PS4 lead architect Mark Cerny has claimed that it was tricky business dealing with third party developers.
“Involving the third-parties was tricky,” said Cerny. “We definitely wanted their input on the design but we felt that it would be a bad idea to go to the teams who are making the top PlayStation 3 titles in 2008 and 2009 and start briefing them on a system that wouldn’t be released for many years.”
Cerny added that it felt like a “tremendous distraction” and so they resolved the matter by making a questionnaire and presenting it to third party teams which consisted of various questions on the desirable traits of the next gen console from Sony including the technical aspects.
The response was as predicted. Cerny said,”Basically the teams said that if we can afford to give them 1,000 times the performance of the PS3 then go ahead, do it.”
“But, more importantly, we asked about the flavor of those systems that they would like to see in next-generation games console and the ratios that they would like to see between the various components.”
Cerny said that the third party developers “weren’t fooled for a minute by the abstract nature of the questionnaire. Everyone we sat down with knew that we were asking for feedback on the design of the PS4.”
The full presentation of Cerny can be watched on the official PS blog.
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