Wow, I hope not. I had no idea about all of the PS3 slowdown issues with Skyrim on the PS3 but it sounds rather nasty,
There’s an interesting article today over at Eurogamer about this and there’s some nice back and forth between Pete Hines of Bethesda and Josh Sawyer (formerly of Black Isle and designer of Fallout New Vegas) about the engine limitations.
FNV project director and lead designer Joshua Sawyer said Skyrim’s problems were on a fundamental engine level, and would take “a large time commitment” to fix. Sawyer spoke from past experience with Bethesda’s Gamebryo engine, which became the Creation Engine that underpins Skyrim.
But Pete Hines, Bethesda’s VP of PR and marketing, has undermined Sawyer’s contribution. “No, it isn’t true,” Hines tweeted. “He brings up issues we solved long ago. Josh Sawyer did not work on Skyrim nor this engine and his comments don’t reflect how the current tech works.”
The article goes on to talk about the patches that haven’t fixed this problem and even offers up some tips from Bethesda on how PS3 gamers can get the most out of Skyrim.
“Turn off auto saves”
“Clear space on your hard drive”
“Wait for time to pass” (my personal favorite)
Or play it on the PC. It’s really pretty. (That’s me talking. Not Bethesda. Although they probably agree.)
The whole thing sounds completely horrible – thankfully I am playing on the PC and apart from a few strange bugs, it’s a pretty great experience, performance wise (and the high res texture mods and lovely too!). I do own all three consoles, but I always try and get the PC version of a game if it’s available (and not Ubisoft!) – and if it’s not I usually go for the 360 version if it’s multi console. The PS3 is a great machine, with some great games, but it only really shines when the game is made for it from the ground up – ports and multi console releases always seem to come off worse on the PS3. And this isn’t a new bug – I remember similar complaints with Fallout 3 NV on PS3!
Everyone I know says the PS3′s the way to go for better graphics, compared to the 360 (a proper gaming PC being out of current reach). Sounds like maybe I should stick with the 360 version for this one though.
The 360 pretty much beats it every time – the people you know obviously don’t have a clue!! Just check out Digital Foundry at Eurogamer – games are either so close as not to matter, or 360 wins. The only time I can remember being told to get the PS3 version of a multi platform game was DarkStalkers, which apparently had bad screen tear on the 360 version. Otherwise just stick to PS3 exclusives on the PS3 – that’s what I do.