Phil Harrison: PS3 Easier to Develop For Than PS2

We've been hearing for months that the PlayStation 3 is a demanding beast to develop for. But in a revealing interview with OPM, Sony's PS3 frontman Phil Harrison says otherwise.

The PlayStation 3 is, definitely, easier and cheaper to develop for, relative to the same period on the PS2."

-- Phil Harrison in OPM interview

In the OPM article, the interviewer tells Harrison that the PS2 is "notoriously hard to develop for." Harrison responds by saying that belief is a "self-fulfilling prophecy" and that Microsoft has "banged on that drum [until] it became conventional wisdom."

But Harrison says it isn't so. "With the original PlayStation," Harrison explains, "we had very rich and fully featured [software resource] libraries for developers to program with." But soon developers grew tired of working with Sony's pre-selected code libraries and wanted to "write direct to the metal" for maximum performance, a request Sony granted with the PlayStation 2...to somewhat mixed results, according to Harrison, as that technique was a "bit hard" to program with.

But not so with the PS3's Cell chip, which is "completely different." Rather than require programmers to develop specialized skills, Harrison explains in the piece, they utilize "general-purpose programming languages" to make for a smoother, less demanding coding process. "The PlayStation 3 is, definitely, easier and cheaper to develop for, relative to the same period on the PS2," Harrison says.

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