MGSV:TPP, PS3 Cell Secret Sauce, Console Sales.

With all the criticism, PS3 got great exclusive, only playable on PS3, but The Last Guardian isn't there anymore, yet a version of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is there and according to Digital Foundry, the PS3 version is the worst version. http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

Given time and resources, PS3 version could be more superior than the X360 version.

6 months work to unleash ~77 GFlops of PS3 Cell power.
6 months work to unleash ~77 GFlops of X360 xenon power.

18 months work to unleash ~230 GFlops of PS3 Cell power.
What Justifies the need to spend three times the time and resources to get three times the performance?

Uncharted, The Last of Us, PS3 Exclusives.
Multi-platform games, PS3 sales.

Time to triangle.

If the Ps3 X360 sold ratio more than 3:1, developers can justify the need to spend triple the time and resources, to make their PS3 version triple more beautiful than their X360 version. But the sold ratio isn't 3:1 but close to 1:1. Yes, based on more accurate ratio PS3 sold a bit more.

PlayStation 3 (PS3) 85.83 million
Xbox 360 (X360) 84.90 million
http://www.vgchartz.com/ana...

With a ratio close to 1:1,
Giving PS3 Cell CPU more programming time and resources than X360 Xenos are simply counterproductive, when the time and resources can be put into creating a Metal Gears Solid 5 Worlds filled with so much content and entertainment.

"When the PS4 version runs better than Xbone then it's because the PS4 has superior hardware, but when the 360 version runs better than PS3, it's because the Kojima team can't program the Cell"

Mythbusting "PS3 version inferiority = Lazy Developers", if PS3 sold many times more than X360, then there's more reason to unleash the hidden Power of the Cell Architecture.

PS3 sales numbers simply doesn't justify the need for multiple multi-plaform games developer to make their PS3 version of their multi-plaform games superior than their X360 version, evidently demonstrated by Japanese game developer Platinum Games, Bayonetta and recently Kojima Productions and Metal Gear Solid V: the Phantom Pain.

Xbox fans can ignore the importance of "Sales", but sales are also a deciding factor the which version should game developers give more attention, time and resources.

Last point, PS2 was the hardest console to program between, Xbox, Gamecube, Dreamcast, but is sold many times more than them, thus warrants the need to give the most attention, time & resources to the PS2 version of many multi-platform games in its generation.

Conclusion, How much PS3 Cell architecture "secret sauce" power should be unleashed by multi-platform game developers depends on the sales of the PS3. Sadly PS3 total sales simply does not justify the need to make PS3 version of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain superior than the X360 version.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

The reason why the PS3 version isnt't superior to the 360 version is because the PS3 isn't really much more powerful than the 360. The 360 has a more powerful GPU, better ram and a more efficient CPU. The cell could calculate more teraflops and do more graphics processing than the 360 xenos if all the SPIs were used for graphics. However that would be impractical since the cell isn't that efficient for graphics or CPU calculations. SPIs have to be split up to either help the main cpu or gpu with tasks.

[Concertoine]

Yeah this is nothing new, PS3 has always done marginally worse than 360 at open world games.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

One thing I don't understand about this article is that he equates sales to visual quality. MGS always has a high playstation attach rate. I'm certain Konami did their best to get the game to run well on all consoles. The PS3 cell processor simply wasn't as good as the 360 hardware for handling this type of game. The real world performance of the two system is very similar , but the 360 is just more efficient.

[TomRL]

I mostly agree, but I don't think it should solely depend on how many sales the console itself has. For example, what if it's like Final Fantasy, where the PS3 was were the fanbase was.

[Ravenor]

...What?

[DarXyde]

Sales do matter, but depending on the game, sales more particularly matter by region. For example, if Xbox has no presence in Japan, developers often ignore Japanese releases of their games on the Xbox. However, if it is a Japanese game and PS3 is looking better sales-wise in Japan, that might also have an effect on their efforts. Look at Final Fantasy XIII. It looks better on PS3 and that's where the JRPG audience is. Then games with more Western themes seem to perform better on Xbox 360. Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto are pretty good examples of this.

It's hard to say conclusively, but I do believe it's more multivariate than sales. Sales by region, if you will.

[Concertoine]

Its more dependent on what the lead platform is. Even very japanese games that will obviously do better on PS3 like Bayonetta or Metal Gear Rising still run better on 360 because it was ported from that system to PS3.

The minority of multiplats last gen that were PS3 to 360 ports (FFXIII, Vanquish, some others) obviously looked better on PS3.

Also the reason GTA, Red Dead, Fallout, etc perform better on 360 is because open world games were especially difficult to implement on PS3, though it had obvious strengths elsewhere.

[DarXyde]

Fair point, Concertoine.

Some of it I'd wager was due to lazy porting though. Again, I would be challenged to give particular reasoning.