PS3 News

EA: PlayStation 3 still causing development delays

By Stevie Smith Feb 4, 2008, 11:10 GMT

EA CEO says PlayStation 3 still causing development issues. Credit: Arsludica.org

No stranger to criticism from certain quarters of the videogame industry regarding problems with development, the PlayStation 3 has once again received a performance swipe - this time from third-party publisher and developer Electronics Arts.

Commenting during the same investors' conference call that last week revealed the delay of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (PS3, Xbox 360) and Battlefield: Bad Company (PS3, Xbox 360), EA CEO John Riccitiello also let slip that Sony’s powerhouse console is still causing software development issues - although notably only on cross-platform titles where the PS3 is not the lead system.

Citing recent release Burnout: Paradise, which was led throughout production on the PlayStation 3, Riccitiello explained that EA “had no issue at all” with development.

However, the EA boss added that during projects where development was led on the Xbox 360, or was engaged through parallel production, the company still found the PlayStation 3 to bring “a little bit more of a challenging development environment“ with it.

While Riccitiello didn’t divulge specifics, he at least moved to soften the blow somewhat by saying EA acknowledges that PlayStation 3 development issues have improved over recent months but there is still some “catching up to do on the engineering side” for Sony’s home-based videogame platform.