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Comment by ewzimm | Hacker News Reader

What does processor architecture even matter to a consumer? Is the Xbox 360 a pre-Intel Mac because it uses PowerPC archictecture? I don't see why so many people mention this. Consoles have always been about custom software, not unique hardware architecture.

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It absolutely doesn't matter to the consumer of {XBox One | PS4} games. However, as a PC gamer, I'm excited by the fact that the consoles have x86 architectures, because this removes one of the obstacles preventing PCs from getting console titles.

The boring nature of the architecture is notable as it puts the focus back on software, which is what people care about. That devs this generation can just make shit without discovering the complexities of custom hardware is a good thing.

That's probably true for Playstation, but I think developing for Xbox was already pretty much like developing for Windows, even with different hardware architectures. Most game devs don't looking too deeply at the hardware but just use the tools they're given. The ones who want to understand what's going on in hardware will still study the details of the CPU/GPU.

The endianess of the Xbox 360 made "already pretty much like developing for Windows" not quite accurate. And causes a lot of problems relating to I/O.

Doesn't the 360 run little-endian?

Nope, the 360 runs big-endian.

It does both.

Incorrect, the powerPC may be capable of both, but not the xbox360 in practice.

Yes, this is correct. Although it is capable if switching, this would cause problems that require a motherboard fix which is not implemented, so the machine runs big endian in practice. I included a wikipedia link to explain.

What, does MS let game developers choose?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC#Endian_modes

No, the machine always runs big-endian.

All current software does this, but the switching capability means the motherboard could be modified to allow it to run little-endian. This means that if someone wanted to repurpose old Xbox hardware to run a little-endian operating system it would be entirely possible. Certainly not a practical process considering the cheapness of CPUs, but it could make for a fun experiment.

It's possible, but also keep in mind that the 360 chip was a custom PowerPC, that had high manufacture numbers. It's entirely possible that the little-endian functionality was somehow broken to save money or otherwise.

But the point was originally about what the Xbox360 runs, and before that, how it affected development. Not about what the silicon in a particular chip in the 360 has the capability of doing.

It does matter this time around because there's no direct backwards compatibility for older games.

Sony will start streaming eventually. It would be fantastic if they implemented a disc matching policy, allowing you to stream a game with the disc in the drive. Perfect backward compatibility with no software support necessary.

This is not going to work anywhere except the continental US due to latency, unless they manage to provision servers everywhere (to the cloud!)

US speeds are not great compared to some places. But let's see where things are in 5 years. Could be much better. Doesn't matter for me. I stopped buying anything from Sony when they removed OtherOS.

It matters to developers, and in turn to the customer in that it affects the amount and type of games released on the console.

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