a couple of guys said that a game being exclusive to a platform makes it better. i find that a pretty bizarre statement, how does it only being available on a console make it any better?
I think the biggest reason why DirectX was introduced was to provide a uniform environment for programmers to develop on non-identical systems. This way, the programmer does not need to worry about what kind of hardware is lying underneath. DirectX will also introduce extra layers of abstraction which will introduce some delay - even though I personally think this will not be a big deal in the big scheme of things.
In any case, when you develop to a single platform, you can squeeze out every little bit out of that system. You essentially cater your whole game to that one single platform - instead of worrying about the whole world so to speak when you develop to the PC.
I think a good analogy is C programming vs assembly programming. Many C programs (not all of course) can ignore the underlying platform for the most part and simply depend on the compiler to generate the necessary/optimized machine code for the target CPU. The compiler doesn't know what your program is about and it will simply use its optimization algorithms etc. etc. to do the best it can. In any case, an experienced assembly programmer can take this code and optimize it further if he knows that the target platform is only going to be a specific one.
That being said, I personally think the PC is more powerful - simply because the PS3 is getting older by the day. An extreme example is of course if I tell a person to develop specifically to a PIII 650 MHz vs "all" types of PCs, I would still bet more money on the "all types of PC" game running better on a new quad-core with 4 GB of memory with a super-duper graphics card than the equivalent "PIII 650 MHz game" running on the P3
. Its not there yet with the PS3, but I think the difference in quality will be more noticeable soon......
Because the game is developed around the console rather than direct X.
I know we are talking about the PS3. That being said, still I think the XBox uses DirectX even though its a console. But, I am sure MS programmers don't strictly adhere to the DirectX APIs considering they KNOW what the underlying platform is and can take advantage of the more intimate details of the hardware.