Gabe Newell unjustifiably hates next-gen consoles

First, look at this:

http://www.psu.com/PSU-Interview--Half-Life-2-and-Team-Fortress-2--a1108-p2.php

That's "Valve." Presumably some random developer or rep talking about the game during an interview with PSU.

http://www.psu.com/Gabe-Newell-of-Valve-doesnt-like-consoles-News--a1112-p0.php

That's Gabe Newell complaining about how poopy consoles make his day. He's particularly hard on the Playstation 3 because, golly, he just can't figure the darn thing out!

"...he had more bile for the PS3, saying "I don't think they spent nearly enough time talking to developers when they were developing the PS3", and how "It's less friendly for developers"

"It's a hardware architectural problem. I don't think they thought through the Cell architecture. The hardware is only as good as the software it enables"

It's a hardware problem, huh, Gabe? Unfortunately the PSU interview revealed something he didnt: "With the PS3, we can't exactly say what power cap we reached, since no developer really knows where the boundary is for the PS3. We can tell you that in terms of the whole game together on the PS3, we are not even using the SPU's and it is purely built on the graphics and Cell."

Gabe is complaining about the hardware of the Playstation 3 when they literally aren't using a single SPU to run Half Life 2 Orange Box on that platform. Yes, that's right, gentlemen, Gabe Newell is a big, big baby.

There's a lot of ammunition as well in these quotes to fuel the next-gen fire. Half Life 2 Orange Box was delayed for a couple of weeks on Playstation 3 for further optimization, the Valve rep clarifies in this interview.

Why? Gabe whines, "it's too hard. *whimper.*"

Team Ninja-isms aside, we certainly have another developer agreeing with the comments of a one John Carmack who said that the Playstation 3 is oh-so-difficult to develop for. Ignore the fact that both of them apparently have no idea the Edge tools exist or that there are many developers, first, second, and third, using the SPUs to aide in the running of Playstation 3 games.

Anyway:

"For the 360 version of the game, we can probably say we are using around 93-94% of the console's power given our current optimization."

Now if that isn't system wars, I don't know what is. Here we have this crappy version of the game on PS3 literally only using the PPU and the GPU and they only need a couple weeks of optimization til it's up to scratch with this 360 version of the game they say takes up upwards of 9/10s of the 360s power. Granted, I'm hesitant to trust Valve given they're Edge agnostic, but they're interesting figures nonetheless.

The real question is whether Valve is fudging up both 360 and PS3 development....or whether the PS3 is really hard...and the 360 truly is limited in terms of graphics rendering capacity when compared directly to the PS3.

Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. swaginator

That's entirely incorrect.

Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. swaginator

Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. swaginator

He should shut up and make gamesEPaul

I second that.

[QUOTE="swaginator"]Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. Teufelhuhn

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="swaginator"]Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. swaginator

[QUOTE="swaginator"][QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="swaginator"]Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. Teufelhuhn

God bless you, Teufelhuhn.

[QUOTE="swaginator"]Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. Teufelhuhn

The cell wasn't designed with gaming in mind. It was designed to go in TVs and computers. The original plan had nothing to do with games at all. Therefore, to say it wasn't designed with gaming in mind is a perfectly acceptable comment.

[QUOTE="swaginator"][QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="swaginator"]Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. Teufelhuhn

How dare anyone ever complain about something that makes their job difficult without cause. I mean, i bet some jerk in a construction company is complaining about moving a mountain of dirt with a shovel despite their boss bieng able to easily afford a tractor for this kind of thing. Subpar tools and equipment for the job despite the fact that a bit more planning could have resulted in significantly easier work? How dare those lazy developers complain about their tasks when made unecessarily more difficult.

Learn something about programming before you talk Redfingers.

Good lord. It IS coming out to the PS3, isn't it? So stop complaining TC. You'll get to play it. Why can't a dev express his discomfort? I can tell you for sure that YOU have not developed any games. At least you'll be playing it. He's not saying "It's too hard, we've stopped developing for the PS3." organic_machine

I'd agree with anyone but Gabe Newell. The guy does nothing but whine about how hard his job is. You dont hear any other developer complaining to the degree he does. Everyone else just seems to get on with it, but he hates the cores of the 360, he hates the SPEs of the PS3, he hates Vista. He hates absolutely everything. I wonder what insane machine would actually make him happy to work on.

