OG XBox was planned to launch with an AMD CPU until last minute.

[Nesh]

1) I think if you look from the past forward they aren't exceptions they are a continued build up to the point we are at today. Companies always want to maximize profits and for 3rd parties the easiest way is to release on as many platforms as possible. This was true in the past and is true now. The difference is that the big players are now all using the same few companies for hardware which makes it even easier to port it to everything

Which wasnt happening as much back then because for reasons explained

2) Apple has one of the largest gaming platforms in the world. Why would it not be relevant ? Companies who supplied hardware to apple would still need software teams to ensue it works and those teams can create software for any platform.

Yeah on tablets and smartphones

3) Sega had two boxes in the running. An american version with 3dfx and the Japanese version with power vr. Those prototypes were dural and black belt. Sega even bought 16% of 3dfx in 1997 because of this. Ultimately 3DFX sued Sega and NEC due to them doing a back-room deal and it was settled out of court with 3dFX getting 10.5m. There is speculation that EA who also invested in 3dfx at the time was not pleased and its why dreamcast got no ea support. Even before the dreamcast prototypes there were saturn 2 prototypes using Real3d chipsets.

In the mid 1990s what did Lockhead Martian , 3dfx and video logic all have in common ? They all made pc graphics boards. So right there you can see sega as early as 1995 and the Lockheed Martin talks were already starting to move to the model that Microsoft and later Sony would adopt which is to make miniature pcs.

Still custom, more participants, more experimental and less unified between PC and console hardware

Heck we can add nvidia in there with the NV1 which was based off the saturn and even got saturn ports if you want to go console - pc for hardware.

Yeah based off the Saturn, Custom hardware, worked differently from other acceleration cards as it was based off quadratic surfaces.
Few Sega games were being ported to PC in general. Same for countless of console games that could but never.

But lets not forget Nintendo who released the gamecube using an IBM Power PC cpu and an ATI / Art-X gpu.

Heavily customized.

In the next generation sony would use custom power pc chip design in cell but an nvidia gpu.

Already explained in one of my earlier posts.

The take away is that almost over night from the release of the first 3d accelerators on the pc , the consoles jumped onto the band wagon. Which made quick ports much easier. This wasn't microsofts doing. It was technology changin. Fast forward 20+ years later and with only two major players and a tightly controlled api in Direct X the two players are making similar enough hardware that its never been easier to make ports.

Only XBOX was planned to be a PC in a BOX from the start because from MS's own words they wanted to unify PC and console space.
The rest were more customized because apparently they werent Microsoft, they were selling consoles and werent bothered with the health of PC gaming and Direct X support.
Nintendo, Sony and Sega were bothered with console market share, not selling games on PC.

 

[eastmen]

Which wasnt happening as much back then because for reasons explained

But it was still happening and continued to increase in popularity as the hardware got closer to what pc hardware was.

Yeah on tablets and smartphones

and I bet they get more content in a year than sony does in a generation.

Still custom, more participants, more experimental and less unified between PC and console hardware

and yet it already started the trend away from fully custom hardware. There really wasn't anything experimental about the dreamcast. It had a straight forward cpu and gpu with a ram pool design. The gpu was based off a pc part. The gamecube was the same.

Yeah based off the Saturn, Custom hardware, worked differently from other acceleration cards as it was based off quadratic surfaces.
Few Sega games were being ported to PC in general. Same for countless of console games that could but never.

and yet it was still happening. That is my point , it wasn't microsoft who started this . It had been happening on its own from way before microsoft entered the market.

Heavily customized.

power pc cpu and ati graphics chip. computer parts.

Already explained in one of my earlier posts

. and ?

Only XBOX was planned to be a PC in a BOX from the start because from MS's own words they wanted to unify PC and console space.
The rest were more customized because apparently they werent Microsoft, they were selling consoles and werent bothered with the health of PC gaming and Direct X support.
Nintendo, Sony and Sega were bothered with console market share, not selling games on PC.

It doesn't matter what the singular goals are of the companies. Sega created a console that was easy to port from console to pc because the pc hardware companies were now the ones making the performance parts. Nintendo went with a power pc cpu and ati gpu because again it was pc hardware companies making the performance parts. no other companies outside of the pc hardware manufacturing companies were making such high performance parts. Time moves on and platforms solidify. What was the wild west in 1995 became pretty settled by 2001 when microsoft was releasing the xbox. You went from what a dozen or more companies making graphics chips to really amd/ati , nvidia , the last gasps of video logic and maxtor ?

Microsoft saw and opportunity to come in and stream line what was going on in the console market. They saw how ports were becoming a bigger deal and took advantage of that . They are doing that now with streaming

 

[Nesh]

But it was still happening and continued to increase in popularity as the hardware got closer to what pc hardware was.

Before standardization barely. Much more console exclusives were emerging with every generation and before standardization, the big IPs remained predominantly exclusive.

and I bet they get more content in a year than sony does in a generation.

Yeah smartphone and tablet games

and yet it already started the trend away from fully custom hardware. There really wasn't anything experimental about the dreamcast. It had a straight forward cpu and gpu with a ram pool design. The gpu was based off a pc part. The gamecube was the same.

They were very customized hardware. Even the Dreamcast and the GC.

and yet it was still happening. That is my point , it wasn't microsoft who started this . It had been happening on its own from way before microsoft entered the market.

Nobody argued whether some ports existed or not in general. Stick to the point.

power pc cpu and ati graphics chip. computer parts.

Still heavily customised hardware with their own development logic and focus.

