I'm curious about how such a bad idea made it to market. Not that the technical concept is bad, but the business decision to build an entire console generation on such a unique, ultimately migraine-inducing architecture.
Problem is: no one wanted it. So none of that panned out. If it had gone on to be something like Intel’s Core 2 Duo that showed up everywhere in hindsight it would look smart.
Apple wasn’t a great example but it was the best I could think of. It took Apple 10 years to go from the A4 in the first iPhone with an Apple chip to the M1 in the first Mac. They also were just using Arm, the same instructions that they had been using before and something well understood.
They didn’t suddenly release something people weren’t really prepared for like a Transputer and just declare “this will be everywhere within three years“. They let the switch take its time as necessary.
Sony had the arrogance to do both of those.
Also, the PS3 did the same for PS2. Sony eventually did away with that to cut costs, but the launch models had it.
Apple switched to (and largely invented) ARMv8/AArch64 in the middle of that, which is very different from the ARMv7 they started with.
Previous PlayStation hardware was just as odd. Ps2 reused old surplus Ps1 processors just for audio, and had coprocessors just like cell.
Then out of nowhere Xbox 360 comes out, Halo that was a macOS title suddenly a main and a well selling IP on Xbox. Not just that, it also picked HD-DVD as its format posing a threat to Blu-ray.
Sony had to put something out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_launch#Titles
There wouldn't be a Halo game released for the Xbox 360 until September 2007, nearly two years after the release of the console.
The Xbox 360 released its HD-DVD drive a few days before the PS3 hit store shelves in North America. Sony had established the PS3 would use Blu-Rays a year before the Xbox 360 was even publicly announced.
I think there were a number of things Sony wasn't expecting about the Xbox 360, but HD-DVD or Halo wouldn't have been any of those things.
How is it related? We all knew Sony would use Blu-rays, but if HD-DVD won the battle, then PS3 suddenly loses a big chunk of its value - it's a good, "cheap" Blu-ray player.
> Xbox 360, but HD-DVD or Halo wouldn't have been any of those things.
HD-DVD sure, but it's unrelated to what I'm saying.
Halo - not so sure because it only really took off after the second installment IIRC. There were a few titles that were supposed to compete with Halo at launch of PS3, but Halo won.
And even if you're saying it was the second installment of Halo that had the franchise really take off, well, that was a whole year before the Xbox 360 was released and two years before the PlayStation 3. Halo 2 was an original Xbox title, not a 360 title.
And as others mentioned, the HD-DVD playback of the 360 being some big challenger to the PlayStation Blu-Ray is pretty overhyped. It was an expensive add-on. It was another $199 to have an external drive that came out a year after.
So $598 for an Xbox 360 with an external drive that can play a few dozen movies in the end, or $499 for a PlayStation with a built-in Blu-Ray drive. I imagine the PlayStation 3 could have come out 6 months later and it probably wouldn't have made much difference in the format war.
> Surprised 360 had any sales at all then
The 360 launched a year before Blu-Ray or HD-DVD existed. There were no other real off the shelf options.
> If you want to play new Halo with friends - you need an Xbox 360
No, the "new Halo" when the Playstation 3 came out was an Xbox release title. You didn't need a 360 to play the latest Halo until almost a whole year after the PS3 release.