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="swaginator"][QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="swaginator"]Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. swaginator

So the Playstation 3 wasn't even a faint consideration in this process?

If the Xenon is so mighty, why does it take 93-94% of it to run Half Life 2, of all games on the planet? Why does the wimpy little in-order processing PPU of the Cell seem to not be having any trouble at all with it?

The SPUs destroy physics and simulations and the Cell can act effectively as a GPU, far more so than the Xenon, that much is well proven. If by sheer chance, who'd have guessed, the Cell has significantly more processing power relevant to video games than the Xenon if this is any indication (along with real-time raytracing demonstrations, software rendering demonstrations, GPUvsCell benchmarks, etc).

[QUOTE="organic_machine"]Good lord. It IS coming out to the PS3, isn't it? So stop complaining TC. You'll get to play it. Why can't a dev express his discomfort? I can tell you for sure that YOU have not developed any games. At least you'll be playing it. He's not saying "It's too hard, we've stopped developing for the PS3." Ninja-Vox

I'd agree with anyone but Gabe Newell. The guy does nothing but whine about how hard his job is. You dont hear any other developer complaining to the degree he does. Everyone else just seems to get on with it, but he hates the cores of the 360, he hates the SPEs of the PS3, he hates Vista. He hates absolutely everything. I wonder what insane machine would actually make him happy to work on.

Absolutely, sheesh.

So the Playstation 3 wasn't even a faint consideration in this process?

If the Xenon is so mighty, why does it take 93-94% of it to run Half Life 2, of all games on the planet? Why does the wimpy little in-order processing PPU of the Cell seem to not be having any trouble at all with it?

The SPUs destroy physics and simulations and the Cell can act effectively as a GPU, far more so than the Xenon, that much is well proven. If by sheer chance, who'd have guessed, the Cell has significantly more processing power relevant to video games than the Xenon if this is any indication (along with real-time raytracing demonstrations, software rendering demonstrations, GPUvsCell benchmarks, etc).

Redfingers

You dont seriously think the XBox 360 is being taxed by Half-Life 2 do you? The game they ran on the original xbox?

[QUOTE="organic_machine"]Good lord. It IS coming out to the PS3, isn't it? So stop complaining TC. You'll get to play it. Why can't a dev express his discomfort? I can tell you for sure that YOU have not developed any games. At least you'll be playing it. He's not saying "It's too hard, we've stopped developing for the PS3." Ninja-Vox

I'd agree with anyone but Gabe Newell. The guy does nothing but whine about how hard his job is. You dont hear any other developer complaining to the degree he does. Everyone else just seems to get on with it, but he hates the cores of the 360, he hates the SPEs of the PS3, he hates Vista. He hates absolutely everything. I wonder what insane machine would actually make him happy to work on.

true. but i am glad he wants nothing to do with windows live. that pleases me. i also wish he would have finished episode 2, portal, and TF2 first. Then ported them to consoles to save time, but I'm not the dev here. :?

How dare anyone ever complain about something that makes their job difficult without cause. I mean, i bet some jerk in a construction company is complaining about moving a mountain of dirt with a shovel despite their boss bieng able to easily afford a tractor for this kind of thing. Subpar tools and equipment for the job despite the fact that a bit more planning could have resulted in significantly easier work? How dare those lazy developers complain about their tasks when made unecessarily more difficult.

Learn something about programming before you talk Redfingers.

XaosII

Did he use Edge? Does he even know it exists? We have developers telling us constantly they're getting a grasp of the SPUs and how to use them. GRAW 2 developers just recently told us it's not more difficult to work on as a platform than the Xbox 360.

If he's having any issues using the Cell processor, how about he consults the Cell summit with IBM? How about he uses the Edge tools? How about he asks a Sony developer? Anything but sitting there and hopelessly flailing his arms about.

Bad analogy, BTW.

