Sony and EA charge to PlayStation 3 defence

Two knights in shining armour have ridden to the defence of the PS3 after it was criticised for having poor AI support and bad refresh rates. Sony's Dave Karraker and a statement from EA have rubbished the recent bad press that the PlayStation 3 console has received.

The first criticism supposedly came from one of the producers of new game Splinter Cell: Conviction. He said that his new game would never make it onto the PS3 and blamed poor AI (artificial intelligence) processing as one factor.

But Dave Karraker at Sony moved swiftly to dismiss such a claim: "PS3 can more than handle AI," he said, "as you will see with Heavenly Sword, which has hundreds of on-screen enemies with different AI routines at one time thanks to the power of CELL."

It's almost unthinkable that the PS3's enormously powerful Cell processor would not be able to handle advanced artificial intelligence in games. Maybe the AI is harder to program for the PS3, but that doesn't mean the console cannot handle the technology.

PS3 defended

The other recent criticism was levelled at the PS3 and EA's new Madden 08 NFL game. American newspaper USA Today led the hecklers who called the PS3 version of the game "sluggish in comparison" to the Xbox 360.

"Action stutters far too often, particularly on injuries, penalties and turnovers. There's also a half-second delay between pressing the hike button and receiving the ball in your hands. Even close-ups between play look dull when lined up against the 360's sleeker cut scenes," read the USA Today lambasting.

But an EA technical team member said in a statement: "It was our intent to put out the best possible with Madden across 10 platforms.

"In the case of the next-generation consoles, many publishers have been developing titles for the Xbox 360 for over three and a half years, while everyone who publishes now for the PlayStation 3 with the exception of Sony has been developing for the PlayStation 3 for only a little over one full year."

It should be pointed out here that this is not actually the first Madden game to be released on the PS3. Madden NFL 07 was released for the console in 2006 (to poor reviews) so it's possible that the game could have been a little be slicker.