Deflated Pigskin: PS3's Football Troubles
How Madden, All-Pro and NCAA ain't looking so good on PS3.
By Bryan Intihar, 06/29/2007
They may call baseball America's pastime, but in the world of videogames, that honor easily belongs to football. No other sport has racked up software sales quite like the pigskin offerings, and no other sport has been so vital to the success (PlayStation 2 having Madden since Day 1) and failure (Dreamcast never got it) of hardware. The importance of this genre is just as relevant today, yet it seems Sony's console ain't sittin' so pretty this time around.
We have confirmed the Xbox 360 versions of Madden NFL 08 (August), All-Pro Football 2K8 (July), and NCAA Football 08 (July) will run at 60 frames per second, whereas the PS3 editions are locked at just 30fps. In the simplest of terms, this means that the 360 versions will run smoother and faster, and you'll have an easier time noticing subtle animations.
While we haven't had the opportunity to see the difference with EA's titles (the publisher hasn't sent us PS3 builds of either), All-Pro Football 2K8 definitely runs better on Xbox 360.
Now, you'd think Sony would be doing everything in its power to make sure these system sellers are par with -- or better -- than Microsoft's version. That's not the case, as Sony seems to have a "hey, we can do it -- why can't you?" attitude. "We have already proven that sports titles can run on the PlayStation 3 at true HD with 1080p output with NBA 07," says Dave Karraker, Sony CEA's senior director of corporate communications. "If you have questions about specific third-party games, you should speak to those publishers."
OK, we will. After seeing Sony's response, Todd Sitrin, EA's vice president of marketing sports branding, replied:
"We want to make sure that we give the best experience we can on each platform. In designing a game, there are all sorts of tradeoffs that include frame rate, visuals, features, AI, etc. Football is an extremely challenging sport to replicate because of the number of people on the field, their interaction, and the scope of the environments. As you can see, every company making a football game this year made a decision that the best experience for the Xbox 360 included 60fps whereas the best experience for the PS3 was 30fps. We certainly believe that both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are our football products are outstanding experiences and recommend that each gamer look at the entire experience, not just one aspect. We think they'll be very happy no matter which version of the game they play."
Unfortunately, the folks at 2K Sports refused to comment.
Aside from the simple fact that this puts the PS3 at a disadvantage (again), this situation (and Sony's response to it) raises all kinds of questions: is Sony's console really that much more difficult to develop for? What is Sony doing to educate its third parties on PS3 development? And after Karraker's comment, do they even care to help? A few weeks ago, Karraker tackled the subject on Sony's PlayStation blog:
"If your game starts on Xbox 360 you will have to re-engineer aspects of the game to run properly on PS3. This means additional effort. Some developers have been complaining about this but I don't believe we can solve that. Xbox 360 is a different machine with good, but lower powered hardware in a different architecture. Developers have to view them as two different machines not as a common platform."
It's worth pointing out that EA's been working on Xbox 360 hardware a full year longer than PS3. With Madden, it's almost understandable, but 2K is having the same issues with All-Pro Football 2K8, a game built from the ground up to be released on both platforms.
With this now in mind, does this change which version you're going to buy?
