Russia's efforts to develop a domestically produced gaming console made by Russians and used by Russians does not appear to be going well. According to new reports, two gaming consoles are being manufactured in Russia: one is not very powerful, and the other is a $45 device that can stream games from the cloud.
As early as March this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the government to develop Russian fixed and portable game consoles, as well as operating systems and cloud-based game delivery systems.
Russia is under severe sanctions and hopes to promote its products, and one of its game consoles under development uses Elbrus processors. Elbrus was developed by the Moscow Center of SPARC Technologies (MCST) and is based on the VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) architecture. It is mainly targeted at domestic applications in critical infrastructure, national defense and other sensitive fields.
The performance of Elbrus processors isn't comparable to high-end CPUs from Intel, AMD, and Arm, but it's adequate for enterprise and government work. Of course, Elbrus processors don't power consoles comparable to the PS5 or Xbox series.
The console will also use a Russian-made operating system, but it has not yet been determined whether it will be Aurora or AltLinux.
The Russian government admitted that the device would not be on the same level as current-generation home consoles. Anton Gorelkin, deputy chairman of the State Duma Information Policy Committee, said: "I hope that my colleagues will take this task seriously and responsibly and come up with truly breakthrough results. It is clear to everyone: Elbrus processors have not yet reached the level required to compete on an equal footing with PS5 and Xbox, which means that the solution must be unconventional."
Gorelkin said Russian consoles were not designed simply to play hundreds of undemanding ports of older games. He also said that the main purpose of these game consoles should be to promote and popularize domestic video game products.
Another organization following Putin's instructions is the Russian telecommunications company MTS. Its console (pictured above) will use the company's cloud gaming platform called FogPlay. The platform allows owners of high-end PCs to rent their computing power to users with weaker devices for an hourly fee. Those with more powerful PCs can access games on the service and play with their own hardware.
MTS' device is expected to cost no more than $45 and come with an Xbox-like controller, suggesting it's unlikely to appeal to those who enjoy games on current-gen consoles.