> Sony and Nintendo Video game makers generally doesn't make much money with hardware, they make money selling software (a.k.a. games), thanks to licensing. To

> Sony and Nintendo Video game makers generally doesn't make much money with hardware, they make money selling software (a.k.a. games), thanks to licensing. To allow only licensed software to run in a modern video console, all software running on it is signed with a key that only the console maker have. However, if someone discovers a way to run unlicensed (unsigned) software in their hardware, this means that the console maker will lose money to piracy. Generally, using BSD systems in video consoles is desired since you can simply close the source code (thanks to the BSD license) and not reveal possibly potencial kernel exploits. Kernel exploits are the key for console security since once you get a exploit running in kernel, you can leak encryption keys or simply bypass the signature checking. Kernel exploits is what allowed piracy in most last generation consoles (Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii U, PS Vita, PS3). Using Linux, thanks to GPL license, would mean opening the source code of the kernel, allowing someone to study for exploits. Actually, even if PS Vita/PS4 uses BSDs as a base, they use a heavily modified BSD, since using a vanilla kernel would make a public exploit in say, FreeBSD, easily ported to their device. Nintendo consoles actually uses an in-house developed kernel by Nintendo, that debutted on Nintendo 3DS; the Nintendo Switch's BSD part is mostly network, however BSD network is used even on Windows because it is of high quality and portable (and BSD licensed). Disclaimer: I am not a console expert or anything, I mostly follow the console scene so those information can be wrong.