The main thing consoles have going for them, imo, is the standardization of hardware. It's very easy to say "Yes this game will run on my console at 60 FPS because its identical to the other consoles where it runs at 60 FPS." Differing builds and drivers are not really a concern in the console world, where-as they are in the PC world.

Some console gamers seem to think PC gaming requires hours of fiddling with settings and drivers. I think we've all had that experience on PC (cough Bethesda cough), but I doubt to the degree the console-side would have you believe. Most AAA games will self-optimize their settings to a playable state, and indie games don't tend to demand more than your standard gaming laptop can provide...but I'm sure we've all been burned some 10-odd years ago buying a Steam game that just wouldn't run on your iGPU...that experience sticks around in the brain a while

> Consoles made sense as a product category where specialized graphics hardware was not generally available for consumer PCs.

This has almost never been true. GPUs existed, and were being used, before the N64.

Your comment also begs the question that the console consumer has transitioned to a gaming pc. They haven't. Gaming PC sales (and hardware) are at all-time lows, except for GPUs, which should probably be renamed to Model Training Units.

I would posit that what we're seeing is a reflection of a content problem, not hardware. Video games have gone the way of Hollywood, with sequels and derivatives, and an uninterested consumer base. People would rather watch a YouTube video of someone playing a video game than play a video game.

I think they still make sense for the non technical user. Having an idiomatic control makes setup far easier than on a PC and the UI for a console is designed to be used with a controller instead of a keyboard and mouse. This makes dealing with a television easier. I don't see consoles disappearing ever for those reasons.

That doesn't really make sense. Consoles have always occupied a different space to PCs, not least because they plug into living room TVs. Very few people are going to trade that for a (considerably more expensive) PC.

Gaming PCs also require specialized knowledge, more maintenance, etc etc. Consoles are pick up and go. I very much doubt they're dead yet.

Consoles don't have true 'generational leaps' any more either, the huge leaps forward in tech used to drive excitement/sales.

Now we get incremental improvements, cross-generation games, and backwards compatibility. And AAA game development isn't exactly doing well these days.

The thing with PCs is... they are open. Open means piracy and more importantly it means cheats.

A console is a far easier thing to defend against cheaters than a PC - absent true hardware vulnerabilities (which become more and more expensive, now that stuff like voltage glitching, clock cutting and whatnot is all known and accounted for), you are basically limited to botted input and AI-assistance based on what can be seen on the screen.

Specialized graphics hardware hasn’t been the selling point of having a console since at least 2002 with the first XBox.

The selling point of consoles is that they’re a software platform, with development incentives, standardized hardware, standardized UI conventions, and a centralized storefront to be able to conveniently and natively play stuff on your TV without fussing about.

Valve has barely started to muscle in on the platform benefits of gaming on a PlayStation or XBox, but the more they start to do so the more they end up making design trade-offs that start to look like another console.

Consoles are suffering from the AI capitalism crisis (it's not a RAM crisis, it's a large-scale misallocation of resources by central planners) just as much as PCs.

Video game streaming requires a high quality internet connection to a nearby data center. It can work in certain places but there's always going to be places where it doesn't work, and consoles don't have that problem.

Yeah. I gave up a couple of years ago after Epic broke my account and I lost my purchases irrecoverably. I have actually started playing board games with people now. This is so much better for me. And cheaper. And you can't taken them away.

Sadly, the future might be phone gaming. The mobile gaming market is as big as the console and PC markets combined.

Sadly, I agree with you. I don't like it, but it seems pretty clear.

The cloud gaming echo chamber has conveniently arrived to save the day by mimicking the solution to fix the problem the same industry created. Problem, Reaction, Solution.

I think the steam deck proved otherwise too..

I haven't had enough motivation to sit on my couch and game after a long day ..

But the same game, in bed, on my deck was so much nicer..

All I can now say is having a dedicated device, that's not your laptop/computer to play games is definitely a market - be it Steam machine (/custom builds), hand held gaming, or just regular consoles..

Yeah so get a PC and install some games