Why exclusives matter.

[kupomogli]

So I'm creating a new thread on this when I could have just used the old one about Xbox and Playstation being dead, but this is the reason why exclusives are necessary and will provide examples on why.

Now, I was going to save this towards the end, but I'm going to start with Steam being founded for PC in 2003. After Steam was created as a way to streamline digital sales for publishers to sell their product, the only thing that happened is the removal of physical media. Valve did nothing to promote competition because there was no competition. The only competition came around when all of these companies wanted to create their own apps and installers to sell their product without receiving a fee but at that point so many people have been becoming used to the convenience of Steam that they'd rather fight for a company that has been doing NOTHING for them for years, over giving more money to developers that are making the games, giving more money to Epic who is actually financing the developers, companies that are trying to be competitive. I agree that Steam is the better service and has things that are better than the others, but I fail to see fighting against buying from companies that are being competitive. It's not like you have to buy a new console. It's a free app. "OMG, it's like I have to take two seconds to open a new app, nuuuuuu!!!"

Now with that in mind, Steam proves that dominating the PC market for years means they have to put no effort, no competition and the fanboys will follow. I shouldn't even have to explain at this point why consoles competing is healthy.

I don't care for Xbox, but the fact that everything on Xbox is coming to Playstation is further proof of what I've been stating for years. At the launch of Xbox One, putting their games on PC gave no reason to own an Xbox and this gradual shift in a loss of the fanbase and loss of money has forced Microsoft to double down. Instead of realizing that this is the issue Microsoft just thought oh we need to keep pushing this idea of making Xbox everywhere instead of focusing on exclusivity. Now look at their plan, their plan is not to reverse their decisions, it's to triple down on this same thing, to now sell all their games to Playstation. This is the absolute worst decision they can make as a brand. This is the very definition of no competition when all of your games are on your direct competitor's console. Microsft is officially done at this point, they are now third party.

Playstation has followed in Microsoft's footsteps and again we are already seeing the effects with people leaving Playstation in droves. All of this is just a short term gain to bring your pathetic sales over to PC. It's doing nothing but telling everyone that they can buy a PC and get everything on offer from Playstation and Xbox.

But here's the big problem. Nintendo actually had competition with the Switch at the time. At the time the Playstation 4 and Xbox One had a lot of exclusives that you couldn't play elsewhere, even on PC for some of them. So Nintendo paid for eusivity of Octopath Traveler, Bravely Default series, Bayonetta 2 and 3, Astral Chain, etc, etc, etc. This is on top of their own games. What happens when Nintendo no longerhas to compete. Now being a Japan company, I doubt Nintendo will fire their dedicated employees, that's now how Japan seems to work as a business, they'll just put them in rooms and make them do nothing until the people quit. This right here is a joke, but whether it happened or not, Nintendo isn't going to fund all of these third party games, and here's the thing. People think that all of these games are going to be developed they'll just be multiconsole. That's not true at all. A lot of these exclusives only exist at all because the funding for additional resources and additional third party assistance or employees to make these games in the first place. If Nintendo was the only major console publisher to release they are not going to fund these games which will cost them money and they will gain no benefit but the potential sales when they're already going to make 30% sales from everything in the first place. Go read my description about how much Steam invested in the industry when there's no competition.

People are complaining that gaming is worse than it's ever been, wait until it's a barren wasteland of AAA games and all we're doing is getting indie games and the drip of AAA games we're even getting at this point is next to nothing.

Can't believe people can't understand this when Steam has been staring everyone in the face of what no competition does for the industry.

[Spartacus]

Why exclusives matter to me. I have a Indiana Jones game on my wait for a price drop to buy watch list. Then I find out that the game is digital, not physical. I'll admit that turned me off immediately. The other day I Googled best RPG's in 2025 and saw an action role playing game Avowed that looked good. It was digital only as well. Why do I want these useless digital exclusives? Why not hope these are temporary exclusives and will appear in a physical format on Nintendo or Sony someday. Then I could purchase and own the game instead of just renting it.
The PC is exclusively digital and is not fostering competition for me.
The Xbox clear preference for digital distribution is not fostering competition for me.
Nintendo consoles are made using cheap mobile chips for people who want to game with the slowest frame rate possible. Nintendo is not fostering competition for me.
So now what?
If game developers reduce financial risk by multi-platforming, would that not encourage larger investments and give me better games? Should console makers eat that risk to provide exclusives to differentiate themselves with competitors, when there's never been a starker difference between gaming on a PC, Xbox, Nintendo or Sony than ever before?

