Xbox Turns Down Netflix $500M Offer (darkhorizons.com)

Steam just sits back and takes money, for the most part. The hardware/software/advertising spend is probably a drop in the bucket compared to MS.

Part of the sales pitch is you need more than just a torrent client to pirate.

Now in the world of AI I think this moat is evaporating. Hypervisor exploits are dropping like rain and determined individuals can vibe code a reasonably performant emulator in a couple of weeks.

In that world the only reasonable edge you have left is high prestige exclusives and merchandising/physical sales.

Nintendo has this cornered, one of the few companies who can pull off a rabid fan base buying a console they already own because this time there’s a triforce on it.

Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft are diluting their own IP and going full digital. Writing is on the wall if you ask me.

> This means it's harder and harder to say "here's a unique experience you only get on Xbox" (or Playstation for that matter)

That’s also been the case for a very long time. That’s why they sign deals for exclusives.

You're out of touch.

Step outside an echo chamber and you'll see that in most countries, including East Asia and the Middle East, if you take a walk around any big mall, you don't see kids pestering their parents to buy them a PC. They ask for a PlayStation or an Xbox or a "Nintendo" (yep that's what people still call the Switch)

In conbinis, there are Xbox and PlayStation gift cards hanging from the shelves, in the local currency.

There are accessories for PS/Xbox/Switch everywhere, more than PC gaming accessories.

And it's not because the PC stuff gets sold out while the consy stuff gathers cobwebs: If that was the case the consoles would stop getting restocked after a few months, but they keep stocking newer stuff. Meanwhile I have to hunt around and specifically request for Razer or Mad Catz or other PC-specific brands.

> The architectural differences that made a console more compelling than a standalone PC are largely gone.

If you go hang out at someone's home, nobody says "Let's go to my bedroom desk and play something on the PC", no they crash on the couch and turn on the TV and fire up FIFA or some other normie shit.

No, the main driver is still there. People do not want to build and maintain PCs. Your 14-year-old nephew doesn't want to do it, either. People want to turn on a box and play a game. I am technical and I want absolutely nothing to do with maintaining a PC. I'll take the console experience every single time.

My take is that almost nobody has a standalone PC anymore, especially kids. Kids these days all start with iPads, them maybe they move up to Macbooks once they get to high school or college. Other than the local LLM fanatics I see here on HN, I have no idea who's buying those PC towers anymore, they seem like fringe relics from the past century.

Consoles slowly started losing that plot after the launch of Xbox and GPU development mess of PS3(the PS3 CPU was supposed to be the world's first APU but Kutaragi dropped the ball big time) and now consoles are just a Nespresso experience, with just marginally cheaper hardware tied to proprietary full-priced game discs, which is not worth much.

OS argument is practically valid but... Frankly IMO that's more of a disadvantage of PCs coming from horrible near nonexistent engineering discipline of software engineering than an advantage of consoles.

Babylon 5 demonstrated that you can keep absolutely everything else crappy (effects, costumes, heck acting and even cinematography), so long as you're good at conversations in rooms.

In theory you can make any sci fi show about future humans and a couple other species going to war. Should be straightforward.

But getting the balance of that universe right in terms of little details is tricky: Halo has done the heavy lifting already.