Console comparisons not adequate.
The console wars are legendary. Maybe not Mac vs. PC legendary, but still up there. Interestingly, things are different this time around, as the competition isn’t playing on purely equal ground. As Maxator points out in his most recent commentary on the subject, the current generation of consoles has internal separation by a full year (360 vs PS3/Wii), and hardware specs aren’t even comparable this time around (360/PS3 vs Wii). In other words, things are crazy.
In reference to the first point about differences this generation, a lot of mud is being slung making unfair comparisons, and it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon. After all, the current slew of similar-titled games on the 360 and PS3 don’t differ much, despite the PS3’s late arrival. Of course, the lack of difference is because of the late arrival. While the 360 has had one year for developers to get accustomed to the 360’s developer tools, much less time has been had to familiarize oneself with the PS3’s toolset. In other words, games on the 360 should be more optimized than games for the PS3, and similarly, than games on the Wii.
Another common target for those on the PS3 rampage is a sentiment Maxator expressed before, whose source I fear may not have done their research.
This gen, the PS3’s lack of RAM already limited launch titles to 720P resolution, when they promised 1080P (substantially more).
To blame the PS3’s resolution problems on something as simple as a lack of RAM underscores just how similar the two systems are. A recent Ars Technica post explains the similarities adequately:
…they both contain a PowerPC core running at 3.2 GHz, both have similarly-clocked GPUs, and both come with 512 MB of RAM. The 360 adds two additional cores running simultaneously, whereas the PS3’s “Cell” architecture eschews the extra cores in favor of seven smaller “Synergistic Processing Units” (SPUs) that act as vector processors with a separate instruction set and a tiny amount of on-board memory. Whether or not two extra cores are equivalent to seven SPUs is a matter that has not yet been adequately resolved: many have argued that the Cell architecture has more theoretical potential power, but whether this will translate into significantly better-looking games is still unknown.
Let’s dismiss for a moment the potential power increase the PS3 may or may not possess, and that anything but a significant increase in such power fails to justify bringing the console to market a year after the 360. Rather, let’s focus on the fact that similar hardware should result in similar results. Since both the 360 and PS3 have comparable processors with comparable RAM, it’s a cop-out to blame a lack of 1080p on the PS3 on that hardware. In other words, if the 360 can do 1080p, so can the PS3. Or, can’t the 360 do 1080p either, which is why Microsoft insists that 720p is the “sweet-spot” for games, and will likely remain the norm for some time to come. Perhaps the “trick” to get 1080p working reliably is another reason that Microsoft waited to push the functionality in a patch that didn’t come out until this autumn. I imagine the problem is in code refinement, which we won’t see for another couple months. Most likely, we’ll see 1080p working reliably on both the 360 and PS3 around the same time.
While Maxator seems to think Sony has lost this round of the console wars, it’s way too early to tell. The 360 sold well at launch because the demand exceeded the poor inventory retailers were alotted, which added to the console’s hype. Furthermore, there was no comparable system available, and for those who already had an XBox, the 360 offered itself as an upgrade, since one’s old games were still playable.
Meanwhile, the PS3 is still outselling the 360 in Japan, which is in great part because there are more Japanese developers interested in the longstanding Sony bandwagon, but the end-effect is an adoption of the system despite 360’s head start. Many will recall that the 360’s launch library wasn’t any more spectacular than the PS3s, and by spectacular I refer to exclusives. In fact, even though the Wii’s launch library was similarly unimpressive, it had more exclusives at launch than the 360 had period.
Of course, exclusives be damned if they’re not fun, which is why tech demos like Excite Truck will only carry the Wii so far. Nonetheless, the effort is appreciated, and so long as it keeps hype for a system up, developers will line up for licensing agreements. As the wisemen who have seen generations of console battles play out in real-time, it’s always about the games and less about the technology, with the Gameboy being the greatest example. So while the 360 sports fanboy-favorite Gears of War with an upcoming exclusive signed with Molyneux, the PS3 will inevitably cater to the Japan crowd with hardcore console RPGs, with the Wii continuing to cater to the party-gaming crowd. How the three consoles tackle the bleeding of genres will be the ultimate decider, and with Microsoft and Nintendo both working deals with Rockstar, a great emphasis on “mature” games for the Wii, and console RPGs seeing more adoption on systems other than the PS3, we find ourselves at the start of a race that will last another few miles.