[QUOTE="swaginator"][QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="swaginator"][QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"][QUOTE="swaginator"]Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. Redfingers

So the Playstation 3 wasn't even a faint consideration in this process?

If the Xenon is so mighty, why does it take 93-94% of it to run Half Life 2, of all games on the planet? Why does the wimpy little in-order processing PPU of the Cell seem to not be having any trouble at all with it?

The SPUs destroy physics and simulations and the Cell can act effectively as a GPU, far more so than the Xenon, that much is well proven. If by sheer chance, who'd have guessed, the Cell has significantly more processing power relevant to video games than the Xenon if this is any indication (along with real-time raytracing demonstrations, software rendering demonstrations, GPUvsCell benchmarks, etc).

Also i never once said Xenon was almighty.

[QUOTE="XaosII"]

How dare anyone ever complain about something that makes their job difficult without cause. I mean, i bet some jerk in a construction company is complaining about moving a mountain of dirt with a shovel despite their boss bieng able to easily afford a tractor for this kind of thing. Subpar tools and equipment for the job despite the fact that a bit more planning could have resulted in significantly easier work? How dare those lazy developers complain about their tasks when made unecessarily more difficult.

Learn something about programming before you talk Redfingers.

Redfingers

Did he use Edge? Does he even know it exists? We have developers telling us constantly they're getting a grasp of the SPUs and how to use them. GRAW 2 developers just recently told us it's not more difficult to work on as a platform than the Xbox 360.

If he's having any issues using the Cell processor, how about he consults the Cell summit with IBM? How about he uses the Edge tools? How about he asks a Sony developer? Anything but sitting there and hopelessly flailing his arms about.

Bad analogy, BTW.

But how do you know he HASN'T done these things?! You only assume that. He could be doing all these things and simply venting his frustration. You don't know. You just assume.

[QUOTE="Redfingers"]

So the Playstation 3 wasn't even a faint consideration in this process?

If the Xenon is so mighty, why does it take 93-94% of it to run Half Life 2, of all games on the planet? Why does the wimpy little in-order processing PPU of the Cell seem to not be having any trouble at all with it?

The SPUs destroy physics and simulations and the Cell can act effectively as a GPU, far more so than the Xenon, that much is well proven. If by sheer chance, who'd have guessed, the Cell has significantly more processing power relevant to video games than the Xenon if this is any indication (along with real-time raytracing demonstrations, software rendering demonstrations, GPUvsCell benchmarks, etc).

Ninja-Vox

You dont seriously think the XBox 360 is being taxed by Half-Life 2 do you? The game they ran on the original xbox?

I wouldn't think so until I read a benchmark that contradicted that presumption.

I'm kind of on the fence. Here, I've got data. And here, I've got common sense. Common sense tells me that the engine has been upgraded with HDR and supposedly depth of field and does indeed look substantially better...but it also tells me that there are excellent looking games on the Xbox 360 and its proven a competent machine (competent enough to run the supposedly far advanced UE3). It also tells me, of course, the game ran on the original Xbox.

Poor optimization is a possibility, even though they said that the optimized build of the game is running that way. An engine not designed around consoles is another possibility (perhaps the most obvious one).

At any rate, according to Valve, it is indeed being taxed, and dramatically at that, by Half Life 2. That would be factual.

Swaginator, he has a habit of lashing out at anyone who disagrees with him as if they are a lemming.Ninja-Vox

Why dont they let Team Ninja or Red Storm handle the PS3 version of the game :lol: Based onthose statments by him the PS3 version will be horrible.

[QUOTE="Redfingers"]

So the Playstation 3 wasn't even a faint consideration in this process?

If the Xenon is so mighty, why does it take 93-94% of it to run Half Life 2, of all games on the planet? Why does the wimpy little in-order processing PPU of the Cell seem to not be having any trouble at all with it?

The SPUs destroy physics and simulations and the Cell can act effectively as a GPU, far more so than the Xenon, that much is well proven. If by sheer chance, who'd have guessed, the Cell has significantly more processing power relevant to video games than the Xenon if this is any indication (along with real-time raytracing demonstrations, software rendering demonstrations, GPUvsCell benchmarks, etc).

swaginator

Also i never once said Xenon was almighty.

