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by vslira·5y ago·view on hn ↗
> The Japanese manufacturers were not comfortable with firmware updates. "They didn't want the computer experience to be transferred to consumer electronics," Ram said. And that extended not just to updates but also to error handling—"If something goes wrong there's got to be a way to flash the firmware quickly and restore it to the last best-known state"—and startup times. Toshiba expected things to just work.

Love the spirit

1 comments
Prior to the sixth-gen consoles, there were no firmware updates. What made it out the door was it. I don't know if the PS2 or Dreamcast ever received software updates but the original Xbox included updates with newer games. Seventh-gen received online updates constantly. Toshiba was clearly just looking at what had come previously and didn't want to buck the trend.
The PS2 actually did have a firmware update, to support title skip and chapter selection on newer DVDs, and bring the BIOS up to date of the PS2-Slim. Exactly one.