This urban legend is true: Two police officers in Providence, R.I. cut in line to get their hands on new PlayStation 3 consoles. The officers are currently under investigation by their superiors, but what makes the PlayStation 3 so desirable that officers would cut to the front of the line? For one, its immense capabilities in video game design.
The craze for coveted PlayStation 3 units is not surprising; each little box is packed with quite a brain. At the center of it all is a cell processor containing eight individual 3.2 GHz microprocessors. This translates to blistering speed--almost two trillion calculations a second. On top of the speed, games on the PS3 run from Sony's BluRay discs, providing up to 50 GB in data storage--more than 10 times the data that PlayStation 2 discs held.
All of these technical terms mean one big thing for game designers--high-definition art and sound, realistic interaction among objects, and no more game lag! One of the first games to demonstrate the potential of this $400 million machine was a sci-fi alternative history by Insomniac Games known as Resistance.
The Immense Design Possibilities of the PS3
Resistance takes place in 1951, but the weapons presented in the game have futuristic features. One such weapon, the "hedgehog," is a bomb with 50 spikes. Each spike explodes and then uses its own "intelligence" to interact across the landscape. For instance, calculations by the spikes determine how to bounce off walls and characters and what sounds to make when they hit metal or wood. Such awesome processing power was not possible with earlier consoles, but now game designers and developers can insert more complex functions and texture into the game, making it all more realistic.
"The technical challenge for us is making enemies interact believably with the soldiers", says Tom Price, CEO of Insomniac Games. "A ton of calculations have to go on behind the scenes to make everybody line up correctly and look good. On the PS3 we have the processing power to be able to do such things whereas we couldn't have come close on the PS2."
According to Price, the fact that the PS3 has several dedicated processors means that designers have the ability to run multiple actions simultaneously. This allows game designers to add more dynamic lighting, textures, and interactive weapons and widgets.
A Brave New World for Future Designers
Designing games for the PS3 is a revolutionary new enterprise, so game companies have been relying on writing their own software programs to support the new PS3 platform. "We create a lot of proprietary tools at Insomniac", Price says. "By 'tools', I mean the tools our artists use to put together the worlds and to create the behaviors of the enemies. But we also use commercial tools like Maya, Zbrush, and Photoshop. We also use plug-ins like SpeedTree, and we use Anark for our HUD [Head-Up Display]."
Maya, Zbrush, and PhotoShop are standard industry software programs for game design that are included in a college degree programs in game design or as part of the curriculum offered at a graphic or multimedia design school. Price says that during software development, Insomniac took a long-term approach, meaning that the in-house software they use to design the games will continue to be used and modified for future PS3 games.
The Insomniac Web site lists a number of open job opportunities in video game design. Like many game companies, though, they strongly recommend completing a college program in design before applying for a job in game design. The Web site's Q&A says that a great way to start in the industry is as a game tester. "The hours are rough, but you get to see how the game works and how everyone works together to create a game."
The Booming Video Game Industry
The good news for would-be game designers is that the industry is going through its own gold rush. According to an analyst report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, games will be the fastest growing media sector, growing by unheard of double-digit rates every year from 2004-2009. The overall projected worth of the video game industry will go from $25 billion a year in 2004 to $55 billion in 2009--definitely not slim pickings if you're considering a career in game design!