Why was the PICO chosen and not something like the ESP32?

[Splarkszter]

Is there any hardware limitations or simply the project started in an RP2040 just because?
ESP32's are close in price(clones) and they aren't bad in IO.

For examaple ESP32's C3 and S3 boards are cheap enough, wireless and have enough IO in my opinion.
Thing is. I haven't found a similar project that does the same. That's why I ask this.

[TheTrainGoes]

@Splarkszter The project was started on the RP2040 partially because it was a newer chip at the time but mainly because it was during the chip shortage and RP2040s were easily accessible.

[arntsonl]

The PIO gives us a big advantage on the 2040/2350 family for doing fast communication. On an ESP32 board, we'd need to add ANOTHER board or chip to get those kinds of communication speeds on certain IO pins.

I'm also a huge fan of Raspberry Pi's commitment to open source transparency, so I'm all for giving them good projects on the platform.

@FeralAI was the original creator of GP2040, and I think for him it was a challenge as well to get a game controller up and running that was super solid like the DaemonBite or JoystickEncoder for Arduino.