Midway's Bilder Talks Xbox 360 To PS3 Conversion Issues

Author: by Brandon Sheffield, Staff

Midway Chicago studio head Mike Bilder has been discussing next-gen conversion issues on the company's Stranglehold as part of an in-depth Gamasutra interview, noting that it was "a more difficult endeavor" to overcome memory and processor challenges on the PlayStation 3 than on the Xbox 360 or PC. The company's PlayStation 3 version of Stranglehold shipped around 6 weeks after the Xbox 360 version, and Gamasutra discussed why a number of titles are seeing similar (if short) delays to debut the PS3 version. Bilder explained of his experiences on action title Stranglehold: "Hindsight's always 20/20, but we've kept all of the builds in a similar development state all along. What we found, though, when we tried to get some of it game-ready and fitting on the disc and fitting in memory, in the end it was an easier endeavor on two of the SKUs and it was a more difficult endeavor on one of them. Just, to be honest, the hardware differences in memory and processor on the PS3 vs. traditional PC and 360, it makes it a challenge, and it's representative. Everybody's having a challenge in the industry right now." When quizzed further on what Midway could have done differently to alleviate those kinds of problems, Bilder commented specifically: "I think a lot of people and a lot of focus as far as games that we have internally that are going to be multi-SKU are trying to put the PS3 out in front now, make that your lead SKU. [This is] in the same way I think a lot of people put the PS2 as their lead SKU in the last hardware generation, and then Xbox came after." However, the Midway Chicago studio head noted of this plan: "The difficulty you run into there, at least in the last generation, was that the Xbox was considerably more powerful than the PS2, and you found that people didn't always take advantage of the hardware. Whereas with the PS3 and the 360, it's certainly more of a level playing field, so I don't think it's necessarily a negative to put the PS3 first. But it does help mitigate some of that risk in framerate, memory, technology, just the hardware differences." The full interview with Midway's Bilder is now available on Gamasutra, and takes in the evolution of that title, working with John Woo, and how movies and films could better influence each other, among other topics.