how the same video game is coded for different platforms
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As another person said, modern consoles have similar architectures so it’s probably fairly easy to develop multiplats. It was more interesting in the past when they had different architectures (or I suppose when the Switch gets the same games as PS5/Xbox). When developing PS3/360 games, developers would often build the game for Xbox and then port it to PS3 because it was easier to develop for Xbox. This is why multiplats of that generation were often better on 360, despite the fact that the PS3 had more theoretical power.
All the textures, sounds, possibly models, etc could be reused, though possibly converted to a different file format. Then they basically had to take all the 360 code and whenever they’d call a function to do X, they would replace it with the PS3’s equivalent, or create a work around if it didn’t have one.
Starting from PS3 and moving to 360 could be more difficult, depending on the game. Going from a blu-ray to a DVD means they possibly needed to cut content or downgrade textures and audio files to actually fit on the disc. Then if the game actually took advantage of the PS3’s Cell processor’s abilities, they’d have to find workarounds for whatever that was doing or remove those functions from the game.
Making a Wii version was basically that but to an even larger degree. That’s why Wii often just didn’t get the same games as the others did, or they got completely different versions of the game. Compare the 360/PS3 versions of Sonic Unleashed to the Wii/PS2 version for example. They have the same themes, art design, music, story, etc, but the gameplay and level design is very different.
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