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Sony was funny in this way. PS1: Easy to develop for and max out. PS2: Hard to develop for and hard to max out. PS3: Even harder than PS2. PS4: Back to easier.

Sony was funny in this way. PS1: Easy to develop for and max out. PS2: Hard to develop for and hard to max out. PS3: Even harder than PS2. PS4: Back to easier. PS5: Just more PS4. PS5 PRO: Just more PS5.

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
It certainly doesn't seem to have impacted adoption, though. For whatever reasons developers seem loath to talk about how difficult developing for a given console architecture is until the console is dead and buried. I guess the assumption is that the console vendor might retaliate, or the fans might say, "Well all of these other companies are somehow doing it, so you guys must just suck at your jobs." An early interview with Shinji Mikami is one of the only ones I can recall about a high-profile being frank about having difficulties developing for the console[0]: > IGNinsider: Ahh, smart politics. How do you feel about working on the PlayStation 2? Have you found any strengths in the system by working on Devil May Cry that you hadn't found before? > > Mikami: If the programmer is really good, then you can achieve really high quality, but if the programmer isn't that great then it is really hard to work with. We lost three programmers during Devil May Cry because they couldn't keep up. [0] https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/05/31/interview-with-shinji-mikami-ps2 https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/05/31/interview-with-shinj...
- christkv 2y ago
  I think it's funny because the ease of development was one of the reason why the original Playstation had such a wide library of titles. The Saturn and the N64 was hard to get good performance out off due to architectural decisions.
- setr 2y ago
  the ps3 development difficulty was definitely complained about during its usage cycle; the standard ps3 vs xbox360 argument was that the ps3 had far superior hardware, and xbox fans would always counter with no one could make use of that hardware
maximilianburke 2y ago
The PS4 and beyond is entirely creditable to Mark Cerny who spent a lot of time talking to developers who had spent years pulling their hair out with the PS3.
MBCook 2y ago
Sony needed developers for the PlayStation. So they did a good job. The PlayStation did so well a lot of people wanted the PlayStation 2. And because it worked as a cheap DVD player it sold extremely well. Sony learned hard to program expensive exotic hardware does great! PS3 arrives with hardware that’s even more expensive and even harder to program and gets a world of hurt. So for the PlayStation 4 they tried to figure out what went wrong and realized they needed to make things real easy for developers. Success! PlayStation 5, that PlayStation 4 four thing worked great let’s keep being nice to developers. Going very well. The PS2 succeeded _in-spite_ of its problems. And Sony didn’t realize that.

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago

It certainly doesn't seem to have impacted adoption, though. For whatever reasons developers seem loath to talk about how difficult developing for a given console architecture is until the console is dead and buried. I guess the assumption is that the console vendor might retaliate, or the fans might say, "Well all of these other companies are somehow doing it, so you guys must just suck at your jobs." An early interview with Shinji Mikami is one of the only ones I can recall about a high-profile being frank about having difficulties developing for the console[0]: > IGNinsider: Ahh, smart politics. How do you feel about working on the PlayStation 2? Have you found any strengths in the system by working on Devil May Cry that you hadn't found before? > > Mikami: If the programmer is really good, then you can achieve really high quality, but if the programmer isn't that great then it is really hard to work with. We lost three programmers during Devil May Cry because they couldn't keep up. [0] https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/05/31/interview-with-shinji-mikami-ps2 https://www.ign.com/articles/2001/05/31/interview-with-shinj...

christkv 2y ago
I think it's funny because the ease of development was one of the reason why the original Playstation had such a wide library of titles. The Saturn and the N64 was hard to get good performance out off due to architectural decisions.
setr 2y ago
the ps3 development difficulty was definitely complained about during its usage cycle; the standard ps3 vs xbox360 argument was that the ps3 had far superior hardware, and xbox fans would always counter with no one could make use of that hardware

maximilianburke 2y ago

The PS4 and beyond is entirely creditable to Mark Cerny who spent a lot of time talking to developers who had spent years pulling their hair out with the PS3.

MBCook 2y ago

Sony needed developers for the PlayStation. So they did a good job. The PlayStation did so well a lot of people wanted the PlayStation 2. And because it worked as a cheap DVD player it sold extremely well. Sony learned hard to program expensive exotic hardware does great! PS3 arrives with hardware that’s even more expensive and even harder to program and gets a world of hurt. So for the PlayStation 4 they tried to figure out what went wrong and realized they needed to make things real easy for developers. Success! PlayStation 5, that PlayStation 4 four thing worked great let’s keep being nice to developers. Going very well. The PS2 succeeded _in-spite_ of its problems. And Sony didn’t realize that.