PC vs Console development

The question was: Compare and contrast the biggest challenges of console game development

versus PC game development.

There are many areas to compare. The biggest challenges on console are usually memory, DVD performance, networking and testing networking, and patching which is usually non-existent. The biggest challenges on PC are copyright, widely varying hardware, hacking and cheats, and sometimes memory.

Most of these can be briefly summed up in the following comparison:

PC

Memory: essentially unlimited and fast. Still, the amount of memory can make a huge difference on performance.

Video card: varies widely so a lot of support must be added for users to turn on and off video settings

Audio: varies widely but minimal adjustments are needed. Still hardware can make a big difference.

Control: almost entirely limited to keyboard and mouse. Support for alternate types of input should also be available meaning a smart ways of managing input.

Performance: varies dramatically. This means defining a min spec machine and counting on it as your baseline. It also means dealing with a wide variety of hardware during finaling as a series of tests.

Networking: all machines have some form of networking but hosting requires special solutions. Also, there isn't any real standard networking solution, so most games have custom networking solutions.

Specialized hardware: none

Extended content delivery: downloadable content is common and extensions to the games are also common. Versions and upgrades help generate new content and capital.

Buggy software and fixes: Any bugs can be patched and exploits are relatively easy to fix.

Console development

Memory: fixed, varies in availability and segmentation meaning that you must be smart about how you setup memory for your game.

Video card: every XBox360 has the same video card and performance. This makes creating a game and playing with video options super easy.

Audio: standard and thus easy to setup

Control: basic controllers only. Limited number of buttons, but must respond to analog-like input.

Performance: Standard and thus making your game run fast is easy. Still, making the PS3 run well is fairly hard because of the Cell processor and utilizing the multicore architecture of the XBox360 is tricky.

Networking: fairly standard. Microsoft has XBoxLive for hosting and Sony has Home.

Specialized hardware: developing for these platforms is daunting simply because of the rather expensive specialized hardware. PS3 dev kits were around 30K.

Extended content delivery: downloadable content is rare and extensions to the games are also rare. Versions and upgrades basically do not exist.

Buggy software and fixes: Any bugs are permanent and thus the game must be almost bug free before ship.

As you can tell from these lists, PC and Console dev are opposites in nearly all of these diverse areas. With that said, ultimately fun is the major factor and fun can be had on any hardware.