When I collected video games for a hobby, exclusives meant a great deal. I always researched and tried to own the exclusives for any console I collected for because to me it defined what made that console special. But now that I don't collect - I want what's best for me instead. Does that make me some danger to the game industry?

The OP is very passionate and knowledgable about video games and I very much respect and appreciate that. But I'm not personaly worried because I already have what everyone in the game industry wants - money. In order to get it they will make me happy or go without.

[Spartacus]

It would appear from this article https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/xbo...5/2900-6605/#1 that Xbox is seeing a surge in profits by releasing Xbox exclusive games on the PS5. They are using the revenue to, wait - wait for it, make more Xbox games! Who would have thunk it! So the digital Indiana Jones game I wanted will now become be a physical game for the PS5. Same for Oblivion Remastered and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II. We should also see Forza Horizon 5 and Gears of War Reloaded on the PS5. Things are changing for the better in my humble opinion.
Exclusives still matter at Nintendo though, which allows for their predatory pricing system. I guess some people like that.

[kupomogli]

It would appear from this article https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/xbo...5/2900-6605/#1 that Xbox is seeing a surge in profits by releasing Xbox exclusive games on the PS5. They are using the revenue to, wait - wait for it, make more Xbox games! Who would have thunk it! So the digital Indiana Jones game I wanted will now become be a physical game for the PS5. Same for Oblivion Remastered and Senua's Saga: Hellblade II. We should also see Forza Horizon 5 and Gears of War Reloaded on the PS5. Things are changing for the better in my humble opinion.
Exclusives still matter at Nintendo though, which allows for their predatory pricing system. I guess some people like that.

First off, That's not really true. Indiana jones requires a 115GB download on PS5, so the disc is pretty much a coaster, same with Doom the Dark Ages.

And why do you think Microsoft's profits are doing so well compared to their own console sales/ Their Xbox Series is selling so poorly because there's no reason to buy one. I mean sure, there's exclusives on the Xbox Series, but almost nothing compared to the PS4, compared to the PS3, etc. nThe Xbox as a console is done, just like I said before, just like I've seen saying for years, and it all stems to no reason to buy an Xbox. when nearly everything even last gen, was on Playstation. First party games weren't on Playstation but how many first party games were on the Xbox One? Hardly any.

I said previously Playstation was done as well and PS7 was the last console, but with the release of the Switch 2 and the lack of physical games, I think there's a possibility of a lot of physical collectors moving over to Playstation and if Sony doesn't fuck up with their PS6 launch maybe they can last longer.

The reason why, is now that Microsoft is literally done, there third party right now. Nintendo owners often don't buy third party games and the die hard fanbase certainly don't buy third party consoles, you can see this by how much the Nintendo fanboys are jacking off to finally playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Cyberpunk 2077. I stil feel like when the games that aren't your typical Nintendo style games, the games that are generally popular with the Nintendo fanbase release, after the fans ignore purchasing the games on the Switch 2 you may as well call these games PS5/XS/PC and if you consider Xbox is done, you could technically we're back to exclusives especially when it comes to physical releases.

So if Sony doesn't fuck it up and they continue to push physical media, a reason to own the Playstation still, then they're not going to push their entire audience over to PC as they have been because if I was digital only, I wouldn't buy a PS5, I wouldn't own a PS5. Why own a PS5 when every single game except Demon's Souls is on the PC? There's only one reason. Physical media. If PS6 drops physical media then they are absolutely done.

[JSoup]

Exclusives have mattered less and less as the generations have gone on. Will gazillion dollar development costs, putting a game out on just one platform is studio suicide. It's funny to think about, but Nintendo keeping their dev costs reasonably low but their sales priced pared with the often cited 'Nintendo Tax', they've successfully did an end around the whole problem. Want Mario? Well, it's all in house on our hardware, so. Want anything...not that, I guess? Well, we probably have it to, but you can just go play that on one of your other five computer boxes, off you go then.

So the digital Indiana Jones game I wanted will now become be a physical game for the PS5.

Firstly, the article you posted doesn't say or suggest this and neither does the any of the other articles that one links off to as references.
Secondly, a month later, of all the games you've mentioned, I can only find evidence that Hellblade is getting a physical, but that's through LimitedShillGames, so it may as well not exist at all. There is no mention anywhere of the Indiana Jones game going to disc and only reddit bitching that the Oblivion Remake isn't.