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I have two comments on WyldKard’s post.
First, as for the PS3 RAM defiiciency causing major issues with higher resolutions, I stand by my original statement. Resistance: Fall of Man creators at Insomniac were forced to limit the maximum resolution of the game to 720P, not because of the PS3 scaling issues that may or may not be fixable with an upcoming firmware update, but because of a serious RAM shortage. The 360 has a shared RAM approach, which makes supporting high resolutions much more manageable. EPIC Games, creator of Gears of War and the Unreal Engine, have echoed my comments, stating that Gears of War would not be feasible on the PS3 because of the RAM shortage. Microsoft almost fell into the same trap during design, as they originally intended to use 256 RAM, but were convinced by EPIC to use 512. This decision, although rumored to cost Microsoft over a billion dollars, gives the 360 yet another advantage over the PS3 camel.
Secondly, my post on ranking the current consoles was not who will “win” the console war, but rather ranked the systems by quality. I would be in no way surprised if the PS3 sells the most units, based on the fervent support of anything Sony by Japanese gamers. The Japanese consumer seems repeatedly all too susceptible to hype and brand loyalty, and this will play right into Sony’s hands.
A perfect example of Japanese Sony fever, the Xbox was the best hardware on the market last generation, however was massively outsold by the PS2. Some of this could be explained by its late arrival to the market and also on the already established PS2 base, but much credit has to be given to the Sony hype machine. They simply play the Japanese market like a fiddle and publish all the Pokemonesque games they can to keep the Japanese attention.
It will be interesting to see how the Sony hype machine fairs this generation, given the cost and serious problems of their horse built by committee. Consumers have even less reasons this generation to ignore the superiority of Sony’s competition. Will the consumer choose based on what the systems actually deliver or based on what Sony advertisements get them to feel? We shall see.
I suppose it depends what one considers “deficient”. Side-by-side comparisons don’t make either system stand out from one another. The shared RAM approach on the 360 may make larger resolutions more manageable on the 360, but this assumes that one cannot push those resolutions with 256 MB alone. I’m temped to doubt this.
This also raises the question as to what will happen when games need more than 256MB RAM outside the GPU; if the 360’s ability to push resolutions beyond 720p relies on using more than 256 MB RAM, then one must presume we’ll see performance degrade significantly when the system needs more than 256MB for non-graphics-related functions. For instance, Epic’s pressure for unified RAM on the 360 assumes that Gears of War’s textures, or other requirements, required more than 256MB RAM on the GPU. Apparently, the rest of the game did not rely heavily on RAM, but what happens when a game requires more, for AI, physics, etc? The real issue isn’t the resolutions, which I anticipate will be a matter worked out soon, but rather everything else graphics-related.
It’s really rather interesting, because the decision for unified RAM assumes that Microsoft doesn’t anticipate titles needing more than 256MB outside the GPU, or is simply favoring graphics over other potential features. Granted, this allows for developers to decide what aspect of a game to focus on, while PS3 developers will have to keep graphics and other functions more balanced throughout their lineup. In this manner, PS3 games will be limited in terms of what can ultimately be done on the graphics or AI/physics side, but I imagine that the future will require some balancing. Whether this balance is 50/50 as Sony’s system is suited for is what the industry will determine over the next two years.
(As a sidenote, it’s worth nothing that the PS3’s GPU does in fact have access to the PS3’s CPU RAM, though the latter is not optimized for the GPU. The 360 on the other hand, using unified RAM, can have its GPU use the CPU’s RAM without a performance hit.)