Earlier this year, it was revealed that Putin had ordered Russian tech manufacturers to work on ‘homegrown’ gaming consoles. The goal is for the country to compete against PlayStation and Xbox in the home console stakes, but it seems that things aren’t going as planned.
In a recent update posted by Habr.com, it was stated that the ‘Skolkovo Foundation’, tasked with developing the core foundation of the consoles, is having some technical issues.
‘Something Truly Breakthrough’
In a quote picked up by Habr.com (and circulated by Tom’s Hardware), it was said:
I hope that my colleagues will approach this task with full responsibility and come up with something truly breakthrough. After all, it is obvious to everyone: Elbrus processors are not yet at the stage of development that would ensure equal competition with PS5 and Xbox, which means that the solution must be non-standard.
This was a quote taken from Anton Gorelkin, the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. His reference to ‘Elbrus’ is a nod to a Russian-developed processor unit. The transparency of the statement confirms that the tech the country has created isn’t yet on par with the hardware created by Xbox and PlayStation.
The Elbrus processor has been pieced together by the Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies, but it’s not a patch on the hardware being created by the likes of Intel and AMD.
Gorelkin repeated the desire to create something sovereign, per Putin’s wishes:
This platform should primarily serve the goals of promoting and popularizing domestic video game products, expanding their audience beyond PCs and mobile gaming.
The most recent reports suggest that the Russians are working on two consoles, one a ‘not very powerful’ device and the other a cloud-based streaming-focused unit with a $45 price tag. In a first-look image published just days ago, it was revealed that the $45 unit features an Xbox-styled controller with a small remote and a USB dongle.
In an article by RBC.ru, the goal of the hyper-cheap gaming solution was detailed:
The MTS console will operate on the principle of cloud gaming on its own MTS Fog Play system — a platform for so-called foggy gaming. The system was originally designed to allow owners of “weak” computers to play games with high system requirements.
Do you think Russia has a hope of competing with the Xbox and PlayStation platforms? Let us know on the GPlayr forum.
For more GPlayr coverage, check out the news that Tango Gameworks has been ‘reborn’