Sony: We made the PS3 hard to develop for

In an interview with the Official PlayStation Magazine, Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment told CNET magazine that Sony didn't want to make it easy on developers. In fact, this is merely a culmination of what a number of well-known developers already know and have spoken out against. Even a report in the popular Dr. Dobb's Journal concluded that the PlayStation 3 is "difficult to program for."

Hirai explains the rationale to CNET, "We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that (developers) want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?"

Having done my fair share of programming in the IT industry, I confess I find it bizarre that any company would come out with a hardware product that doesn't have the accompanying tools that make it as easy to develop for as possible.

Perhaps this is a misguided attempt to create an artificial ecosystem in which PlayStation programmers, with top-notch programming skills, are rewarded for their experience working with the Cell processor. Unfortunately, the only effect this could possibly have is to make game studios think twice before porting a title over to the PlayStation.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at CNET News
- check out this article at Dr Dobb's Portal

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