[SparTonberry]

"Mattered less" for game developers that aren't part of the console manufacturer. For the console maker, they do.

That's probably the reason Nintendo got into hardware gimmicks. Those and the first-party library are what they have to draw people to buy their console over the others.

[JSoup]

The console maker for XBox just announced they want to put a bunch of their exclusives on the PS5.

[kupomogli]

"Mattered less" for game developers that aren't part of the console manufacturer. For the console maker, they do.

That's probably the reason Nintendo got into hardware gimmicks. Those and the first-party library are what they have to draw people to buy their console over the others.

For the console maker and the gamer exclusives matter. For the console publisher, while Sony and Microsoft just don't get it, Nintendo does. Publishing your games over to PC is going to eventually give people no reason to ever buy your console when everything can be played elsewhere, especially when you can play that many more games on that PC.

The reason why it matters for gamers and not just collectors, is that when a company is competitive they pay for exclusivity to a third party. Ideally that would be funding that covered losses from the exclusivity from another platform and provide them an initial profit on the investment of developing the game, meaning that this money can then go towards future products from that company, ie; not the exclusive in question. Since first party publishers want to attract people into playing on their consoles, buying games for their consoles, even if the person already owns the system, they need to continue to remain competitive means that these first party companies would be spending money to make money and it should all around be good for gaming in general. More money paid out from the first party publishers to compete against the others in attempts to gain more money means more games all around provided you buy more than one console, not less.

A world without competition and everything just releasing everywhere just means that we now really do have less. I can buy most games on the Switch that I can buy on PS4 and PS5. I can buy most games on Xbox on the PS4 or PS5. There's not more games out there for me. There's less, there's less incentive for me to consider another console.

It's also worse for collector's because unlike the Genesis, SNES, an TG16, unlike the PS1, N64, and Saturn, unlike the GameCube, Xbox, PS2, and Dreamcast, and even to a less extent the 7th gen and 8th generation consoles and absolutely let's not forget about handheld games which were always almost entirely exclusive to that platform. All of these consoles have libraries that give each console their own individual identity. What's unique about the games on the XSX than the PS5? Absolutely nothing, and honestly there's very little on the PS5 that's unique in gaming than the XSX. Hidden gem videos of games exclusive on either XSX or PS5? that's not happening outside of maybe a third party and odds are they'll be on both if not on the Nintendo console as well if it's an indie game.

---

And then finally exclusives matter to gamers because they matter to the hardware manufacturer. As I stated long, long ago when Xbox first started releasing their games on PC that it was a mistake, and stated awhile ago that they're done as a console publisher before they went third party to Sony, but now they're overdone. They're gone.

If the same thing happens to Playstation and if Sony doesn't get their act together it absolutely will, I've already called it that PS7 will be their last console if they even get that far, they're still doing well now so I'd say PS6 is where things look really grim and I'm certain like the XSX they'll struggle to maintain a following but by that time I'm certain everyone will jump to PC or Nintendo and Sony will be in the same state Xbox is in.

That being said, Sony has all this great stuff falling into their lap, and I mean great for them as a company. First Microsoft and their Xbox One always online fiasco and now Nintendo with their $450 priced console with the increased price in games as Nintendo wants to profit as much as possible. Typical Nintendo. But also Nintendo and their key cards having no actual ownership to even physical games. As a company, all of this has fallen into Sony's lap, not something that Sony has successfully done on their own, but what do they do? Do they take advantage of this? Not at all. During the PS4 era despite the PS4 imo being the best console of all time when it comes to, while not the variety of PS2, but the amount of quality games, Sony just sat around with their thumbs up their ass going so far as Yoshida making a public quote of "I have no idea why the PS4 is selling so well when we only have Bloodborne and remasters of other games." Now while I did take some liberties in adding how the PS4 had almost no first party exclusives at the time of this quote that are actually worth talking about that aren't remasters, it remains true, the PS4 at that time really didn't have an exclusive line up compared to what was on offer on the Xbox One, so PS4 still outselling it really means Microsoft fucked up in their reveal badly. But for Yoshida who was currently the Playstation president to just state this in an interview? Fucking incompetence. Yoshida was such an embarrassment to Playstation but for some reason there were so many people who loved him. But anyways, all this lucky shit falls into Sony's lap and what does Sony do, fucking nothing. Ever since Jack Tretton left this company has been ran by people who have no clue as to what they're doing to the point that they've lost billions of dollars in cancelled projects and failed company purchases in the past few years alone, and while Shuhei "Incompetence" Yoshida was able to ride it out until he retired after being demoted, the PS5 pretty much has no games due to the monumental amounts of fuckery going on within the company.

