Graphics

[Panajev]

Yes, of course... I am not saying that they should choose a different staretgy just for the sake of it... if they just followed the iOS strategy (in terms of tools too), it would not be bad in my opinion ... not at all, seeing the UI composer tool I was already more than happy.

[rockhamster]

For me the biggest issue I have with the restrictions is that these restrictions do not exist in the iphone or android sdks.

The PS SDK is competing with the Android SDK directly and it's not even trying to match the features of that. Limitations only hold people back when it comes to creating interesting games, if a simple application was written that also allows the use of a particular feature on the Vita given the choice I'm sure many people would choose to buy the application with that feature.

And I don't think anyone can argue against the app development culture that Apple fostered successfully was a bad idea, I'd say that's the most important aspect of the iphone. The sheer amount of interesting apps that come from hobby developers who have a simple idea that they implement.

I'm sure if developers were given access to the backtouch of the Vita they could create some unique games just by virtue of using that control mechanic.

[CheneysGotAGun]

Sony should copy what Microsoft did with their XNA.

They made your game choose a graphics profile, so for weaker devices like a phone or a PC without a graphics card you'd use their Reach profile. If you wanted to use more video ram and more graphics card capabilities you'd use their HiDef profile.

[AlexMcDev]

Hi:

Yes but more work for devs and time implies what you suggest remember in cross platform programming you choose the lowest one and then add the extra features. May be in the furture Sony will do that for each device. I think so far they are doing ok.

cheers,

[polemical]

I've worked professionally with several platforms, in several languages, and there's nothing crippling about the PSM SDK in general.. any interpreted code will run more slowly than native. The PSM would cost what other engines/licenses do if Sony wanted to pay tens of thousands of hours in coding and documenting to take PSM to that level (i.e. native output for all supported devices)... which they probably don't want to do, security concerns aside, since 75% of the PSM games submitted will probably be more damaging to their reputation than the meager profits from those will justify. Also.. the game developers using expensive engines won't get so angry about PSM since they have their own costs to justify too... imagine, PSM SDK came out and it's better and/or more efficient to work with than the engine you spent 1/4 your game budget on, and now everyone has it? lol..

The demo games included in the SDK are a good indication of where you can take things. The fact those demos run smoothly means anything equally or less demanding would run equally well or better. I find it hard to imagine someone not being able to come up with something amazing given the capabilities of PSM. There are plenty of ways to optimize your game code and assets. Think casual - that's your target here. Raw power does not enable success.. and although power can provide more potential for an already-good game to be made better, it might be advisable to save "better" until the time/money you'll already be spending on your concept's lightweight version turns out to be worth the ROI. Why put in twice the effort necessary before finding out your game idea sucks? MAYBE it's genius - at which point your PSM success leads to as many certifications and expensive SDKs and licenses as you could ever want... but after all that you might just come back to PSM. Because you have other ideas to prototype, and it's just that easy....

[MartinCaine]

First of all C# is not interpreted, when it's VM uses acceleration features like SIMD and NEON it can even be hard to see the difference between pure C and C# in many cases.

The floating point non-optimization in PSM is what cripples most people's games. If you're doing any heavy matrix or vector math in your game it's going to be slow.

As was previously stated too, our games are going to be distributed on Android devices and on the Vita, the games on Google Play and PSN are our effective competition and we're going to be judged against those by consumers. It is very difficult with PSM to optimize a game to a point where it runs the same as it would coding it natively for Android or Vita.

There's also going to be a huge range of titles available on PSM and the best are going to stand out and provide a target for the others to aim for, so those people who push the SDK to it's limits early on are going to be setting the bar for other developers. There's no way you're going to be successful on this service releasing a game like the demos provided with the SDK as those are intended only to be simple starting points to show you what can be done and you should aim to do better.