I think it's more simply just an extension of the old note that no-one really hand-codes assembly anymore. You can. And those who are really good can still se

I think it's more simply just an extension of the old note that no-one really hand-codes assembly anymore. You can. And those who are really good can still see performance gains. But most people who try spend a lot of time and effort to get results that are indistinguishable-to-worse as compared to the compiler. So it is with custom architectures. If the compiler can utilize a gaggle of DSPs or specialized GPU cores? great! Everyone wins. But if it takes some special effort to really make them sing, most people won't bother because they know that for most projects you don't have the time/expertise to pull it off. It doesn't mean there's no point to doing specialized hardware. It just means that the SDK, compiler and libraries need to deliver enough performance to justify their inclusion. And, anecdotally, Sony did not with the PS3.