Poll: Who has the current best set of technical developers? Nintendo/Sony/MS

Nintendo shouldn't be on this list, their 1st party teams don't eve know what anti-aliasing is and how to use it.

Definitely Sony. This has been true since last gen.

Nintendo can sure squeeze a whole lot out of a little, and at times it's technically impressive, but a lot of it just comes down to how well their art styles makes things pop.

The best third parties as a group outclass them by a large margin, and then I would say Nintendo > Sony > Microsoft.

Nintendo first party above Sony in technical ability? Bwahahahahahahaha...... Come back when Nintendo first party learn what anti-aliasing is.

Well Sony hands down. The other two are not even in the same realm.

I'm interpreting "technical ability" maybe differently than you are. Anti-aliasing is not a concern of mine. Gameplay and creativity is. And making the most of the hardware you are dealt is. At least that is what impresses me. Raw specs and whatnot don't really move me. Nintendo systems themselves are very efficient and I think their game's code are as well and need the least patches after release. But what do I know? Anyone can raw power through these things. I feel Nintendo programers are very skilled in working with what they got. When is the last time a Nintendo game crashed on you?

And Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games and other Sony studio's aren't?

Nintendo games never push the technical envelope, they never set new technical standards or come up with new techniques and effects.

That is what the OP means when he says technical.

@scatteh316: You make a good point, I don't think Nintendo pushes the envelope. I think they are very competent and skilled programers but perhaps I miss the meaning of the OP when he says technical.

Hard to judge since their target platforms have different specs. It's easier to compare Microsoft and Sony, but not so easy to compare with Nintendo since their target platform is considerably weaker than the PS4 and Xbone. For example, it's pretty impressive what Nintendo gets out of older hardware. Games like Mario Galaxy or Mario Kart 8 compete with other titles released at similar times despite the hardware.

That's fine because I'm not very good with words and yeah I am talking more about pushing visuals/physics, etc.

I have zero doubts about Nintendo's capability of creating fun games in terms of mechanics alone.. because that's what I've been hearing about eversince in game forums and they have sales and ratings to back them up.

Can't wait for the Switch rev. 2 ala "New 3DS" so I can experience more Nintendo. Last was GBA era and some Mario game that I played a lot but not as much as MMBN and Megaman Zero series :P

@mark1974:

I mean, it's not like you're wrong lol. Nintendo can squeeze a lot out of a relatively weak system. They're absolutely talented on technical level in that respect. You could also argue that they make some of the most polished games in the industry, which requires anal retentive technical staff.

Writing them off because of anti aliasing is a bit silly.

Nintendo has the ability to adapt the aesthetics of a game to the hardware capabilities they have making the games look good even with weak hardware in comparison to the competition. That is definitely some talent.

I want to say Nintendo is- because what Nintendo can squeeze out of the (shitty) hardware it works with is amazing and stunning to see (it's unbelievable that BotW is running on Wii U).

But

I also think that that would be unfair to just how jaw droppingly stunning Guerrilla and Naughty Dog and Sony Santa Monica have been in the past. While Nintendo is definitely technically proficient relative to the hardware it chooses to work with, the fact remains that it chooses that shitty hardware for its own self- and I don't know why I should give it a handicap for a choice it has willingly made. So I'm going to go with Sony here, because in absolute terms, its developers are definitely top of the pack as far as technical proficiency is concerned.

Easy question.

Sony, of course.

Sony has always fostered an environment that allows devs to be creative, work on what they want to work on for the most part.

Led to some creative and innovative games.

MS started with such a western approach that they only just started to come out of.

Hopefully Spencer has laid the groundwork during his short tenure.

Courting Japanese devs is very promising.

Sony by a long shot, it's not even close.

Why are people praising Nintendo? Giving them props for the results they get out of their hardware.....

That's nothing special....

Did you see what The last Of Us pulled out of PS3's hardware which was using a GPU from 2005..... And was an 8 year old GPU by the time TLOU released.

Look at what Gorilla are pulling out of PS4 and it's mid-range 2012 level GPU.....

And yet Nintendo are being praised for what they can do? Am I missing something? They're not the kings of pushing hardware, not by a long shot.

Sony by a land slide.

Also people need to stop mentioning how old a piece of hardware is, software dev tools become much more mature and further able to exploit given hardware, it is natural progression, however Sony wins this one.

Sony obviously win technically, Nintendo artistically.

Honourable mention to the Forza Horizon games, that aside MS are pretty much not in either running.

You mean purely graphical performance? Probably Sony. They're not the best at catching bugs though, for instance.

Given the lack of detail in the world, framerate issues, freezing and other bugs, its not that difficult to believe

Micro$oft doesn't belong in any list that include Nintendo or Sony in the realm of gaming.

That's a very accurate statement. You win SW today.

Nintendo EAD is still unmatched overall

Sony is great too though. Love Media Molecule, ND, Santa Monica(tho their latest games fell short of expecations since GOW ascension)

Because it's the same logic, obviously. Just different time periods. Sony also deserve props for the same reasoning. Just because Sony's first party also does it doesn't take away from Nintendo's efforts. They both have great studios that make the most of the hardware. The only reason I'm bringing up Nintendo specifically is because they'd be easily overlooked since the time periods they work off are older, so therefore it'd make Sony first party dev's look better by default (which isn't necessarily true).

I watched that DF of Horizon and as someone who isn't really very techy, it seems Guerilla has been pushing "these techniques" for consoles like reprojection, procedural generation with great graphics to boot, etc.

Does DF mention similar things with any recent Nintendo 1st party title? I am kinda staying away from BoTW since I dont want to spoil myself.

When we're talking about tech, are we talking about...(1) the ability to produce great visuals out of old hardware, (2) the ability to create mechanically perfect control schemes for their games, or (3) the ability to make use of innovative hardware to push unique gaming experiences?

I guess it doesn't matter, since Nintendo has the edge on all three.

Oh, unless you're talking about the ability to produce cutting-edge graphics, in which case... *insert PC dev here*.

You are always going to be surprised when you make egregiously incorrect assumptions about console hardware like 'GPU from 2005' or '2012 level GPU'.

Memory speeds, bus speeds, pipelined DMA, and a wide range of other design features to enable parallelism and efficiently cranking through huge amounts of data to be rendered in hardware bleeding edge hardware like the PS3 and PS4 make naive comparisons to PC graphics cards meaningless.

More on console engines of first party pushing for newer or unusual compute techniques for consoles. Less on raw gameplay/story, etc.

Speaking of PC. I wish Crytek was still pushing and had been successful. Last notable console release I remember was Ryse. That game looked great.

No doubts about great gameplay coming from Nintendo and getting the best sales/great ratings like most Pokemon, Mario and Zelda releases.

Sony of course and the unbiased SW's poll shows it to be true and factual.

Unfortunately you have to dumb it all down for people in here ;)

Sony and nobody else comes even close.

None of them. Console development is all about making it work for one set of hardware. There are creative ways to squeeze more frames here and there while maintaining good graphics (I guess Sony or MS wins here - def not Nintendo).

I think we cut console devs too much slack.

Nintendo. BOTW's advanced physics and chemistry engines are more technically impressive than Sony's pretty graphics.

For tec. Sony for sure. They can make some very nice looking games for crappy hardware.

Sony, but I would live to see Nintendo working with a "powerful" console.