Developing for the biggest and baddest toys won't be easyValve chief Gabe Newell urges the industry to take the next generation of gaming consoles more seriously, given the signifigant hurdles that will undoubtedly emerge in delivering software for the advanced hardware. Newell stresses in particular the sharp learning curves that will come in trying to develop for hardware utilizing multi-core processors just like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In doing so he definitely expresses his disdain for the marketing ploys console companies are using to tout their next generation of power:
"Most of the problems of getting these systems running on these multicore processors are not solved. They are doctoral theses, not known implementation problems. So it's not even clear that over the lifespan of these next generation systems that they will be solved problems. The amount of time it takes to get a good multicore engine running, the Xbox 360 might not even be on the market any longer. That should scare the crap out of everybody.""Statements about 'Oh, the PS3 is going to be twice as fast as an Xbox 360' are totally meaningless . It means nothing. It's surprising that game customers don't realize how it treats them like idiots. The assumption is that you're going to swallow that kind of system, when in fact there's no code that has been run on both of those architectures that is anything close to a realistic proxy for game performance. So to make a statement like that, I'm worried for the customers. And that we view customers as complete morons that will never catch on and that we're lying to them all the time. That's a problem because in the long run, it will have an impact on our sales."
One thing is certain for consumers: given the effort needed to produce next-generation gaming titles, we can definitely expect to see the higher development costs pass down onto us in the form of higher game prices.
Article Link: Next Generation
