Developer Irrational Games has moved to quell fears that the upcoming PlayStation 3 version of BioShock Infinite will take the form of an inferior port when it hits stores in 2012, revealing the sky-high sequel doesn’t actually have a "lead platform."
Posting on the company’s official forums in response to fan concerns over the perceived weaker PS3 versions of BioShock 1 & 2, an Irrational rep said: "We’re serious about making sure the PS3 version is great."
"We have no plans to hand off the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite to another studio. In fact, it’s not a "port" at all. We have a much larger team than we did on the original BioShock, so we’re doing simultaneous in-house development on the PS3, 360, and PC versions of the game," he added.
"We all know that the PS3 is powerful but unique console with its own strengths and challenges. But compared to the PC, the Xbox 360 is challenging too. 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."
”It gets technical from here, but it’s an interesting approach to development: "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."
Last but not least, the rep said that game testers have "PS3 and 360 dev kits on their desks, and can test on the PS3 just as easily as on the 360,” as well as possessing an automated dev tool that "rebuilds the PS3 version and runs basic tests on it every time a programmer or artist makes a change to the game.”