God of War dev 'forced to re-think things'

[Shrygue]

via Computer and Video Games


God of War 3 director Stig Asmussen has said that the complexity of PS3 development forced his team to "re-think things", but backs Sony's decision to go with the more complicated hardware.

Speaking about statements made by Sony boss Kaz Hirai, that insinuated Sony intentionally made PS3 hard to develop for, Asmussen said: "From my perspective he is essentially saying that Sony made the conscious decision to make the PS3 as powerful as possible, and if that meant it was going to be a beast to program for, 'so be it'."

He continued: "In my opinion, Sony has always been about pushing the industry forward - evolving it. In order to harness new technology fully, it might be necessary to evolve our development techniques as well.

"What may seem really complex right now, may become the standard in a couple of years. The programmers in my studio are super sharp guys and when the PS3 first came out they were forced to rethink things a bit. But now they have a really firm grasp on the system. Basically, it is just about evolving your skills right? That's a big part about making games in general.

"I seem to remember one time when people complained that the PS2 was hard to program for... We were able to do some pretty cool things on that system deep within its lifecycle."

[thick9"]

"In my opinion, Sony has always been about pushing the industry forward - evolving it."

Is that so?Then why do they DEVOLVE their consoles with every iteration by REMOVING features?They have removed alot of features from every console they have produced.On PS1 they removed the AV outputs,parallel port,and serial port.On PS2 they romoved the firewire port,HDD slot,and laser reliability.On PS3 they have SO FAR removed the backwards compatibility,possibly more.
HMMM...seems my definition of evolve is different.

[staticshade]

cost cutting so cheap skates like myself can afford to buy the console

[ICE]

"In my opinion, Sony has always been about pushing the industry forward - evolving it."

Is that so?Then why do they DEVOLVE their consoles with every iteration by REMOVING features?They have removed alot of features from every console they have produced.On PS1 they removed the AV outputs,parallel port,and serial port.On PS2 they romoved the firewire port,HDD slot,and laser reliability.On PS3 they have SO FAR removed the backwards compatibility,possibly more.
HMMM...seems my definition of evolve is different.

Are you serious?

[NoQuarter]

It appears he is, lol.

I love sony, I think their products are superior. The one thing I was irritated about was the reliability of the fat PS2. Once that was no longer an issue I was happy with them.
Obviously the god of war guys can handle the system, if the quality of their past games is to be an indicator.

[Triv1um]

"In my opinion, Sony has always been about pushing the industry forward - evolving it."

Is that so?Then why do they DEVOLVE their consoles with every iteration by REMOVING features?They have removed alot of features from every console they have produced.On PS1 they removed the AV outputs,parallel port,and serial port.On PS2 they romoved the firewire port,HDD slot,and laser reliability.On PS3 they have SO FAR removed the backwards compatibility,possibly more.
HMMM...seems my definition of evolve is different.

You're a idiot.

---

I do agree that Sony are always pushing forward, and they seem to take big risks in new hardware. I don't think the PS3 panned out as well as Sony maybe expected it to, but still things will evolve.

The PS2 has exactly the same problems.

[sorceror]

Then why do they DEVOLVE their consoles with every iteration by REMOVING features?

You're looking at things backwards. For example, on the PS2, they took out the firewire port and the drive bay after a while. Those things were experiments, they were actually trying to do new things. Contemporary consoles didn't have a high-speed external hookup like Firewire, just USB. Some (like the original Xbox) had a hard drive, but at the time it wasn't a big selling point - few games for the PS2 used or needed a hard drive.

So, after Sony experimented and discovered that those weren't adding much value, they removed them to save costs. (They are, you know, a for-profit enterprise.)

Now, that being said, the PS3 isn't completely revolutionary. Look at all the commodity tech in them - vanilla wifi, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, SATA, etc. The two main new things are the Cell and Blu-ray. But the Cell does need a different method of programming, and that does require work and experimentation. More, I think, than Sony intended, but there is power there to be exploited. We'll see if it's enough...

[kaferenza]

"In my opinion, Sony has always been about pushing the industry forward - evolving it."

Is that so?Then why do they DEVOLVE their consoles with every iteration by REMOVING features?They have removed alot of features from every console they have produced.On PS1 they removed the AV outputs,parallel port,and serial port.On PS2 they romoved the firewire port,HDD slot,and laser reliability.On PS3 they have SO FAR removed the backwards compatibility,possibly more.
HMMM...seems my definition of evolve is different.

I'm with you on this one.

[Ultima Chocochu]

cost cutting so cheap skates like myself can afford to buy the console

XDXDDDDD

But I have to add
I expect(or at least hope) the full BC will come back, and I think it would after the PS2 ceases to be.(Makes the most sense)
But saying the PS3 devolved? Really? C'mon XDDD
They were losing a lot of money with every PS3 sold, they had to cut back cost so they'd lose less money, and they're doing better now(but still losing), oh and they took out the Memory Stick Slots but, rarely used them really.

It didn't evolve, but it is trying some different things if you ask me, just not with EVERY game in existance they make.
Disagree if you must, but we've all our own opinions.