The PS3 version of Skyrim has issues, despite QA pre-release and multiple patches since, it still manages to appear broken in the later stages of the game. According to a gentleman who started talking to me in Gamestation yesterday, it's an issue only "sweaty nerds with capturing equipment" experience, but I'm willing to believe there may have been some bias in his opinion.
Last week, Joshua E. Sawyer, a developer from Obsidian, the developer behind Fallout: New Vegas, gave his two cents on the issue.
"As with Fallout 3 and Skyrim," he said, "the problems are most pronounced on the PS3 because the PS3 has a divided memory pool. The Xbox 360 has a unified memory pool: 512 megs of RAM usable as system memory or graphics memory. The PS3 has a divided memory pool: 256 megs for system, 256 for graphics. It’s the same total amount of memory, but not as flexible for a developer to make use of."
Pete Hines, head of PR and marketing for Bethesda, was asked via Twitter if there was any truth to Sawyer's assertion that the problem was an engine-level issue. "Josh Sawyer did not work on Skyrim nor this engine and his comments don't reflect how the current tech works," he replied, "it isn't true. He brings up issues we solved long ago."
Personally, I'm not sure this is a good thing. That's like basically saying "we solved that old issue that was causing this problem, but in solving that old issue we've been presented with a brand new set of issues that's just as bad, if not worse."
Hmm…