Raspberry Pi trounces Nintendo Wii’s graphics, says Eben Upton
The Pi creator talks up the £20 computer's gaming prowess – and ponders why you aren't playing games on your TV set-top box
The Raspberry Pi may only cost £20, but it’s a mini gaming powerhouse – according to Eben Upton, founder of the Rasperry Pi Foundation.
Upton tells Stuff that the low-budget computer is “somewhere a little north of the PlayStation 2 and the Wii in performance.”
The Raspberry Pi is being used by schools across the country to help teach the coding whizzes of the future – and it’s been used to create everything from brewing controllers to musical instruments powered by root vegetables.
A slice of the gaming Pi
But gamers can take advantage of the Pi’s prowess toom, with games like OpenArena and Minecraft rivalling titles on more expensive consoles like the Android-powered Ouya. “We keep meaning to benchmark it against the Ouya,” Upton says. “The processor won’t be as fast, but the graphics core should hold up well. I think a lot of people want the casual gaming these sort of devices can offer.”
Upton reckons that casual gamers won’t be playing on a dedicated device in future, though – the set-top box nestling in your living room has more than enough grunt to power games. “I know from personal experience that cable set-top boxes have very high-end 3D graphics cards in them, and it’s not entirely clear to me why your Sky box isn’t already the home of casual gaming,” he says. “If I had to plump for the next big contender in gaming, I’d say it was already underneath your TV.”
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Sean Keach
