* SIGH *

Sometimes I despair. Sometimes I wonder if all these whacky rumours are just FUD put out there by competing firms. People out there that want to make the PS3 look bad for whatever reason.

The latest rumour is that Japanese devs aren’t happy with the PS3 dev kits. It seems that “the difficulty seems squarely blamed on the PS3’s Cell chip architecture and the resulting need for better-thought out version control tools for coding teams”. Now, the CV&G writer who quoted this said “We’d pretend we know what this means, but we don’t.”

Ah, you see. That’s where I have an advantage. I’m a developer! And I can state with absolute assurance that the Cell’s chip architecture has nothing whatsoever to do with version control tools. Nothing. Zilch. Zip. Nada. A version control tool is a piece of software you use to track (you guessed it!) versions of files. It’s basically a database. It contains a history of all the files it contains, so you can track changes, go back to previous versions, distribute changes, etc. Does that sound like it has anything to do with a microprocessor’s architecture? I thought not.

Here’s another one: “Also problems of an unknown price point – currently tipped at around $400 – means developers and publishers are also uncertain of their target audience.”

Gosh, you know. I think targetting the current PS2 audience might be a great place to start. I think making a platformer would be a pretty safe bet. Or an RPG. Wait wait wait. I know what you’re going to say. Developers need more specific info than that. Hmm, well. You can say that, but I’m not sure you’ll get me to believe you! “Oh no, the price is really $500 instead of $400. Quick, add some blood!” Yeah, right.

C&VG – PS3 LOSING DEV FANS IN JAPAN?