Comment by toast0
5 years ago
I think the specific application of the CPU here makes it more palettable. It was a nice idea, but it doesn't work out, so scan for it and don't publish games that have that opcode; if possible, issue a microcode update that makes it either a noop or an illegal operation.
Game console CPUs get away with all sorts of brokenness. The Wii U CPU also has broken coherency, and needs workaround flush instructions in the core mutex primitives. You can't run standard PowerPC Linux on it multicore for this reason.
I agree that console silicon can be rushed and bugs slip through. But then again, we may not even be aware of all the bugs in Intel or AMD products where they have been fixed post silicon via mechanisms such as microcode patches.