[ewzimm]

That's probably true for Playstation, but I think developing for Xbox was already pretty much like developing for Windows, even with different hardware architectures. Most game devs don't looking too deeply at the hardware but just use the tools they're given. The ones who want to understand what's going on in hardware will still study the details of the CPU/GPU.

[Arelius]

The endianess of the Xbox 360 made "already pretty much like developing for Windows" not quite accurate. And causes a lot of problems relating to I/O.

[wmf]

Doesn't the 360 run little-endian?

[Arelius]

Nope, the 360 runs big-endian.

[ewzimm]

It does both.

[Arelius]

Incorrect, the powerPC may be capable of both, but not the xbox360 in practice.

[ewzimm]

Yes, this is correct. Although it is capable if switching, this would cause problems that require a motherboard fix which is not implemented, so the machine runs big endian in practice. I included a wikipedia link to explain.

[wmf]

What, does MS let game developers choose?

[ewzimm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC#Endian_modes

[Arelius]

No, the machine always runs big-endian.

[ewzimm]

All current software does this, but the switching capability means the motherboard could be modified to allow it to run little-endian. This means that if someone wanted to repurpose old Xbox hardware to run a little-endian operating system it would be entirely possible. Certainly not a practical process considering the cheapness of CPUs, but it could make for a fun experiment.