BioShock Infinite is all about the equality, just like its in-game pseudo-democratic theocracy says it is.
Irrational Games’ Chris Kline announced there are no ports for Infinite, as the game is in development, in-house, for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 simultaneously.
The original BioShock hit PS3 a year after PC and 360, and when it did, the game glitched, spazzed and crashed due to the porting process. This won’t be an issue for Infinite, Kline said:
So instead of declaring a “lead platform” and porting the game to the others, we’ve instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3. This means implementing a task-oriented task processor that assumes a NUMA (non-uniform memory access) design that mimics the PPU/SPU split of the PS3. Writing code this way is more difficult for us, but has a key advantage: it’s both optimal for the PS3 *and* gives speed improvements on other platforms due to increased cache coherence and more efficient use of multiple processing units.
In terms of production, we’re constantly testing our code on the PS3, as it is part of our QA team’s daily test plan. All of our programmers have PS3 and 360 dev kits on their desks, and can test on the PS3 just as easily as on the 360.The people have spoken, and Irrational Games has heard their cries. Will you be part of the wild mob picking up BioShock Infinite when it drops in 2012? Which platform will you play on? Let the world know below!
PC, all the way. I am still clinging to my mouse/ keyboard and cannot foresee letting them go any time soon.
I’ll probably wait for the price to drop a bit though.
PC, no question. Using a controller for FPS..? this isn’t Goldeneye people… Hopefully it is coming for Steam, if it is only on GFWL I will reconsider things all together.
It’s about time they start doing this. I have all the game systems, but I do prefer to play on the PS3, and I’m tired of the PS3 getting an inferior version of multiplatform games when it’s hardware has been proven to be able to do so much better.
I will play it on the Sega Genesis
I wish other development studios (at least those that can afford it) take a similar approach to multi-platform game development.
Props to Irrational Games, well done.