Kinda splitting hairs aren't you, Ness? He said there were no set standards, but he meant in terms of how each individual PC could be wildly different in what kind of hardware its user has in it, not in terms of what architecture its based on--which is far from being the only thing that affects how well or reliably a game runs (these being what dude was talking about).

By comparison, the MSX and Sharp were basically consoles that looked like PCs. I don't think it was possible to really change the hardware except in the most minor ways (say, giving it more memory or a cartridge drive). That's something, but its a far cry from the customizability of PCs, where one might have a Sound Blaster and another might have a Roland--cards that are on a similar level, but interact with the machine in different ways and thus require different programming (and, on the user's end, mean different things you have to fiddle with to make the thing work). And that's living in a world where only the sound cards are different, but in reality it'll be everything from the graphics to the amount of RAM to the type of RAM to who manufactured your particular parts (which again result in different stuff you have to do to fiddle and make System Shock stop salting the fries)....