Does Easy to Dev. For = Piracy?

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Wheresatom

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So I have seen a few articles around about how Sony is talking to Devs about what they are looking for in the next generation of Sony's console and this one seemed interesting to me. Link

Sony hopes its next PlayStation console will be a bit more developer-friendly.

In an interview with Develop magazine, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida explained the company is now looking at its internal development studios to help design and provide feedback for future hardware.

"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]."

Yoshida later confirmed this design philosophy would be applied to future PlayStation hardware.

"Yes, we are undergoing many activities that we haven't yet been talking about in public. Some future platform related activities," he added. "I'm spending more time on the hardware platform, connecting hardware guys to developers. That's my major role now, and Move is one of those new ways of developing platforms."
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So it sounds like they are trying to avoid the "this thing is impossible to code for" issue they were having when the PS3 first came out. However, I kinda figured all of the things that made the PS3 hard to make games for are also part of why there is not playing of "backups" of PS3 games.

Am I off base? Will it even matter if the PS4/Xbox 720 are easy to hack? I know devs blame piracy on their fleeing from PC development. What will happen if consoles start going the same way too? Will PSN and Xbox integration be able to keep piracy from running rampant? Personally I would like more of the devs to just make good games and not worry about piracy, but I guess its hard to convince accountants of that.
 
preventing backups doesn't really much to do with coding difficulty, it's the non-traditional CPU/GPU architecture of the PS3.
 
But doesn't the non-traditional CRU/GPU architecture lead to the coding difficulty? From what I have seen the Cell is just unlike anything else we use for the most part, so typical game engines don't run the same on it and I would imagine typical workaround hacks don't work right either right?
 
it leads to the coding difficulty yes but hit has nothing to do with security or hacks or anything like that. The ps3 is just designed and built more securely, simple as that.
 
I think part of the reason piracy become much more of an issue for the 360 was cost. Think back when these systems first came out, DVD burners were standard by then, and DL discs didn't cost much. However, a blu ray burner at that time was insanly expensive, as was the media. Piracy wasn't cost effect on the PS3. The PS3 has proven to be a more secure system, but that doens't make it unhackable. I think people just didn't bother because there was really nothing to gain with the ability to play backups when you'd spend the same as just buying the games. I think if there were a cost effective means to pirate games when the system launched, it would have been hacked by now. Likewise, I think that if the 360 had HD-DVD as its game media, piracy for the system wouldn't be as rampant as it is.
 
Viper87227 said:
I think part of the reason piracy become much more of an issue for the 360 was cost. Think back when these systems first came out, DVD burners were standard by then, and DL discs didn't cost much. However, a blu ray burner at that time was insanly expensive, as was the media. Piracy wasn't cost effect on the PS3. The PS3 has proven to be a more secure system, but that doens't make it unhackable. I think people just didn't bother because there was really nothing to gain with the ability to play backups when you'd spend the same as just buying the games. I think if there were a cost effective means to pirate games when the system launched, it would have been hacked by now. Likewise, I think that if the 360 had HD-DVD as its game media, piracy for the system wouldn't be as rampant as it is.
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^This. The 360's piracy is down to the DVD-Roms being easy to hack and media being incredibly cheap. The main reason the PS3 was never hacked properly until recently was that media was nearly as expensive as buying the original. Because of this hackers tried (and succeeded) to run backups from the HDD using a vulnerability in the Linux code. Which incidentally is probably the real reason Sony removed that feature.

The PS2 wasn't the easiest console to code for but piracy was rampant on that platform too simply coz of the cost of dvd-r media

Once Blu-ray media and burners are down to the cost of dvd media and burners you can bet that the PS3 will see a surge in sales and huge increase in piracy.
 
Wheresatom said:
But doesn't the non-traditional CRU/GPU architecture lead to the coding difficulty? From what I have seen the Cell is just unlike anything else we use for the most part, so typical game engines don't run the same on it and I would imagine typical workaround hacks don't work right either right?
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It's not that they don't run on it, it's that they are usually ported over without taking full advantage. The Cell has normal processing cores like your PC and 360 but the main benefit comes from the SPE's, which are like co-processors. If you don't put your physics, sound, etc. offloaded onto the co-processors, the games are going to run like crap because the stand alone CPU can't handle it all. However, when they do code it right, you wind up with games like MGS4 and Uncharted 2. Quite frankly games that no other console can match in terms of presentation (sound, graphics, physics, etc.)
 
Ease of development has little (if any) direct relation to piracy. PS3 development is difficult (from what I've heard) because of its NUMA architecture on the SPU's.
 
Yes, difficulty of development and security of the system are mostly orthogonal concepts.

I haven't read any detailed complaints, but I suspect what developers want is better tools (we always want better tools). Tool support on consoles, historically.. not a great track record. Definitely an area where I think Microsoft are in the lead.

So the architecture is different. That's what consoles ARE. Maybe the PS3 went too far on the esoteric scale, I don't know, but I also suspect there are a lot of newer developers, teams for whom the Xbox/PS3 are their first console, that simply can't deal with anything that isn't IA32/AMD64. "What do you mean I can't just change the target to PS3 in Visual Studio and push Build?"
 
A couple year ago Sony said one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. What they said was that the PS3 is difficult to develop for on purpose so that developers unlock more performance over time, giving them a longer console life. You know, because the maximum performance is greater if it takes you 5 years to learn the code than if you knew it out of the box.:rolleyes: I think they were just making excuses for not having good development tools. Sony also has a history of lying to it's fans and the media.
 
Yeah but all in all Sony did Great with the PS3. Has better 3D, is very powerful, Sony cares for the gamers (unlike Microsoft) & free online

I used to be a huge microsoft fan but all in all they fudged with the 360, its just underpowered, No real game exclusives (Besides Gears), I hate paying to play & microsoft just doesnt care about Gamers (its all about $$)
 
4LC4PON3 said:
Yeah but all in all Sony did Great with the PS3. Has better 3D, is very powerful, Sony cares for the gamers (unlike Microsoft) & free online

I used to be a huge microsoft fan but all in all they fudged with the 360, its just underpowered, No real game exclusives (Besides Gears), I hate paying to play & microsoft just doesnt care about Gamers (its all about $$)
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I absolutely agree with all of your points, you're preaching to the choir. I still think that as a platform designer they need to create a console that is friendly for the developers. That would benefit the gamers even more.
 
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I also think that Developers are getting lazy in a sense also. its vary rare these days that you are seeing great games anymore. I mean come on Naughty dog came out of nowhere with Uncharted 1 and 2. If you look at naughty dog who has been around for many many years. there games sucked. Kiddy based cartoon games & bam all of a sudden came out with 2 of the greatest games ever. On the PS3

So why cant a Well known been in the Industry Developer not be able to work with the PS3? I think seriously as I said Developers are getting Lazy & to be Honest in alot of cases I dont believe alot of Developers are about gaming anymore its about the $$.
 
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