[anko]

What are you talking about late 80s? it's still happening with consoles today. On XBox, for example, you need a dev kit. They have a lengthy sign up process, they don't allow students or universities to get one, etc. It costs $$$.

Yeah development practices have changed, but you also have a choice of platforms.

Any platform has tradeoffs and those tradeoffs have an impact on your development process. That's what a platform is. It's an environment, and that environment imposes restrictions. So there is a tradeoff between restrictions to benefits.