Now that the PS3’s often-delayed release is nearing closer, it’s becoming more and more common to see hands-on reviews of the system and some of the games that are scheduled to be released at the same time as the console. Even though the PS3’s release date is so close, it seems that many features of the console still have yet to be enabled, including its online network. Because of this, journalists posting their impressions of the console have tended to focus instead on what they actually can experience at the moment with the PS3 – near-final games and the basic user interface.
Overall, the reactions to the UI seem a bit mixed, with some people loving its simplicity, and others hating it because its too small and doesn’t work well enough given how many features of the console it has to incorporate. It worked pretty well for the PSP, but a next-gen console probably needs something a bit more complex and user-friendly for its UI. This really isn’t the focus of this post, though. The more PS3 hands-on articles I read, the more frustrated I get at the people who write these articles and the websites that publish them. It’s never a good sign when I start yelling at my computer monitor because an article lacks so much sense that it infuriates me.
Over and over, I read that these journalists are very impressed by the PS3 because its "launch" games look as good or slightly better than the Xbox 360’s launch games that came out at the end of last year. Some are sensible enough to state that this bodes well for the PS3 in that its launch games look so good, and others are more willing to proclaim their ignorance by declaring these games as proof that the PS3 is superior to the Xbox 360 in terms of power. These "launch" games may look very good, but there’s a reason for this. These games are not launch games in the typical sense. Historically, launch titles are games that launch along-side a new console and are intended to be the first foray by many developers into a new generation of games. Developers often spend an unusually short time developing these launch titles. Many big-name games take years to develop, whereas many launch games are developed in under a year, with some only undergoing major development for about half a year. Obviously, this difference in development time would dramatically affect the end quality of the games. As a result, more launch games tend to look (and sometime play) very poorly.
There are, of course, exceptions to this, including the original Halo. Such games as this are very much a rarity in the gaming world. While other launch titles get the usual half year to a year development time, Halo was in development for years before the console launched, just not the Xbox. Once Microsoft realized that it would be launching Xbox in Fall 2001, it quickly bought Bungie so it could secure a good launch title in Halo for its new console. As I said, this was a very unusual circumstance, and most launch games in the past have not had the benefit of this extra development time. This was also generally true for the launch of Xbox 360, where many of the games were developed very quickly or were slightly-modified high-end PC ports. Microsoft delivered the final dev. kits to developers with very little time to spare. Between the lack of development time and the short amount of time with final dev. kits, it is a given that Xbox 360 launch games would suffer the same fate as most other launch games of years past: they played fairly well and look rather good, but they were not nearly as revolutionary or breath-taking as they could have been.
Playstation 3 "launch" games almost entirely defy the term "launch title" in every way. Unlike the Xbox 360’s launch titles, PS3 launch titles have had far more time in development. Most games developers switched over to next-gen. development when Xbox 360 was on the horizon. However, they didn’t just begin developing for Xbox 360 at this time. Instead, they also started development of PS3 titles. Since Xbox 360 launched about a year ahead of PS3, 360 games had approximately a year less of development time in comparison to PS3 launch titles. One would certainly expect PS3 launch titles to have better graphics than 360 launch titles when they’ve had that much extra development time.
Another major consideration is that much of the work necessary to make great-looking next-gen. games was done right before Xbox 360 launched or after its release during development of Xbox 360 titles. This could mean as little as the fact that developers now have far more experience with next-gen. game development thanks to their experience developing for Xbox 360, or it could mean as much as the fact that many developers have the basic assets needed to create impressive next-gen. games already done thanks to work with 360 games. While these advances in developer experience and programming assets will also provide a great deal of benefit to upcoming 360 games by making them easier to develop (leaving more time for polish and improvements), it will also come across unfairly when people look at these assets being used in PS3 games.
Some oblivious people might mistake a good-looking PS3 launch game as being a fact that the console is easier to develop for given the fact that its launch titles (which usually have a short development time) can look so good and have such impressive gameplay. While the power of the PS3 certainly is a factor here, the main reason that these games are so impressive is because of these games’ unusually long development time (thanks largely to the numerous delays of PS3’s release date) and the fact that these games were able to be developed easily since developers had already created much of what was necessary to build the games while working on 360 titles.
I’m not saying that PS3 titles aren’t impressive and have great graphics. I’d just like to remind everyone that when they see a PS3 title, you can not make a direct comparison to already-released Xbox 360 titles, especially launch titles. While these PS3 games may be called "launch" titles, they are essentially second-generation titles debuting as launch titles due to an unusually long development time. It is true that some code optimizations could not be done because final PS3 dev. kits weren’t delivered until relatively recently, but the fact remains that the bulk of the games could be completed before the final dev. kits arrived, making these titles still essentially second-gen. games.
If you want a fair comparison between Xbox 360 and PS3 games, I suggest you compare the premiere PS3 launch titles to soon-to-be-released 360 titles like Gears of War. All I’ve seen so far from hands-on previews thus far is that while PS3 launch titles look incredible for launch games and compare favorably to already available 360 games, they all fail to match the gameplay and visuals of Gears of War and other great 360 titles being released this fall. Once PS3’s games are finally able to catch up to this fall’s great 360 games, even more impressive Xbox 360 games will be released one after another, including such sure-to-be great games as Mass Effect and Halo 3. It’s possible that PS3 may someday be able to surpass Xbox 360 in visuals and gameplay, but I really don’t think it will matter, because by the time it happens, 360 owners will have been enjoying excellent games for years and the next generation of consoles will be upon us.
To all those who have yet to embrace Xbox 360, there’s no better time than now. Jump in.
EdKopp4 