. and ?

Go read it

It doesn't matter what the singular goals are of the companies. Sega created a console that was easy to port from console to pc because the pc hardware companies were now the ones making the performance parts. Nintendo went with a power pc cpu and ati gpu because again it was pc hardware companies making the performance parts. no other companies outside of the pc hardware manufacturing companies were making such high performance parts. Time moves on and platforms solidify. What was the wild west in 1995 became pretty settled by 2001 when microsoft was releasing the xbox. You went from what a dozen or more companies making graphics chips to really amd/ati , nvidia , the last gasps of video logic and maxtor ?

Microsoft saw and opportunity to come in and stream line what was going on in the console market. They saw how ports were becoming a bigger deal and took advantage of that . They are doing that now with streaming

Huge assumptions.
I ll simplify it to you.
It wasnt in Nintendo's, Sega's and Sony's business interest to lose exclusivity and support the PC. Microsoft's was.

Anyways, now wait for Qualcom and Power VR to make new exotic hardware for PC or consoles because Tablets and Smartphones (where apparently we have veeeeery exotic revolutionary hardware) that devs cant wait to get their hands on

 

[Eolirin]

I ll simplify it to you.
It wasnt in Nintendo's, Sega's and Sony's business interest to lose exclusivity and support the PC. Microsoft's was.

Not just MS's. Also every third party software developer's. That's kind of the point. Because hardware vendors were consolidating and because console manufacturers needed to use those parts, ports were going to become easier one way or another.

Third parties were going to be all over that, and it didn't matter what the platform holders wanted.

Sony learned a hard lesson with the Ps3 that going with expensive custom silicon that required more dev specific focus for your hardware was a losing proposition. They went with lightly modified commodity parts for the PS4 for a reason.

 

[see colon]

It wasnt in Nintendo's, Sega's and Sony's business interest to lose exclusivity and support the PC. Microsoft's was.

Nintendo has been licensing out it's IP for mobile games recently. I know it's not the same games being ported to other platforms, but Nintendo has been very protective of their IP traditionally, but the amount of income you can generate by putting your IP on other platforms can't be understated. It's quite possible that Pokemon Go was the first link in the chain of events that has lead to the current Pokemon fever going on in the retro market now. Not that Nintendo makes any money from the retro market, but it added interest to the IP and I'm sure Switch Pokemon titles ride that wave as well.

 

[Nesh]

Nintendo has been licensing out it's IP for mobile games recently. I know it's not the same games being ported to other platforms, but Nintendo has been very protective of their IP traditionally, but the amount of income you can generate by putting your IP on other platforms can't be understated. It's quite possible that Pokemon Go was the first link in the chain of events that has lead to the current Pokemon fever going on in the retro market now. Not that Nintendo makes any money from the retro market, but it added interest to the IP and I'm sure Switch Pokemon titles ride that wave as well.

This is a recent phenomenon. This is partly a result of mobiles and tablets cannibalizing their handheld business which used to sell by the track loads.
Nintendo is still very reserved and has not made direct ports on PCs. They are just allowing in a limited manner some games optimized for mobile and tablets to use some of their IPs.
It doesnt change much. Sony and Nintendo get most of their money from royalties by selling first and third party games on their platforms. And they want to maintain those platforms strong. Otherwise they would have been just software companies making games for others

 

[davis.anthony]

Playing a lot of OG Xbox games at the minute with slowdown and can't help but wonder if an AMD chip would have been better.

Slow down doesn't seem to be GPU related as not a lot of pretty stuff happening on screen to cause issues.

 

[see colon]

This is a recent phenomenon. This is partly a result of mobiles and tablets cannibalizing their handheld business which used to sell by the track loads.
Nintendo is still very reserved and has not made direct ports on PCs. They are just allowing in a limited manner some games optimized for mobile and tablets to use some of their IPs.
It doesnt change much. Sony and Nintendo get most of their money from royalties by selling first and third party games on their platforms. And they want to maintain those platforms strong. Otherwise they would have been just software companies making games for others

Recent in the grand scheme of things, but Pokemon Go came out in 2016. That's 5 years ago now, or about 1 console generation. Which is the same generation where Microsoft started putting all of it's exclusives on PC as well.

 

[Nesh]

Recent in the grand scheme of things, but Pokemon Go came out in 2016. That's 5 years ago now, or about 1 console generation. Which is the same generation where Microsoft started putting all of it's exclusives on PC as well.

Thats just one game, not a port. Not even published by Nintendo. On tablets. Not on PC. Your argument is in general irrelevant.

 

[see colon]

Thats just one game, not a port. Not even published by Nintendo. On tablets. Not on PC. Your argument is in general irrelevant.

Ok. I mean, it was the start of a trend. There's more than one Nintendo IP on mobile/tablets now. And why should it be limited to PC? and why should it be limited to just ports? We are talking about exclusivity here, so if it a big IP is no longer exclusive to one platform, then it's no longer a platform exclusive IP, is it? Also, Windows 11 run Android apps now, so it's on PC now... As long as you can get the .apk.

the big IPs remained predominantly exclusive

In Nintendo's case they still are if you don't count the other platforms they are available on, right?

 

[Nesh]

You are derailing the initial discussion but if you want to discuss about Nintendo allowing some IPs on Smartphone and Tables and make irrelevant correlations with PC thats fine. Someone else might join

 

[davis.anthony]

You have both derailed the initial discussion and this thread.

 

[Nesh]

Thats true but I was referring to the one I started