A) the engine has been changed and supposedly improved substantially. Half Life 2 Ep 2 DOES look a lot different from Half Life 2 even though it is ostensibly the same engine (Source).

B) all I had to prove was that the Cell was built with gaming in mind...or at least was produced accidentally with highly competent gaming application.

[QUOTE="Ninja-Vox"][QUOTE="Redfingers"]

So the Playstation 3 wasn't even a faint consideration in this process?

If the Xenon is so mighty, why does it take 93-94% of it to run Half Life 2, of all games on the planet? Why does the wimpy little in-order processing PPU of the Cell seem to not be having any trouble at all with it?

The SPUs destroy physics and simulations and the Cell can act effectively as a GPU, far more so than the Xenon, that much is well proven. If by sheer chance, who'd have guessed, the Cell has significantly more processing power relevant to video games than the Xenon if this is any indication (along with real-time raytracing demonstrations, software rendering demonstrations, GPUvsCell benchmarks, etc).

Redfingers

You dont seriously think the XBox 360 is being taxed by Half-Life 2 do you? The game they ran on the original xbox?

I wouldn't think so until I read a benchmark that contradicted that presumption.

I'm kind of on the fence. Here, I've got data. And here, I've got common sense. Common sense tells me that the engine has been upgraded with HDR and supposedly depth of field and does indeed look substantially better...but it also tells me that there are excellent looking games on the Xbox 360 and its proven a competent machine (competent enough to run the supposedly far advanced UE3). It also tells me, of course, the game ran on the original Xbox.

Poor optimization is a possibility, even though they said that the optimized build of the game is running that way. An engine not designed around consoles is another possibility (perhaps the most obvious one).

At any rate, according to Valve, it is indeed being taxed, and dramatically at that, by Half Life 2. That would be factual.

[QUOTE="swaginator"][QUOTE="Redfingers"]

So the Playstation 3 wasn't even a faint consideration in this process?

If the Xenon is so mighty, why does it take 93-94% of it to run Half Life 2, of all games on the planet? Why does the wimpy little in-order processing PPU of the Cell seem to not be having any trouble at all with it?

The SPUs destroy physics and simulations and the Cell can act effectively as a GPU, far more so than the Xenon, that much is well proven. If by sheer chance, who'd have guessed, the Cell has significantly more processing power relevant to video games than the Xenon if this is any indication (along with real-time raytracing demonstrations, software rendering demonstrations, GPUvsCell benchmarks, etc).

Redfingers

Also i never once said Xenon was almighty.

A) the engine has been changed and supposedly improved substantially. Half Life 2 Ep 2 DOES look a lot different from Half Life 2 even though it is ostensibly the same engine (Source).

B) all I had to prove was that the Cell was built with gaming in mind...or at least was produced accidentally with highly competent gaming application.

Swag, I only have two benchmarks available for me in recent memory. They're these two:

Factor Five said that Lair probably isn't even using 50% of the Playstation 3's power

Naughty Dog said that according to some rough benchmarks, Uncharted is using roughly 1/3 or 33%.

The way i see it, Half-Life 2 has nothing on Gears in the technical department. Or BioShock for that matter. And Cliffy B said himself that a year or two from now games will look waaaay better than Gears. Therefore, i can only conclude that this is a guy talking off-hand who's had his words pulled out of context. It happens all the time.

As Frankie from bungie once said, "Miyamoto said once that he could make a game like Halo... the next day journalists had contorted that into him saying we were nothing special as developers and that he could easily make a game of Halo quality if he wanted to. In actual fact, all he said was that he could make a shooter someday if he put his mind to it. The conclusion? Never speak when some idiot with a camera is in your presence."

Swag, I only have two benchmarks available for me in recent memory. They're these two:

Factor Five said that Lair probably isn't even using 50% of the Playstation 3's power

Naughty Dog said that according to some rough benchmarks, Uncharted is using roughly 1/3 or 33%.

