Sony and EA refute PS3 criticisms

PS3 News | Madden slow and PlayStation 3 dumb?

No-one likes being told their kid's slow. Unfortunately, when USA Today reviewed the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Madden 08, that's exactly what they found, going so far as to bluntly say, "On the surface, the releases on 360 and PlayStation 3 look identical. However, when you stack them head-to-head, it's clear which is better. Madden on 360 is fast and fluid, thanks to a sharp jump in frame rate that allows the game to move twice as fast."

Explaining the difference in more detail, USA Today wrote, "PS3 owners, unfortunately, are greeted with a Madden that is sluggish in comparison. Action stutters far too often, particularly on injuries, penalties and turnovers. There's also a half-second delay between pressing the hike button and receiving the ball in your hands. Even close-ups between play look dull when lined up against the 360's sleeker cut scenes."

If that weren't painful enough, the review comes in the wake of comments made recently by Ubisoft that the PlayStation 3 doesn't have enough grunt to handle the AI required in Splinter Cell: Conviction.

Tech UK now reports that EA and Sony's PR machines have leaped into battle in response. Defending the different levels of performance between the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Madden 08, EA blamed the time available for development, saying, "In the case of the next-generation consoles, many publishers have been developing titles for the Xbox 360 for over three and a half years, while everyone who publishes now for the PlayStation 3 with the exception of Sony has been developing for the PlayStation 3 for only a little over one full year." Of course, given Madden 07 also came out on the PlayStation 3, one can't help but wonder whether they could have achieved better performance had they really wanted to.

Sony's response to Ubisoft was a little more reasonable, stating, "PS3 can more than handle AI, as you will see with Heavenly Sword, which has hundreds of on-screen enemies with different AI routines at one time thanks to the power of CELL."

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14 Comments

ittekimasu

2 years ago

Hmmm thinking that families more likely have a ps2 or wii, made me wonder if this game would be released on the ps2 (of course, the graphics will be dumbed way down) but in that case, would serious fan's pick up the 360 version or the ps2 version, cause i'm not too sure if 360 users are big fan's of this game and those who are would've been holding onto a ps2 since they would've collected the previous titles.

ugh the boot

2 years ago

God EA and Ubisoft are crap! Ps3 can't handle the AI for Splinter Cell: Conviction?! Haha! So it won't be able to handle the same AI that's been recycled since the first Splinter Cell game? Wow Ps3 must be crap!

I loved the first Splinter Cell game and finished that, played about 1/2 way through the 2nd game and gave up cuz it was exactly the same as the first game but with a couple of new environments, bought Chaos Theory and thought...."why bother"....so I didn't bother with Double Agent and i'll be doing the same with Conviction. Wow Sam Fisher has become a bum! Wow he's a crim! Oh dear he's gone and become Smokey the Bandit....give me a break!

I'd say people are better off giving this madden a miss (unless you're getting it on 360) and wait for the next iteration to see how they compare.

BurnZ

2 years ago

Quote

Madden players are slow and dumb.

Fixed.

RAMPAGE

2 years ago

Sony deserve all there bad press. Who wants a ps3 at near double the price when you can get the same game better on the 360. I know the ps3 is only new but the longer this happens the more people they are lossing.

MIkes

2 years ago

I love the replies at the bottom of the article.

UBI: The PS3 can't handle our game.
Sony: Can too!
UBI: Nu-uh!

and so on.

arbok

2 years ago

RAMPAGE wrote

Why do they deserve bad press? I'm more disappointed with Microsoft especially with the three red lights issue. Who would have thought it could have been such a catastrophe. A lot of people say well there's a warranty - while that's good and all - its like selling a broken toaster with a warranty. Would you really buy it if its broken...

The worst thing is they have this habit of hiding the truth. We all know the three red lights plagues the 360 but they didnt admit it for a long time. And why would anyone back them up on this saying it was good business practice and you would do the same if you were in that position?

RAMPAGE

2 years ago

arbok wrote

RAMPAGE wrote

Because i paid $1000 for a product that cant do what another product half the price does, Yes its early days but sony had more time to come into the market, and make a big impact and they havent. And most companys hide the truth mate, thats how it is, its not just Microsoft, im sure sony has a few skelotons in there closet. As for microsoft i dont have a 360 so i cant be disapointed with it as i dont have one. No i like to speak the truth. I couldnt stand infront of a people and lie about it all, but thats me. But guys in the postion that the big guns are at microsoft are expected to lie, for the better of the company. Im know that sony will proberly make it up next year, but im impactient and want it now mate.

Annihilation

2 years ago

id be interested to see if this happens with any other of the EA Sports series, and if the 2K Sports series turns out to be better.

Take2 would be loving that

Jedi.Jell

2 years ago

arbok wrote

RAMPAGE wrote

^
|
|

Topic's up there dude!

There's a lot of little things Microsoft has put into their console to even the playing field against Sony and the CELL processor. Things like the DRAM buffer for anti aliasing freeing up RAM from the graphics card or something... I'm not surprised Ubisoft aren't able to get the same power out of the PS3 yet. Afterall, they haven't had as much time with it nor have they been able to exploit these nice little features Microsoft put into their console.

Give it time, these games will be possible with time.

Fetidchimp

2 years ago

Perhaps EA should consider leaving some of their sports series of games alone for a while, most of the games aren't a huge leap in quality or gameplay for that one year anyway. I wouldn't be concerned about this at all PS3 owners : as I point to Fifa 07 on xbox and fifa 07 on 360.

RAMPAGE

2 years ago

Fetidchimp wrote

No chance in that mate. Madden is a massive selling game every year. They wont miss out on that amount of money coming in.

TheAnswer

2 years ago

Annihilation wrote

id be interested to see if this happens with any other of the EA Sports series, and if the 2K Sports series turns out to be better.

Take2 would be loving that

Well the 2k sports games have been better then their EA counterparts for the last few years, Madden just gets more buyers then any 2k Gridiron title because EA owns the exclusive rights to the NFL which is a shame.

ultrasinc

2 years ago

If sony really DO know how to program on the PS3, then I think its quite clear that for the last year sony haven't been telling their developers what to do.

For that, sony has to be blamed.

Also, having seen the Heavenly Sword trailers... i've seen A LOT of enermies just wonder/walking around the attacking player when they should clearly be attacking (the attacking player has already missed the enemy and is wide open to counters)... it may just be me, but regardless, NOT IMPRESSED...

ittekimasu

2 years ago

^well if it were that easy for people to learn complicated programming, we wouldn't have so many retards that don't know how to turn on a pc rather than programming complicated games and such.

while sony may be lacking in the resources department we can only assume. other than that EA have been attacked by 360 players saying that the latest Madden game is riddled with bugs, and for them to have an extra year to develop for that system, its starting to show that they are just clearly in it for the money and don't have the experience or the knowledge of either systems.

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