Russia continues work on homegrown game console despite technology and scale issues

I guess the Kremlin thinks that it's a soft power concern (subversive Western ideas in front of our children's eyeballs), but in all seriousness, this seems way down on the list of things that I'd be worried about if I were them.

• In terms of exposure to a domestic audience, consoles are closed platforms. They can probably mostly restrict creation and sale of Russian-language content that they find politically-objectionable. That's probably a lot easier and cheaper than trying to produce a new state-subsidized console.

• Scale matters here. China hasn't done this. If China hasn't done it, I doubt that it's gonna go well for Russia.

• This is gonna drag people off projects that they're actually gonna need more in terms of import substitution. I mean, direct military stuff aside, your whole economy is gonna have problems with lack of access to stuff from outside.

• Consoles have a relatively-low gaming marketshare today, due to mobile. They're probably globally the least-important.

• Of all of the gaming platforms out there, PC, console, and mobile, consoles are the least-useful in terms of non-game applications. If Russia wants to be a player in one of those, consoles would be the last I'd choose. It'd probably be easier to just ban consoles in Russia, if necessary.