Redfingers

[QUOTE="XaosII"]

How dare anyone ever complain about something that makes their job difficult without cause. I mean, i bet some jerk in a construction company is complaining about moving a mountain of dirt with a shovel despite their boss bieng able to easily afford a tractor for this kind of thing. Subpar tools and equipment for the job despite the fact that a bit more planning could have resulted in significantly easier work? How dare those lazy developers complain about their tasks when made unecessarily more difficult.

Learn something about programming before you talk Redfingers.

Redfingers

Did he use Edge? Does he even know it exists? We have developers telling us constantly they're getting a grasp of the SPUs and how to use them. GRAW 2 developers just recently told us it's not more difficult to work on as a platform than the Xbox 360.

If he's having any issues using the Cell processor, how about he consults the Cell summit with IBM? How about he uses the Edge tools? How about he asks a Sony developer? Anything but sitting there and hopelessly flailing his arms about.

Bad analogy, BTW.

And yet.... He's still coming out with a PS3 version of the game. And John Carmack has expressed the same thing. Itagaki has expressed the same thing. Tim Sweeney has expressed similar feelings.

DO you realize that Carmack, Sweeney, and Newell represent the top 3 biggest programmers known in gaming? Rarely do programmers get any fame. Its always overrated Game Designer that dont know jack squat about hardware talking about hardware.

[QUOTE="Redfingers"]

Swag, I only have two benchmarks available for me in recent memory. They're these two:

Factor Five said that Lair probably isn't even using 50% of the Playstation 3's power

Naughty Dog said that according to some rough benchmarks, Uncharted is using roughly 1/3 or 33%.

swaginator

At the same expo, Mark Rein said they squeezed every drop out of the 360 that they could. As he was saying this, Cliffy was giving a speech on how games would look way better than gears a year from now (then). I laughed.

Some of it's the truth though. The Cell processor was not designed for gaming in mind. swaginator

Ok so why is the PS3 the first prduct that uses it and ibm partnered with "sony"and to-shut yo mouth to make it

The way i see it, Half-Life 2 has nothing on Gears in the technical department. Or BioShock for that matter. And Cliffy B said himself that a year or two from now games will look waaaay better than Gears. Therefore, i can only conclude that this is a guy talking off-hand who's had his words pulled out of context. It happens all the time.

As Frankie from bungie once said, "Miyamoto said once that he could make a game like Halo... the next day journalists had contorted that into him saying we were nothing special as developers and that he could easily make a game of Halo quality if he wanted to. In actual fact, all he said was that he could make a shooter someday if he put his mind to it. The conclusion? Never speak when some idiot with a camera is in your presence."

Ninja-Vox

Exactly. I think TC is taking things out of context.

The way i see it, Half-Life 2 has nothing on Gears in the technical department. Or BioShock for that matter. And Cliffy B said himself that a year or two from now games will look waaaay better than Gears. Therefore, i can only conclude that this is a guy talking off-hand who's had his words pulled out of context. It happens all the time.

As Frankie from bungie once said, "Miyamoto said once that he could make a game like Halo... the next day journalists had contorted that into him saying we were nothing special as developers and that he could easily make a game of Halo quality if he wanted to. In actual fact, all he said was that he could make a shooter someday if he put his mind to it. The conclusion? Never speak when some idiot with a camera is in your presence."

Ninja-Vox

You're assuming that PSU made up those figures.

I'll have you know I read a ridiculous and inaccurate technical comparison explaining how the Playstation 3 had 256 MB of RAM and was dramatically underpowered when compared to the Xbox 360....on that exact website....unaltered.

I can honestly guarantee you that this information is directly from this Valve employee.

However, there are reasonable explanations for it on that end. Possibly poor optimizations, possibly the engine doesn't run effectively and reasonably on modern consoles, possibly, possibly it's the truth. Possibly he made it up.

Please just don't toss this aside on considerations of "teh bias," though.

Speaking of people taking words out of context; has nobody stopped and looked at the source? Playstation Universe? Possibly the only website out there actually run by fanboys? I mean team xbox frequently do editorials on problems with the 'box. PSU is nothing but sony-praise and xbox-bashing 24/7.Ninja-Vox

Did you miss the article I linked in the OP with Gabe Newell trashing the Cell CPU?

