AMD dominates all three next-gen consoles: the Nintendo Wii U, Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s Playstation 4.
As AMD exec Saeid Moshkelani puts it, the company managed to execute a console “clean sweep,” all while pushing ahead with the design of more advanced APUs targeted at both PCs and tablets.
“It is a very, very proud moment. They are very complex projects, very complex designs, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It has been a journey of over two years in development to get to today,” Moshkelani told GameIndustry during a recent interview.
As previously discussed on TG Daily, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have semi-custom AMD Jaguar system-on-a-chips (SoC) at their core, while the Nintendo Wii U features an AMD Radeon graphics processor paired with an IBM PowerPC CPU.
According to Moshkelani, AMD designed all the chips in coordination with the platform holders, based on “very different visions and philosophies.”
The AMD exec also noted that the company was pleased to be acting as a “bridge” between consoles and PCs.
“We are working with all of the major developers for PC games, as part of our strategy for PC products. It enables the developers to optimize their games on PCs by working with us,” he explained.
“And then at some point, they can port those to consoles.Historically, the consoles were all different architecture. Porting from PC to PowerPC architecture was not as easy. AMD makes it much easier to port games back and forth.”
AMD exec Travis Williams expressed similar sentiments.
“You look at the PS4 and the Xbox One now being x86-based and you look at where gaming is in the PC industry. So now you have game developers coding for x86, working with the console vendors, working with AMD to optimize their solutions for x86. It helps speed time to market, lowers costs, and now they don’t have to worry about coding for different platforms across console and PC,” Williams added.
