Developing Games for Consoles
by Mauri Kassick · in Hardware Issues · 05/21/2002 (8:10 pm) · 8 replies
How great is the difference between developing a PC Game from a Console (PSX, Dreamcast, PS2, XBox, GameCube, etc..) Game?
About the author
#2
05/21/2002 (9:28 pm)
I am assuming he means code-wise. I don't have a lot of experience in the area, but gamedev.net has a platform specific programming section which includes info on a couple of consoles. Link: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=57
#3
Here are a few assumptions after having a good time on Dead or Alive 3:
First, a Console comes with specific hardware. So, it must be somewhat easier to develop a game when you don't have to worry about making its audio, video, interface, etc. compatible with a million different sound cards and 3D Video Cards and accelerators.
Second, the Interface. Populous was an awesome game, but playing it on the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo definetely wasn't that much fun as it is playing on the PC. The old Mario Paint for the SNES and the Art Attack for the Genesis too ... more recent titles, such as converting Red Alert for the PSX still suffer from this problem I believe. I find it difficult to see something such as Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm playing on an XBox or PlayStation 2 simply because the interface of consoles do not come with a keyboard and a mouse, and that makes the convertion difficult and the game loses some of its attraction to players.
Third ... money. I have no idea how big a development team is for developing a console game, but it must be very large. Shipping a console game definetely isn't the same as shipping a PC Game, because if there are bugs they can't be solved with a patch made available on the Internet. That means that the Beta Stage must be quite large ... and that means more time paying people with receiving money.
I would like to hear more thoughts about this. Any insights are gladly welcome. External links too.
05/26/2002 (4:28 am)
Originally, I meant code-wise. But now I would like to get a broader scope on the subject. It must be totally different programming for a Console than for a PC.Here are a few assumptions after having a good time on Dead or Alive 3:
First, a Console comes with specific hardware. So, it must be somewhat easier to develop a game when you don't have to worry about making its audio, video, interface, etc. compatible with a million different sound cards and 3D Video Cards and accelerators.
Second, the Interface. Populous was an awesome game, but playing it on the Sega Genesis or the Super Nintendo definetely wasn't that much fun as it is playing on the PC. The old Mario Paint for the SNES and the Art Attack for the Genesis too ... more recent titles, such as converting Red Alert for the PSX still suffer from this problem I believe. I find it difficult to see something such as Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm playing on an XBox or PlayStation 2 simply because the interface of consoles do not come with a keyboard and a mouse, and that makes the convertion difficult and the game loses some of its attraction to players.
Third ... money. I have no idea how big a development team is for developing a console game, but it must be very large. Shipping a console game definetely isn't the same as shipping a PC Game, because if there are bugs they can't be solved with a patch made available on the Internet. That means that the Beta Stage must be quite large ... and that means more time paying people with receiving money.
I would like to hear more thoughts about this. Any insights are gladly welcome. External links too.
#4
LithTech is releasing an XBOX version of the Jupiter system at the end of the summer.
Sweet,sweet, sweet.
I know Torque loyalists will kill me, but check out and get the free 30 day evaluation of Jupiter for the PC. It costs six digits, but man is it nice.
Xhadoe
www.agfrag.com
06/15/2002 (12:18 am)
Interesting news,LithTech is releasing an XBOX version of the Jupiter system at the end of the summer.
Sweet,sweet, sweet.
I know Torque loyalists will kill me, but check out and get the free 30 day evaluation of Jupiter for the PC. It costs six digits, but man is it nice.
Xhadoe
www.agfrag.com
#5
A PS2 on the other hand, is designed quite differently from a PC. From a conceptual level its almost more similar to the old Amiga than current PCs in that it has a lot of coprocessors to do much of the work. PC developers can take a while to get used to things such as the fact that there's very little memory for textures, so efficient on-demand streaming is a must... In short, unlike PCs or the XBOX, to write good PS2 code you really need to know a lot about the internals of the machine and be comfortable writing assembler, at least for the vector processor if not for the main CPU code.
Dreamcast and Gamecube both fall somewhere between these two extremes. The DC could of course be programmed in DirectX for WinCE, though hardly anyone used that. Sega's own APIs, and Nintendo's for the Gamecube are custom but fairly easy to pick up, with the graphics portions of both resembling OpenGL quite a bit (though they aren't actually OpenGL).
06/19/2002 (11:00 am)
The difference can be quite vast. Developing for XBOX is, not suprisingly, not too much different than developing for a PC, since the API is very similiar to standard DX8, and you have quite a lot of memory (for a console, anyway) to play around with.A PS2 on the other hand, is designed quite differently from a PC. From a conceptual level its almost more similar to the old Amiga than current PCs in that it has a lot of coprocessors to do much of the work. PC developers can take a while to get used to things such as the fact that there's very little memory for textures, so efficient on-demand streaming is a must... In short, unlike PCs or the XBOX, to write good PS2 code you really need to know a lot about the internals of the machine and be comfortable writing assembler, at least for the vector processor if not for the main CPU code.
Dreamcast and Gamecube both fall somewhere between these two extremes. The DC could of course be programmed in DirectX for WinCE, though hardly anyone used that. Sega's own APIs, and Nintendo's for the Gamecube are custom but fairly easy to pick up, with the graphics portions of both resembling OpenGL quite a bit (though they aren't actually OpenGL).
#6
05/12/2004 (5:14 am)
The hardest part of developing for a console is simply the fact that you've got (say) 32 megs of ram. You have to leave your PC programming hat behind. Once you've run out of room, you're out, there is no more to be had. Each console has it's foibles (PS2 is a bitch, Xbox is nice, GC doesn't have enough ram), but I would heartily recommend middleware if you're even considering a cross platform console product.
#7
05/12/2004 (5:17 am)
Oh, and there is no 'beta stage' in the classic PC sense - but the console manufacturer will NOT let your game be released until it has passed the bug testing phase (Technical Requirement) - and they are VERY thorough. If only PC games had this, we'd be seeing a lot less patches out there
#8
But then...the same could be said for any sortware development project.
06/13/2005 (7:12 pm)
I would have to disagree with Dj Arcas on this one (even though his comment was made over a year ago, I have a feeling he was probably busy fighting with PS2 constraints at the time). The PS2 isn't so bad to work with, it's just a very esoteric platform where you can can easily get yourself into a lot of trouble if you don't do a bit of planning.But then...the same could be said for any sortware development project.
Torque Owner Anthony McCrary