

JohnMakin 2y ago

It’s clear from one of the opening statements that the author considered it a failure for developers, not in the absolute sense you are pointing to. It’s not that far into the article. > The PS3 failed developers because it was an excessively heterogenous computer; and low level heterogeneous compute resists composability.

dgfitz 2y ago
It just isn’t a solid thesis at the beginning of the article, and in todays attention-span media consumption narrative, it… serves its purpose?
- dcow 2y ago
  The PS3 was a technical failure. It was inferior to its siblings despite having more capable hardware. This was super obvious any time you’d play a game available for both Xbox and PS3. The PS3 version was a game developed for Xbox then auto-ported to run on PS3’s unfamiliar hardware. It’s an entirely fair hypothesis. Maybe in 15 years someone crazy enough will be delving in and building games that fully utilize every last aspect of the hardware. Like this person does on the N64: https://youtube.com/@kazen64?si=bOSdww58RNlpKCNp https://youtube.com/@kazen64?si=bOSdww58RNlpKCNp
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > The PS3 version was a game developed for Xbox then auto-ported to run on PS3’s unfamiliar hardware. Yes, especially exclusives like Uncharted, Demon Souls, Heavy Rain, Ni No Kuni, Metal Gear solid 4. They were definitely developed for Xbox, that version was kept secret and only the PS3 version was published due to Sony bribes. I'd like to thank the above devs for going through the pain of developing those titles that entertained me back then...
    - wtallis 2y ago
      Your snark would be inappropriate even if you weren't completely ignoring the sentence immediately preceding the one you quoted.
      - nottorp 2y ago
        Maybe I'm just pointing out the world is full of crap ports but it's the exclusives that sell consoles, not the hardware specs... did I really have to spell it out?
    - dcow 2y ago
      You joke, but I read stories at the time of developers saying their studio did just that. I shit you not. Because developing a “traditional” pc-like game for pc-like hardware on a pc is what their teams were tooled to do. Studios didn't sit down and train up new teams of devs on how to maximize the cell architecture. The result is games that are very poorly optimized for the PS3. Even some of the exclusives (though I was only specifically calling out the cross-console games as an obvious example). There were some gems. I owned a PS3 and had tons of fun. Nothing in this discussion speaks directly to the entertainment value of good Sony exclusives or cross-console ports. Many people don’t care one ounce about a minor performance deficit. Deep breath.
      - masklinn 2y ago
        > Studios didn't sit down and train up new teams of devs on how to maximize the cell architecture. Yeah usually only first party studios have the time, money, and access for that (Naughty Dog being a prime example thereof in the Sony universe).
    - ziddoap 2y ago
      You forgot to quote (and maybe read?) this part of the parent comment: "a game available for both Xbox and PS3." The "both" part means they aren't talking about exclusives.
    - Lammy 2y ago
      > They were definitely developed for Xbox, that version was kept secret and only the PS3 version was published due to Sony bribes. Funnily enough the opposite of this did actually happen at least once: https://archive.org/details/gears-of-war-3-ps3 https://archive.org/details/gears-of-war-3-ps3
  - Cloudef 2y ago
    Heck PS3 had even trouble with some PS2 remasters because it couldnt do the same graphical effects as PS2 with its insane fillrate. MGS having frame drops during rain and the rain looking worse etc..
dkersten 2y ago
I’m not even sure that’s entirely true either though. By the end of the PS3 generation, people had gotten to grips with it and were pushing it far further than first assumed possible. If you watch the GDC talks, it seemed to me that people were happy enough with it by that point (relatively speaking at least) and were able to squeeze quite a bit of performance out of it. It seems that it was hated for the first while of its life because developers hadn’t settled on a good model for programming it but by the end task based concurrency like we have now started to gain popularity (eg see the naughty dog engine talk). Is cell really so different from computer shaders with something like Vulkan? I feel if a performance-competitive cell were made today, it might not receive so much hate, as people today are more prepared for its flavour of programming. Nowadays we have 8 to 16 cores, more on P/E setups, vastly more on workstation/server setups, and we have gpu’s and low level gpu APIs. Cell came out in a time when dual core was the norm and engines still did multi threading by having a graphics thread and a logic thread.
- xmprt 2y ago
  Naughty Dog has always been at the forefront of PlayStation development. Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted couldn't have been made if they didn't have a really strong grasp on how to use it. I love rereading this developer "diary" where they talk about some of the challenges with making Crash: https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/ https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/video-games/making-crash/
  - dkersten 2y ago
    Oh yeah, I loved tasting that too! They really had to pull some tricks to make everything work so well, but damn did they pull it off!
  - ElCapitanMarkla 2y ago
    That is a fantastic read. I usually end up stumbling upon and rereading it once a year
- MindSpunk 2y ago
  Cell was a failure, made evident by the fact nobody has tried to use it since. Comparing the SPEs to compute shaders is reasonable but ignores what they were for. Compute shaders are almost exclusively used for graphics in games. Sony was asking people to implement gameplay code on them. The idea the PS3 was designed around did not match the reality of games. They were difficult to work with, and taking full advantage of the SPEs was very challenging. Games are still very serial programs. The vast majority of the CPU work can't be moved to the SPUs like it was dreamed. Very often games were left with a few trivially parallel numerical bits of code on the SPEs, but stuck with the anemic PPE core for everything else.

