PS3 'not broken'

New report dismisses rumours

Last week a report on The Inquirer quoted graphical performance figures implying that Sony's PS3 was in fact 'broken', speculation which prompted a firm defence of the console from unnamed developers this week, claiming that the quoted figures lacked context.

The Inquirer report stated that hardware flaws caused the system to 'hobble' versus the Xbox 360, and affirmed that the console was 'slow and broken'. The figures quoted, 'triangle setup rates', were based on information concerning the NVIDIA-powered graphics core of the console, and the memory access speeds published on a Sony conference slide. Based on these, The Inquirer cited PS3 triangle setup rates of 270 million per second, compared to the 360's 500 million.

Developers, however, seem to have taken issue with the report, telling GamesIndustry.biz that the figures are meaningless and lacking in context. A developer, who could not be named for fear of breaching an NDA, stated that the numbers were not necessarily reflective of game performance, noting that theoretically the PS2 boasted a higher triangle number than the Xbox (which was of course far more powerful, in practice).

Games Industry's sources then laughed off The Inquirer's memory access concerns, stating that the rates were not referring to the Cell processor's speeds but rather the NVIDIA graphics chip's. "I doubt a single person in the room batted an eyelid when they showed that slide," a source was quoted as stating. "It's exactly what we'd expect, and the bits that we actually need to use to make games are perfectly fast."

Having debunked the 'broken' theory then, the developers did concede that the PS3 was a challenge to work with, but this is perhaps to be expected of new hardware. Software normally takes at least a couple of generations to begin fully utilising the power of new hardware. We'll keep you posted as we learn more.

By Luke Guttridge