Russia is trying to develop its own gaming console

During Christmas, Anton Gorelkin, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, revealed some information about a video game console that Russia would be developing.

According to the information obtained from the Techspot translation, the console will have an Elbrus processor and will be powered by Aurora or Alt LinuxRussian versions of the popular Linux operating system.

The news is yet another confirmation of something that is not exactly a secret: Russia works to avoid Western technology as much as possible and develop its own.

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Home Development

The Elbrus processor would have been developed by the SPARC Technology Center in Moscow and primarily designed for defense, critical infrastructure and other applications. Although, it would not be at the level of what Intel, AMD and Arm currently produce.

And it certainly won’t reach the power levels of the PS5 or Xbox.

Despite the weaker chipset, Gorelkin emphasized that the console is not designed for playing ports of old titles, but for playing “home video games”. This means that Russia works to create its own development community.

Another console, called Fog Play, is also in development, but it is a cloud gaming device. Users with high-performance computers can rent them to Fog Play owners, who play on those computers via the cloud.

Sovereignty

These potential consoles are just one aspect of Russia’s broad technological sovereignty plans. Since its invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions, Russia has been trying to make this a reality, but digital isolation is making that task difficult.

The country was excluded from Swift and suffers several international sanctions for causing the conflict.

The adoption of Astra Linux on government, intelligence, military and even educational computers is another Russian effort to develop its own technology. Russia is also trying to replace Google’s VirusTotal file and website scanner with its own Multiscanner platform.

Dependence on China

However, despite some progress, Russia is still dependent on Chinese technology. Chinese smartphones are popular and Chinese electronics and dual-use technology continue to enter Russia.

And given these challenges, it’s hard to imagine Russia achieving true technological independence in video games or other crucial areas.. At least not until the country is capable of producing chips at the level of PS5 or Xbox.

The two Russian video game consoles serve as a good example of the challenges the country faces, given its troubled relations with many of the world’s superpowers. And just as the Elbrus processor won’t truly compete against the best consoles, Russia will likely continue to fight for technological sovereignty.

Fontes: Canal no Telegram de Anton Gorelkin and Techspot.