> Actually I struggle to think of a single major component to a game that must be platform-specific. Different platforms often have totally different graphics

> Actually I struggle to think of a single major component to a game that must be platform-specific. Different platforms often have totally different graphics APIs. Even when platforms share APIs, driver quality, compliance, and fast paths vary greatly. The Mac still used a completely different processor architecture from the PC at the time of this story, requiring platform-specific optimizations and approaches. Games, particularly cutting edge ones that demand performance, and especially from that era, are much more likely to need to be tailored to their platforms.