Haze Developer: PSN Offers More Freedom Than Xbox Live
Haze developer gets philosophical
SPOnG caught up with the developers behind Haze, Free Radical, yesterday, and amid all the chat about entering warzones jacked up on drugs and who'd win in a fight between Buddha and Jesus†, some interesting things were said about the PlayStation Network. Specifically, the joy and the terror provided by the freedom it enables.
"The disadvantage of the Sony stuff is that there isn't as much defined by Sony as to how you have to do things - they leave it very much up to you" Derek Littlewood, project leader on Haze told us.
Putting Haze out on the PS3 first, with an online service widely considered to be inferior to Xbox Live, hasn't hindered the title's online offering at all as far as Free Radical's concerned. "For us, because we've thought about multiplayer right from the start, I certainly wouldn't say that our multiplayer has suffered at all. We've been able to do it in the way we want to."
Then things started to get a bit, like, deep, "It's a fundamental difference in philosophy between Sony and Microsoft. You see it in all of their libraries and their tech support, as well. Sony very much, y'know, let you just go at it, whereas Microsoft provide a lot more structure and a lot more libraries for you and - for us as a developer - the PS3 stuff... we've always liked working with it."
Check back with SPOnG later in the week for the full interview to hear about combat, substance abuse and Buddha vs Christ.
Oh, and while you're waiting, check out SPOnG's Haze preview.
† Apparently Buddha the 100-Hand Slap.
"The disadvantage of the Sony stuff is that there isn't as much defined by Sony as to how you have to do things - they leave it very much up to you" Derek Littlewood, project leader on Haze told us.
"So, on the one hand that's a disadvantage, because developers will under-deliver compared to what Live provides. But at the same time, because it's not as strongly defined, you have the freedom to do it in the way that you want to - in a way that may be more suitable to your game. You see some games with the Live interface, [where] they might have been able to innovate and alter things round and make things work better than Live, but they can't because they have to conform with Microsoft's standards on that, whereas on the PlayStation Network you have the freedom to do things in the way you want to."
Putting Haze out on the PS3 first, with an online service widely considered to be inferior to Xbox Live, hasn't hindered the title's online offering at all as far as Free Radical's concerned. "For us, because we've thought about multiplayer right from the start, I certainly wouldn't say that our multiplayer has suffered at all. We've been able to do it in the way we want to."
Then things started to get a bit, like, deep, "It's a fundamental difference in philosophy between Sony and Microsoft. You see it in all of their libraries and their tech support, as well. Sony very much, y'know, let you just go at it, whereas Microsoft provide a lot more structure and a lot more libraries for you and - for us as a developer - the PS3 stuff... we've always liked working with it."
Check back with SPOnG later in the week for the full interview to hear about combat, substance abuse and Buddha vs Christ.
Oh, and while you're waiting, check out SPOnG's Haze preview.
† Apparently Buddha the 100-Hand Slap.
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Comments
deleted 15 Aug 2007 21:38
1/1
in other words sony, no conformity = each game doing there own thing and some will be good and some wont, at least live has if it aint broke dont fix it, and guess what sony it aint broke.