GRAW Developers Say PS3 Ain't So Bad; Carmack: You Be Illin'

The long-standing belief that the PlayStation 3's Cell processor is a developer's nightmare when compared to the working with the Xbox 360 has been challenged by Yann Le Tensorer, co-founder of Ubisoft TiWak. "It's wrong to say it's harder to code on the PlayStation 3. It's just something that needs to be learnt," said Le Tensorer to GamesIndustry. Le Tensorer is the co-creator of the YETI engine used in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (PC, X360) and the upcoming Beowulf (PC, PS3, X360, PSP). "It's not harder to develop on the PS3 than it is on the 360, it's just a different console," he added. "Developers might say it's harder because it just takes time to understand the technology. We're still early in the lifecycle." At this year's QuakeCon, id's resident gangsta John Carmack acknowledged that his company's new engine id Tech 5 may potentially evolve into a more robust form on the PlayStation 3 than on the Xbox 360. However, Carmack also noted that in id's experience, the work required to program on the PlayStation 3 far exceeds that of any other platform. "360 and PS3 are more similar than any two gaming platforms ever," Carmack said. "But if you have a problem moving [a game] over, it's probably going to be because of the PS3." Cumbersome hardware has been the rumored blame for many PlayStation 3 delays, most recently Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV, which was pushed back from a November date into next year. At the time, industry analyst Michael Pachter was quoted as saying: "We think it is likely that the Rockstar team had difficulty in building an exceptionally complicated game for the PS3, and failed to recognise how far away from completion the game truly was until recently." But the team at Ubisoft maintains that a learning curve is only natural, no matter the platform. "If you take the PS2 for example, when God of War come out people saw it was tremendous," commented Ubisoft manager Adrian Lacey. "But it wasn't until the end of the PS2 cycle that we've seen the machine being pushed to its fullest."