One of the more common complaints during the PS3's first couple years on the market is that it's "hard to develop for." While developers, especially Sony's first-party studios, have come to grips with the console's unique architecture, Sony wants to make its next console far more developer friendly. And to that end, the company has said that it's now working with its developers to help build the PS4.
In an interview with Develop, SCE Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida indicated that SCE head Kaz Hirai implemented a change in philosophy in the company when he took over for Ken Kutaragi. “When Ken Kutaragi moved on and Kaz Harai became the president of SCE, the first thing Kaz said was, ‘get World Wide Studios in on hardware development’,” Yoshida said. “So he wanted developers in meetings at the very beginning of concepting new hardware, and he demanded SCE people talk to us [developers].”
This sort of thinking seems like a great idea, and could potentially lead to much smoother hardware/software integrations, such as what's commonly found on Apple devices. Most analysts and executives seem to think the next round of consoles is another 2-3 years away, but we're very curious to see what Sony comes up with, considering this new approach.
Yoshida made it clear that work is well underway. "...we are undergoing many activities that we haven’t yet been talking about in public. Some future platform related activities.”
3 Comments
July 6, 2010
This was one of the major reasons that made the original Playstation so attractive to developers rather than the Sega Saturn (which was also famously difficult to develop for).
As I remember, Sony was one of the first manufacturers (if not *the* first) to offer libraries for its platform written in C, whereas Sega expected developers to write in assembly.
Making life as easy as possible for developers is absolutely crucial, but it has to be said, nobody in the world is better at that than Microsoft.
Microsofts drive towards more modern managed languages such as C# is very shrewd, the transition is slow of course as the industry has such much invested into C++ technology. It'll be very interesting to see how Microsoft and Nintendo get on board with this movement.
July 6, 2010
@Matt you read my mind! I was thinking the exact same thing (except the important part about it offering C libraries). With PS1 it was opposite of Saturn, and caused a world of hurt because it helped make more developers, because it was easy to start up on! Then Sony bought out PS2 it was HARD to develop for. But still PS2 did even better! With this helping Sony's confidence jump to the start of PS3. Sony promised that it would have the Software development guys talking to the hardware guys, during PS3 hardware development! Before launch they where trumping up it being much easier to develop for than PS2(until the public groning came).
So why would you trust them to be telling the truth this time? Here is why:
They are not coming out of a blowout so they are hungry!
Since Sony did not just win a blowout they can't leverage development cost against developers.
Sony is not used to third place, and will not except it!
Sony will try to over come advantages other systems have this generation.
So I believe PS4 WILL be easier to develop for. Maybe not as easy as Xbox720 but not extra hard like PS2, and PS3 which I believe was on purpose. Why would a company intentionally make a game console hard to develop for? It means you have to make a choice if you have limited resources (people and Money), or the publisher will only sponsor original development on one platform (which happened often on PS1, PS2, and Wii, and xbox360). I think Sony does not want the medium sized, and little guys to have to make a choice between Wii3, and xbox720, or PS4. This time they know they can't leverage development cost.
I think that they where counting on development cost so much that they did not think that they needed a budget for securing third parties. I think this really became the case when the financial situation became 'rough'. And that would explain why they did not answer the call when developers where saying working with Microsoft was easy but with Sony it was not. (It was on purpose to continue forcing developers to work with them). It would also explain why they had no money to offer rockstar for exclusive on PS3, they had no budget for it!
With Sony coming full tilt (I think) with 3DTV, and 3DG's I think they ARE meaning it this time.
July 7, 2010
Kaz has more of a background in software, and is savy about his business – Kutaragi was a visionary, but he was very hardware oriented. I think the leadership change will ultimately lead to Sony designing a better PlayStation, whenever the time comes for another system.
Besides that, Sony can't afford another slow start. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing the technology behind PS3 only have it be expensive and hard to develop for, and besides that and launching after Xbox 360, it was a humbling experience for the company. They're well incetivized to do better next time around.