They always have used hardware closely related to existing workstation or PC hardware, but the difference is now they try so much less hard to hide it, through crossplay, lack of platform exclusives, and just less trying to innovate on how the games are played. Part of it is that game inputs have largely been standardized, part of it is that the more similar to a bog standard PC the console is, the easier it is for developers to port their existing games, and part of it might just be that platforms aren’t feeling pushed to innovate as much
My initial response to this was “ehhh”, but a quick look at the consoles I grew up with shows you’re right. The only exception I saw was the PS3 thanks to it’s pretty bonkers CPU.
The Sega Genesis used a Motorola 68000, which was popular for Unix computers. It also made it into a number of PCs like the Apple Lisa, Macintosh, and Amiga
Even the PS5, which is for the most part is just an x86 PC, still has a unique architecture that allows for loading and decompressing textures from disk into VRAM without putting any load on either the CPU or GPU.
It’s not like they aren’t trying to do new stuff, it’s just hard to find new avenues to innovate when so much has already been figured out.
Is every console a PC nowadsys?
I mean I’m not against it per se, even it might be kind of good I guess.
They always have used hardware closely related to existing workstation or PC hardware, but the difference is now they try so much less hard to hide it, through crossplay, lack of platform exclusives, and just less trying to innovate on how the games are played. Part of it is that game inputs have largely been standardized, part of it is that the more similar to a bog standard PC the console is, the easier it is for developers to port their existing games, and part of it might just be that platforms aren’t feeling pushed to innovate as much
No, the Switch used ARM-based smartphone hardware.
They were always nerfed down PCs
My initial response to this was “ehhh”, but a quick look at the consoles I grew up with shows you’re right. The only exception I saw was the PS3 thanks to it’s pretty bonkers CPU.
The Super Nintendo user a Ricoh 5A22, which was based on the W65C816S used in the Apple II.
The Sega Genesis used a Motorola 68000, which was popular for Unix computers. It also made it into a number of PCs like the Apple Lisa, Macintosh, and Amiga
The PS1 and PS2 both had a R3000A-compatible 32-bit RISC CPU that was used in a lot of workstations of the era, but none of those would be familiar to an x86 user.
The PS3’s processor was the stuff of hype and legends. It bore no resemblance to PCs of the time
Even the PS5, which is for the most part is just an x86 PC, still has a unique architecture that allows for loading and decompressing textures from disk into VRAM without putting any load on either the CPU or GPU.
It’s not like they aren’t trying to do new stuff, it’s just hard to find new avenues to innovate when so much has already been figured out.
Nah, they were specialized hardware. IIRC the Xbox was the first “PC console”.
Not sure if it’s enough to count but the Dreamcast had Windows CE
It sure did, I totally forgot about all that, nice catch!
The DirectX “box”