BioShock Infinite Not Going to Be a Dud on PS3

The first BioShock was an Xbox 360 console exclusive…for a while anyway. When it finally made its way to Sony’s machine, Ps3 gamers were elated – but their smiles turned to grumbles when they realised that their version of the much lauded game was a pretty poor port; something that has a propensity to happen when the 360 is the lead platform.

Gamers who favour Sony’s black box needn’t worry that history will repeat itself as far as BioShock infinite is concerned. According to developers Irrational Games, there is no lead platform – and the game is being simultaneously developed for each system.

"We’re serious about making sure the PS3 version is great," an Irrational Games rep Chris Kline told concerned PS3 fans on the official forums.

"We have no plans to hand off the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite to another studio. In fact, it’s not a "port" at all. We have a much larger team than we did on the original BioShock, so we’re doing simultaneous in-house development on the PS3, 360, and PC versions of the game," he added.

"We all know that the PS3 is powerful but unique console with its own strengths and challenges. But compared to the PC, the Xbox 360 is challenging too. So instead of declaring a "lead platform" and porting the game to the others, we’ve instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3."

"This means,” he went on, getting rather technical that “implementing a task-oriented task processor that assumes a NUMA (non-uniform memory access) design that mimics the PPU/SPU split of the PS3. Writing code this way is more difficult for us, but has a key advantage: it’s both optimal for the PS3 *and* gives speed improvements on other platforms due to increased cache coherence and more efficient use of multiple processing units." Awesome.

Hopefully this all means that fans of good games can experience what’s likely to be a work of brilliance together, instead of bickering over which version runs at a slightly higher resolution or has minutely sharper textures or inconsequentially faster load times. Unless the 360 version comes on multiple discs of course, in which case PS3 gamers are allowed to point and laugh at the disc-swopping Xbros.

Source : Irrational Games’ forums

Last Updated: November 22, 2010