Russia Struggles To Develop ‘Groundbreaking’ Game Console To Rival Xbox And PlayStation

The PlayStation 5 uses a powerful AMD APU that leaves Russia’s homegrown CPU in the dust.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began almost three years ago , and there’s no end in sight. As the war drags on, Russia also has to cope with the international fallout that has seen numerous Western companies pull out of the country. Putin’s government is now pushing self-sufficiency goals across numerous industries, including gaming. The government last year ordered the development of a homegrown game console, but a new report claims Russia’s efforts are falling far short of existing game platforms.Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all stopped official sales and warranty support in Russia following the invasion, but Russians still have access to the hardware through resellers. However, the Kremlin is adamant about moving away from its dependence on Western tech. That means the planned homegrown console needs to be built on Russian technology, and that’s proving to be a problem.Designers have apparently settled on using Russian Elbrus processors, which use the VLIW architecture and were initially designed for sensitive, mission-critical applications. Despite integrated error-checking and tight execution security, even the latest Elbrus chips aren’t very fast. Current designs are built on a 16nm process node, far less advanced the than 6nm and 7nm chips used in the PS5 and Xbox Series X, respectively. Early testing on Elbrus chips has shown they struggle to maintain even 30 fps in many games.Anton Gorelkin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, recently laid out the problem in a Telegram post. “I hope that my colleagues will approach this task with full responsibility and come up with something truly breakthrough.” said Gorelkin (translated). “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.”Gorelkin warns against the development of a console that can only run older games. The goal of the directive was to create a platform that can support the development of domestic games that can compete with Western systems. However, developers may need to create simpler, more efficient games for the homegrown console, which would make it difficult to compete with Microsoft and Sony. Nintendo certainly doesn’t need as much power—the Switch runs on a decade-old Nvidia mobile chip . Importantly, Nintendo has a wealth of beloved IP. Russia is starting from scratch. If the Kremlin console can’t deliver high-end graphics or iconic IP, it’s hard to see how it can compete with imported Xboxes.There are some hints Russia may lean into cloud gaming to fill the gap. This would allow games to be rendered on centralized servers and streamed to players. However, internet infrastructure is lacking in many areas of the country. Russia has been experimenting with a domestic version of the internet that would allow it to seal itself off from the open web. If it expands access to support cloud gaming, players may find they don’t have any option but to use Russia’s homegrown services.