I've seen plenty of negative statements on the Playstation 3. Plenty of them. The news is Playstation 3 centric, but they don't censor anything beyond that. That means good and bad Playstation 3 news.

But what i'm saying is Microsoft contracted IBM to 'specifically' make the Xenon for the Xbox 360. IBM, Sony, and Toshiba didn't sit down and say alright lets make this processor specially for the PS3. It was made for lots of different devices.swaginator

[QUOTE="Ninja-Vox"]

The way i see it, Half-Life 2 has nothing on Gears in the technical department. Or BioShock for that matter. And Cliffy B said himself that a year or two from now games will look waaaay better than Gears. Therefore, i can only conclude that this is a guy talking off-hand who's had his words pulled out of context. It happens all the time.

As Frankie from bungie once said, "Miyamoto said once that he could make a game like Halo... the next day journalists had contorted that into him saying we were nothing special as developers and that he could easily make a game of Halo quality if he wanted to. In actual fact, all he said was that he could make a shooter someday if he put his mind to it. The conclusion? Never speak when some idiot with a camera is in your presence."

organic_machine

Exactly. I think TC is taking things out of context.

Lol....I took things out of context? Wrong, I put the Gabe Newell comment on the Playstation 3 in context. The Valve PSU interview speaks for itself. The Xbox 360 comments do not require further clarification from any other article.

You're completely missing the point.

[QUOTE="organic_machine"][QUOTE="Ninja-Vox"]

The way i see it, Half-Life 2 has nothing on Gears in the technical department. Or BioShock for that matter. And Cliffy B said himself that a year or two from now games will look waaaay better than Gears. Therefore, i can only conclude that this is a guy talking off-hand who's had his words pulled out of context. It happens all the time.

As Frankie from bungie once said, "Miyamoto said once that he could make a game like Halo... the next day journalists had contorted that into him saying we were nothing special as developers and that he could easily make a game of Halo quality if he wanted to. In actual fact, all he said was that he could make a shooter someday if he put his mind to it. The conclusion? Never speak when some idiot with a camera is in your presence."

Redfingers

Exactly. I think TC is taking things out of context.

Lol....I took things out of context? Wrong, I put the Gabe Newell comment on the Playstation 3 in context. The Valve PSU interview speaks for itself. The Xbox 360 comments do not require further clarification from any other article.

You're completely missing the point.

Yes, you're taking things out of context. You're also the one who's claiming Gabe is biased, yet you tell ninja NOt to pull "teh bias" card. You know nothing of development and you are acting hypocritical.

I love how he skips my post with 3 seperate links from three seperate developers displeased with the PS3, and more specifically, the Cell.XaosII

I just read that. Good post.

However, Itagaki essentially counterparts his apprentice who blames developers for not trying hard enough or something to that extent. Given Itagaki's history for being infatuated with the perfection of his development efforts, it's an ironic statement that he says it's too complicated. At any rate there's little depth to it and I found it easy to ignore.

Tim Sweeney spoke about the Cell in reference to single-core processors primarily. The only comparison he drew between the Cell and other multicore processors is that it's apparently "even more complex." Given it's the same class as other multi-core processors and with no information to suggest it's dramatically more difficult than most standard multicore processors to develop for, I'm willing to accept his opinion as definite truth but say that there is little criticism of the Cell specifically.

His criticism was almost aimed at the hardware and gaming industry as a whole, moreover.

As far as Carmack, I don't know. He made those comments before he began developing on the platform. Now he's begun to complain about the platforms RAM using numbers that are currently factually inaccurate. Today, he is developing a game on the Playstation 3 (admittedly I don't think he's actually developing it...he hired a number of Playstation 3 programmers in order to port it). He's always been fairly outspoken. Given the Edge tools actually provide code that literally uses the SPUs, it's obvious the climate is significantly different on the Cell front.

As the anti-Carmack I have the comment by the GRAW 2 developers where they say it is no more difficult to develop for as a platform than the Xbox 360. They say this as a team porting a game from the Xbox 360 to the Playstation 3.