News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Sony agrees to pay millions to gamers to settle PS3 Linux debacle. Parent comment

Re:Sony agrees to pay millions to gamers to settle PS3 Linux... by theandrewbailey on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @04:45PM (#11949255)
The current console cycle should drill into everyone that each console is its own mutually exclusive walled garden, with no expectations of compatibility between them. I think everyone got spoiled with PS1 games compatible on PS2. Since then, backwards compatibility (outside Nintendo) has generally been spotty at best, but usually gone.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sony agrees to pay millions to gamers to settle PS3 Linux... by MrMember on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @04:57PM (#11949349)
Nintendo has an advantage in that their hardware is generally cheaper than the competition so they don't have to muck around with software based backwards compatibility. They just put the hardware from the old console inside the new one. The Wii is a Gamecube. The DS is a GBA.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Sony agrees to pay millions to gamers to settle PS3 Linux... by theandrewbailey on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @08:16AM (#11953248)
> They just put the hardware from the old console inside the new one.

That's pretty easy to do when you don't switch CPU architectures every generation, and the new chips are (mostly) a faster version of the old ones. Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U all have a PowerPC CPU in them, with an AMD (ATI) GPU.

[ Parent | on HN ]