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By: Antti Summala Aug 04, 2007

Housemarque: "Working with the PS3 is fun; helps PCs too"

There's been a lot of moaning from game developers that PlayStation 3 is a tough platform to develop for. Housemarque, the developer of runaway hit Super Stardust HD (downloadable from the PlayStation store), PS3's answer to Geometry Wars, doesn't agree - in fact, he says there are surprising benefits for the PC platform as well.

Speaking at the Assembly ArTech Seminar today, Lead Programmer Jere "XMunkki" Sanisalo said that all you need is a little planning and understanding of the PS3 hardware: "You can't just pick the Unreal engine and hope it works". Housemarque, Sanisalo says, has extensive experience in developing for the PS2, and PS3 is by far the better platform to develop for.

Jere Sanisalo - Lead Programmer at Housemarque

Developing for the PS3 architecture's specific requirements gave a huge speed boost on a PC as well, as the small data packets Housemarque used achieved coherent cache hits on a PC processor. Sanisalo's comments harken back to the good old days of Commodore and getting the most out of the hardware with smart coding.

Super Stardust HD was developed on the PC in the first place because Sony apparently forgot to send out Development Kits to Housemarque. In fact, the game was 4 months into the 10-month development cycle before it graced the target platform.

This, along with the recent appearance of Geometry Wars on the Windows platform, made us ask whether we can expect Super Stardust HD on the PC soon. "The publisher of our game is Sony," said Sanisalo, "you'd better ask them." So I guess not, at least not yet.

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