I&#x27;m actually amazed that you were able to get an IHV to give you that access.<p>Interestingly, most console developers currently have this sort of access.  If they are just targeting consoles (or better, a specific platform), they&#x27;re able to get a lot done.  The tricky part is if they have to target PC and consoles.  They have the access they want on consoles, but can&#x27;t replicate on PC.<p>Actually, on top of that, replicating that task on PC would mean giving developers a nightmarish mix of varying, quirky architectures to target.  Realistically, what most _engine_ devs want on PC are more current and lower level access APIs (DX12 and Vulkan) and maybe even an OSS shader compiler.  The compiler wouldn&#x27;t be even for them to poke at.  I think they&#x27;d hope that the OSS community might do a better job than the IHVs at maintaining the compiler.