Why did the console bit wars end? During the 32 bit era, PS1 and Saturn were 32 bit systems, and Nintendo was boasting about having a 64 bit system. The last time console makers boasted about bits in their system was the sixth generation, with the Dreamcast, GameCube, and PS2 being 128 bits.

Question

Why didn’t the bit war continue into the seventh generation? Why didn’t the amount of bits double to 256 bits like they did in past generations? Any insight into this would be appreciated.

In: 609

Answer 1

Early console “bitness” was in reference to [color depth](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth), and not instruction size, the 32 or 64 that you see associated with processors on computers. The consoles themselves used 32-bit processors.

The color depth was important as it was the limit on how detailed character and resource sprites could be, and then textures later. This was during a time when memory and storage were relatively expensive and thus restrictive.

It’s not even an afterthought today, as memory and storage are cheap and abundant.