Mark Cerny: When making consoles, we're not trying to build low-cost PCs. From arcades to architect, the development legend discusses his 42-year career, PS5 surprises and the job of building games co

“One of the exciting aspects of console hardware design is that we have freedom with regards to what we put in the console," Cerny begins. "Or to put that differently, we’re not trying to build a low-cost PC, and we aren’t bound by any particular standards. So if we have a brainstorm that audio can become much more immersive and dimensional if there’s a dedicated unit that’s capable of complex math, then we can do that. Or if the future feels like high-speed SSDs rather than HDDs, we can put an end-to-end system in the console – everything from the flash dies to the software interfaces that the game creators use – and get 100% adoption.

looks dubious

The problem with this is that that's been true for about as long as video game consoles have been around. And...I don't think that, aside from game controllers -- which are now pretty common on the PC -- consoles have seen some huge specialization.

I've pointed out before that while the strength of PCs is their expandability -- you can pay a little more money, get a little smoother or more-detailed graphics or shorter loading times or whatever -- the strength of consoles is that they're locked down. Fewer compatibility issues, it's harder to cheat, and there's a level playing field for competitive games. That's maybe a hardware benefit. But...I don't think that that's quite what he's talking about.

I think that consoles benefit in some ways from having a single company that controls a given console and a single upgrade that happens at the same time. That makes it easier to roll out new hardware without compatibility issues making it too hard to require it. But, again...that just facilitates rolling out new hardware. There's still a question of what new hardware is actually getting out there.

The problem is that there's just too much overlap between what makes a good gaming PC and what makes a good video game console.

He points to an amusing video by Linus Tech Tips, which attempted to 'kill' the PlayStation 5 by building a $500 gaming PC that outperformed the console.

"They had to get a used motherboard," he says. "That was the only way that they could build a PlayStation 5 equivalent for a PlayStation 5 price. And if you're using used parts… well you can get a used PlayStation 5 for eBay for $300-something.

I mean...okay. But...if the basic argument here is that you're not building low-cost PCs, this doesn't really support that.

I also think that some of the things that used to play to console strengths are going away. A PC is (generally) designed for single-user use. Yeah, you can rig it up with more, but there's no standard for multiple people, for example, using keyboards and mice to play one game. The display is (generally) smaller. Whereas consoles were (generally) set up with larger displays and multiple controllers. Games with multiple players were more of a thing at one point.

But today, with VoIP and pretty universal fast Internet access, playing remotely against people with other machines is more-practical on the PC (as well as on the console). That kind of reduces the importance of a case where the console was able to be optimized for a particular use case; multiple concurrent local users.

I mean, I'm willing to believe that someone could come up with some new use case where consoles are just way better suited, where the hardware has no great applications on the PC. Maybe...oh, I don't know. Volumetric displays become the norm for TVs, but aren't physically practical for laptops, so they don't become the norm for computers. But, he's talking a lot about potential, not actual cases where this has happened.

It kinda feels and looks like they are now, maybe not a decade+ ago especially with weird architectures but not anymore.

Then why did your two consoles end up like that, Mark