Consoles should never be taken into account for things that connects GPU with CPU and other components.
Their hardware is highly optimised for the special task of realtime rendering, this includes especially the connection of RAM <-> GPU <-> CPU which is worlds faster than any desktop system can reach (even notebooks are better than desktop). At least I know for example no one having 1T RAM in his system as a GameCube for example.
Due to this special hardware config, they can afford to do stuff, that would be too slow on a PC.
You should also consider, that the mentioned consoles have a lower texture size than any of the next gen engines you mentioned, because 32MB / 48MB of total RAM. So they can do stuff that would take too much time on a PC (256x256 vs 1024x1024 -> 1:16).
I am not even taking their special GPU into account (beside MS console), which gives them abilities, your PC won't see anytime soon.
Btw: Which console game uses alpha blend that much that it is even worth mentioning? I saw a lot of other blends and some vertex alpha stuff, but not really alpha textures or not in an amount that would make them worth mentioning.
Fact is the actual GPU generations are not focused that much around alpha because other things seem to be more important, stuff like Blooming effect or HDRi ... this is why it took till now until anti alias learned how to work on Alpha Textures.
I would say the next generations will become better on handling alpha stuff.
Their hardware is highly optimised for the special task of realtime rendering, this includes especially the connection of RAM <-> GPU <-> CPU which is worlds faster than any desktop system can reach (even notebooks are better than desktop). At least I know for example no one having 1T RAM in his system as a GameCube for example.
Due to this special hardware config, they can afford to do stuff, that would be too slow on a PC.
You should also consider, that the mentioned consoles have a lower texture size than any of the next gen engines you mentioned, because 32MB / 48MB of total RAM. So they can do stuff that would take too much time on a PC (256x256 vs 1024x1024 -> 1:16).
I am not even taking their special GPU into account (beside MS console), which gives them abilities, your PC won't see anytime soon.
Btw: Which console game uses alpha blend that much that it is even worth mentioning? I saw a lot of other blends and some vertex alpha stuff, but not really alpha textures or not in an amount that would make them worth mentioning.
Fact is the actual GPU generations are not focused that much around alpha because other things seem to be more important, stuff like Blooming effect or HDRi ... this is why it took till now until anti alias learned how to work on Alpha Textures.
I would say the next generations will become better on handling alpha stuff.