[kupomogli]

Additionally, without exclusives there's no reason to get these new consoles. If we don't get the consoles and only buy a PC, there's even less out there to choose from, so when PC or Nintendo is the only option, Nintendo has zero reason at all to be competitive, they have no reason to spend money outside of their own game development, but that's going to make them billions of dollars each release so that's obvious. But they're not going to put anything to support your Bravely Default's, Octopath Traveler, etc, so less development costs given to publishers, the less games we get all around.

Does Steam do anything at this time to be competitive to Epic? Nope, because the fanbase refuse to use Epic even though it's just an app. Again, people refuse to even consider games they're interested in and in the case of Steam and Epic, it's an app. It's just a different UI that they have to run to play the game. They don't even have to pay to use Epic. Steam isn't competitive because they don't have to be, while Epic is out there trying to provide free games to get support and all that's doing is having people log onto Epic, download free games, and then attach them to their Steam library as a third party game. Which is why Epic stopped providing the free game a month as it wasn't actually getting anyone to buy anything from them.

Same thing is going to happen when Nintendo is the only console publisher. Nintendo's psychopath fanbase will still have their cult meetings three times a week where they murder small children to their satanic plumber god while acting as unpaid advertising mouthpieces during every other waking moment except for that short period of time they go to collect their food stamps and welfare check. Nintendo could take a big dump in a box and this fanbase would still offer its undying loyalty.

[SparTonberry]

Same thing is going to happen when Nintendo is the only console publisher. Nintendo's psychopath fanbase will still have their cult meetings three times a week where they murder small children to their satanic plumber god while acting as unpaid advertising mouthpieces during every other waking moment except for that short period of time they go to collect their food stamps and welfare check. Nintendo could take a big dump in a box and this fanbase would still offer its undying loyalty.

All that is pretty especially since the days Nintendo started to go on random warpaths against fangames and ROM hacks after so many years of allowing them, stomping all over the dedicated fans who put them out.

[Gentlegamer]

Same thing is going to happen when Nintendo is the only console publisher. Nintendo's psychopath fanbase will still have their cult meetings three times a week where they murder small children to their satanic plumber god while acting as unpaid advertising mouthpieces during every other waking moment except for that short period of time they go to collect their food stamps and welfare check. Nintendo could take a big dump in a box and this fanbase would still offer its undying loyalty.

[JSoup]

Lota posts in the last few months have been people showing they don't always take their meds.
Anyway, death to consoles, all glory to the cloud, etc.

[Gameguy]

There's so much in this thread that I can't really comment on all of it at once, maybe I'll go back later but for now I'll just comment on a few things.

Additionally, without exclusives there's no reason to get these new consoles.

Yes. Basically there's little reason to buy a new console over buying a new PC these days. A console is really more of an entertainment box for the living room than a dedicated video game machine, it's just something that's more convenient to handle games and watching streaming services in a living room than buying and setting up another computer for most average users.

If we don't get the consoles and only buy a PC, there's even less out there to choose from, so when PC or Nintendo is the only option, Nintendo has zero reason at all to be competitive, they have no reason to spend money outside of their own game development, but that's going to make them billions of dollars each release so that's obvious. But they're not going to put anything to support your Bravely Default's, Octopath Traveler, etc, so less development costs given to publishers, the less games we get all around.

I disagree with that first part. With PC gaming there's a near bottomless selection of options for games as it's an open platform with non-standard varied hardware options and various operating systems, a lack of competition really isn't a problem with PCs. If publishers won't pay to have a game made for a console, other publishers will pay to have games developed for computers, the same way PC publishing has worked for decades. If publishers still aren't interested, there's crowdfunding/e-begging that worked for games like Shenmue III. You can't self-publish a game on a home console the way you can with computers, but anyone can release a game themselves for computers. You don't even need a platform like Steam which has some content guidelines, you could release it yourself though it would probably be less profitable this way.

Does Steam do anything at this time to be competitive to Epic? Nope, because the fanbase refuse to use Epic even though it's just an app. Again, people refuse to even consider games they're interested in and in the case of Steam and Epic, it's an app. It's just a different UI that they have to run to play the game. They don't even have to pay to use Epic. Steam isn't competitive because they don't have to be, while Epic is out there trying to provide free games to get support and all that's doing is having people log onto Epic, download free games, and then attach them to their Steam library as a third party game. Which is why Epic stopped providing the free game a month as it wasn't actually getting anyone to buy anything from them.