colejohnson66 2y ago

OP is talking about developer experience. From right after the image: > The PS3 failed developers because it was an excessively heterogenous computer; [...]

tekla 2y ago

Sales wasn't what the article was referring to if you take the context of literally the very first sentence of the article

miltonlost 2y ago
No wonder tech people need LLMs so much if they are incapable of reading more than 3 sentences and comprehending them.

santoshalper 2y ago

Where a console rates on the all-time sales leader board is pretty irrelevant, since the industry has grown so much in absolute terms. As when looking at movie box office revenue, you need to look at more than one number if you want to judge the real performance of a console in the market. Here is a good example: The PS3 sold only slightly more than half as many units as its predecessor, the PS2, did. Most businesses would, in fact, consider it a failure if their 3rd generation product sold much more poorly than the second generation. Sony's rapid move away from the PS3/Cell architecture gives you a pretty good reason to believe they considered it a failure too.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

notatoad 2y ago

perhaps a better headline would have been "why the PS3 architecture failed". if it was a success, they wouldn't have abandoned it for the next generation.

jchw 2y ago

The PS3 maybe wasn't a failure in the long run, but at launch it was a disaster all around. Sony was not making a profit on the PS3, and the initial sales at its initial price were not looking good[1]. With the Wii as its primary competitor, the Wii absolutely smashed the PS3 at launch and for a long while after, and it still maintains the lead. Sony mainly kept the competition close by slashing the price and introducing improved models, but in the long run I think the reason why their sales numbers managed to wind up OK is because they held out for the long haul. The PS3 continued to be the "current-gen" Sony console for a long time. By the time Sony had released the PS4 in late 2013/early 2014, Nintendo had already released its ill-fated Wii U console an entire year earlier in late 2012. I think what helped the PS3 a lot here was the fact that it did have a very compelling library of titles, even if it wasn't a super large one. As far as I know, Metal Gear Solid 4 was only released for PlayStation 3; that stands out to me as a game that would've been a console-seller for many. So while PS3 was not ultimately a commercial success, it was clearly disliked by developers and the launch was certainly a disaster. I think you could argue the PS3 was a failure in many regards, and a success in some other regards. Credit to Sony, they definitely persevered through a tough launch and made it out to the other end. Nintendo wasn't able to pull off the same for the Wii U, even though it also did have some good exclusive games in the library. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20161104003151/http://www.pcworld.com/article/140253/article.html https://web.archive.org/web/20161104003151/http://www.pcworl...

xmprt 2y ago
While the PS3 has a soft spot in my heart (free online multiplayer!) I can't help but wonder if the subpar launch gave Microsoft Xbox a leg in the race where otherwise the Xbox 360 might have been the last console in their lineup.
- bombcar 2y ago
  Everyone I knew had a Wii. But they mostly had a 360 as that generations “real” console. In fact, I can’t recall anyone who had the PS3. Lots of PS2.
  - 2y ago

kbolino 2y ago

The Sony-Toshiba-IBM alliance had much grander plans for the Cell architecture, which ultimately came to naught. The PS3 wasn't just a console, it was supposed to be a revolution in computing. As a console, it did alright (though it's still handily beaten by its own predecessor and marginally by its own successor), but as an exponent of the Cell architecture that was supposed to be the future, it failed miserably. Sony yanked OtherOS a couple of years into its life, and while a Cell supercomputer was the first to break the petaflop barrier, it was quickly surpassed by x86 and then Arm.

miltonlost 2y ago

This is a weird assertion that the author meant "failed to sell consoles" when he simply said "the PS3 failed". He later clarified "failed for developers" literally 2 sentences later.

chasil 2y ago
The approach used by Cell was attempted exactly once in this market. This does imply an architectural misstep, and one of IBM's last. AMD vanquished IBM from the next generation of consoles.

dfxm12 2y ago

There are a lot of different measures. The Wii (the 7th gen Nintendo console) outsold it considerably, as did the 6th gen PS2 (which far and away beat out all other consoles in its generation). Going from such market dominance to second place is not good. Not being able to improve upon your position as the industry leader is not good. Failure might be strong, but I certainly wouldn't be happy if I was an exec at Sony at the time.

bsder 2y ago

I know a lot of people who only bought the PS3 because it was the cheapest BluRay player for a remarkably long time.