No ports here. In a thread concerned that the PlayStation 3 version of BioShock Infinite would be handed off to another studio to be ported from the PC or Xbox 360 version, Irrational boss Ken Levine stepped in and assured fans that they’re “serious about making sure the PS3 version is great”.
“We have a much larger team than we did on the original BioShock,” Levine wrote in his response, “so we’re doing simultaneous in-house development on the PS3, 360, and PC versions of the game.
“We all know that the PS3 is powerful but unique console with its own strengths and challenges. But compared to the PC, the Xbox 360 is challenging too. So instead of declaring a “lead platform” and porting the game to the others, we’ve instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3. This means implementing a task-oriented task processor that assumes a NUMA (non-uniform memory access) design that mimics the PPU/SPU split of the PS3. Writing code this way is more difficult for us, but has a key advantage: it’s both optimal for the PS3 *and* gives speed improvements on other platforms due to increased cache coherence and more efficient use of multiple processing units.”
Levine also said that every programmer has both PS3 and Xbox 360 dev kits readily available, meaning they could test the game on one console just as easy as they’d test it on another, allowing them to fix bugs and keep both versions running smoothly.
BioShock Infinite launches on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC in 2012.