I don't like having to keep signing up for multiple accounts online all the time. Just more things to remember passwords for and potentially be vulnerable to data breaches. I avoid signing up for rewards programs as well for this reason. Each grocery store chain by me has their own loyalty program, I'm not bothering to join any of them and am ignoring the items that are only on sale if you have an account and also load a special offer beforehand. Rather than jump through hoops for a sale price I'll just not purchase the item instead. The one loyalty program I use I signed up for ages ago and coincidentally associated with a grocery store recently when it never used to work this way, it's a decent bonus but I wouldn't consider signing up for it now if I didn't already have it.

It's like signing up to multiple various streaming services. No thanks. Even when people used to pay for cable television at home, did anyone think of signing up to multiple services at once? Like pay for cable and also pay for satellite as well? Most people would just pick one service and leave it at that. Really it was the same way with consoles back then, you just had one console per generation and only bought games for that one platform, maybe having a portable console as well if you were lucky. When PC games were sold physical at retail stores, you didn't need any account at all to play them.

Same thing is going to happen when Nintendo is the only console publisher. Nintendo's psychopath fanbase will still have their cult meetings three times a week where they murder small children to their satanic plumber god while acting as unpaid advertising mouthpieces during every other waking moment except for that short period of time they go to collect their food stamps and welfare check. Nintendo could take a big dump in a box and this fanbase would still offer its undying loyalty.

Honestly I don't like Nintendo's modern hardware all that much. I'm glad I don't have much interest in modern games, I'm basically done caring about modern releases. Even with games that do look good, I don't really care enough to actually bother buying or playing them. If I did consider to buy modern hardware of some type at retail, it would be a more modern computer rather than any console.

[JSoup]

The issue with talking about exclusives is it comes from the assumption that gaming consoles must or always will exist as a modern option. It's becoming harder and hard to justify the money sink over just semi-annually upgrading my PC. On the other hand, Gameguy makes a good point about convenience. It's not impossible, difficult or even expensive to network a few PCs/laptops across the house for gaming while I do the laundry. But, in the same way $10 is a reasonable price for a soda when the next rest stop is two hours away, the cost of the console is easy to eat when I think of all the fiddly crap I don't have to do. Plug in, turn on, connect to wifi, done. I know I'm not alone in this kind of thinking, but how high an actual percentage are we talking here?

[YoshiM]

When you think about it, though, computers are pretty much plug and play. The most fiddling you'd probably do is getting a Microsoft account set up for Windows 11. That's really it. An all in one PC that has enough oomph to run modern games decent enough for the common person isn't all that expensive compared to today's consoles. Services like Steam make installation and playing a breeze, so that's another hurdle out of the way. Updates are handled automatically and if you get a major brand PC like a Dell or HP, those machines typically have software that updates any hardware drivers automatically as well.

As for upgrading my PC-my laptop is from 2019 and other than replacing the fans, the power jack (thanks to my daughter) and adding storage, I can play pretty much anything out there. Will the game make the PC Gamer Elite lactate at the might of my Ryzen 5/GeForce GTX 1050 laptop while playing "Elden Ring"? Definitely not. Do *I* have a problem with it? Not at all-looks fine to me. I do most my PC gaming on my Steam Deck, which is an awesome slab o' plastic and silicon.

We may see the end of the almighty platform exclusive in the near future, maybe what, ten years or so? We'll have to see what kind of ride the Switch 2 has to maybe see where Nintendo will go with the next generation. I swear they are more seemingly like the Apple of the video game industry.

[kupomogli]

We may see the end of the almighty platform exclusive in the near future, maybe what, ten years or so? We'll have to see what kind of ride the Switch 2 has to maybe see where Nintendo will go with the next generation. I swear they are more seemingly like the Apple of the video game industry.

For the most part Nintendo is pretty much Apple of the video games industry. I don't think even Nintendo would get away with what Apple does over here in the console space. That'd be like launching Switch 2 for $800 while the PS5 Pro is sitting at $700. Samsung's more powerful hardware is cheaper than Apple phones but Apple(and Nintendo owners) are like battered wives(or husbands) that keep on returning to their abusive partners and won't stop defending their bs.

