In what ways do console computers like Xbox and PlayStation represent the cutting edge of modern computing?

What will be an ideal response?

You could say in many ways. Modern consoles include a lot of processing power, storage, and I/O. The top?of?the range consoles have a very a high?performance and use cutting?edge technology in the design of the processors. For example, the PlayStation uses the Cell processor that consists of a 3.2 GHz PowerPC processor and six processing elements. These processing elements have 128?bit registers and support Altivec SIMD extensions. This is a non?homogeneous multiprocessor. You could argue that this level of power and complexity is quite remarkable in a low?cost, mass?market, games environment. If the same level of technology (with respect to the state of the art) were to be applied to other consumer games/toys, a child that once had a model boat in the bath would now have a nuclear?powered aircraft carrier and require a larger bathroom.