The thing is, Nintendo stil has exclusives, even if everything goes all digital. What do people regularly say about Nintendo games? That their first party games are the best. So with those exclusives as well as their stockholm syndrome fanbase, Nintendo will still be around. They still have the family friendly look and people buying a new Nintendo console for their children, whether it's those that love Nintendo and want their kids to enjoy Nintendo products or the clueless non gamer that feels a Nintendo console is the safer option or the whole reason parents buy portable consoles for their children in the first place. Here's a portable console, you can play it without the need to also own your own TV. So each of their children who may not have a TV of their own can still utilize the device.

With three million consoles sold, they've already outsold the Steam Deck, so despite the PC space having a far bigger library of even modern games exclusively than any other console could hope for, Nintendo Switch 2 is already successful, we're going to see Switch 3. But once Sony is gone, once they are done, once their is only PC and Nintendo. We'll still get games, but Nintendo has no reason to compete with other platform holders. They no longer need to invest buy funding third party games and they're likely not going to. These games will eventually release once they get funding, but these exclusives help fund these developers by offering proft in the term of lost sales up front. Less development costs as not having to develop across multiple consoles and an up front portion of some profits that the game would have made on other consoles potentially. Is Nintendo going to be funding these developers when they're the only ones around? No. Absolutely not. This means that these developers will take even fewer risks.

So sure, we'll still get games. The indie market will be there, the AA market or what's left of it will still be there. But the gaming landscape is going to go further to shit than it already is at this point. Indie developers will quadruple down on procedural garbage and 2D exploration or souls likes as they have been, AA and AAA will continue to quadruple down on open world and microtransaction pvp garbage, releasing games to the widest audience as they're already doing ad naseum.

I'm a console only player for the sole purpose of physical media regardless, so the only good thing about the death of physical media imo is that I'll be forced to play on PC because I'm not going to buy digital only on a walled off console. But the games I enjoy playing mean a lot more to me than just playing them.

[Gameguy]

I'll give an example for the convenience I mentioned. This was several years ago but basically a friend of mine chose to get a PS4 console which she kept in her TV Entertainment Unit. She already had a PS3 but wanted to play various new games. She also used this for streaming Netflix and Crunchyroll, she also had no problems with buying games online digitally to just play them.

I mentioned that she could just hook up her computer to her TV to watch content from Youtube and other sources as it would be cheaper, and she could play PC games more comfortably from her couch as she didn't like playing them as often from her desk. She wasn't too interested because it was more of a hassle. She lived in a small appartment so her PC desk was almost opposite the TV within the same room, but to hook up the PC would require running a long HDMI cable across the room which would be unsightly and a potential tripping hazzard. Plus using the PC would then require purchasing a wireless mouse and keyboard combination, which would be an additional expense. She had a PC tower so I'm not sure if it was actually wireless with the wifi or not, I'm not sure if that's standard these days with non-laptops. It was just simpler for her to stick a PS4 in her entertainment unit and just use it wirelessly.

The alternative would be to purchase a dedicated PC to use with the TV exclusively. So how would this actually fit inside an entertainment unit? Modern PCs are basically all towers now, they're pretty large. Yes, there are smaller PCs that take up much less space, but these are usually budget PCs that are less powerful. The main point would be to get modern hardware to compete with the latest current gen consoles, and this hardware would be larger than budget friendly compact hardware. Plus this would usually involve building your own PC, choosing components, installing them with drivers, sorting out potential compatibility issues, fiddling with game settings, getting additional wireless controllers/keyboards/mice, etc. With my friend, she doesn't know much about PC hardware and needs help with her PC from family members who sort out her issues when they pop up. Getting a console avoides these hassles and they basically just work right away with minimal set up time.

I really don't know much about current all in one PCs so maybe those are good alternatives, I just haven't looked into them. My current PC is still working and serving my needs, so I'll just keep using it. I'm sure it's no longer powerful enough for todays latest games but I mostly just use it for Youtube or general browsing.

[JSoup]

We've talked about this in different threads in the past, but a large part of the TV vs. PC debate comes down to condition training. For the majority of video game history, there's been a clear split between what ones does on a PC and what one does with a TV/console. That lines been blurred over the last decade plus, but the instinct is still there. I know the only differences are aesthetic at best, but it's built into me that a game + controller is a TV thing, not a PC thing. I was mildly surprised to find I wasn't the only one who emulates retrogames minimized instead of full screen, as an example, since it feels more 'correct'.