3 ms·
What general purposes do game consoles serve, other than being multimedia centers? Do users use the browser and other internet features on consoles extensively?
by Apocryphon 5y ago
What general purposes do game consoles serve, other than being multimedia centers? Do users use the browser and other internet features on consoles extensively? Can you make payments, hail a ride, order food with them? Can you contact emergency services with them? Can they save your literal life?
- car_analogy 5y agoExactly. They are general purpose computers, artificially crippled by their manufacturer, to prevent their (supposed) owner from using their full potential.
- lwansbrough 5y agoThis is a silly argument. Nobody is checking their bank account on their Xbox. We can acknowledge that iPhones are needlessly closed platforms while also acknowledging that there are legitimate purpose-built computers in various form factors (gaming consoles being a good example.)
- car_analogy 5y agoThat is exactly the point. There is nothing inherent in an Xbox that prevents it from running a web browser. Only our collective acceptance of the practice of denying users control of their devices, and letting these arbitrary restrictions contribute to e-waste.
- Apocryphon 5y agoTo be fair, if one supports the Right to Repair, one should probably also support the legalizing of mod chips.
- Dah00n 5y agoThen the same argument covers a cars computer.
- paulryanrogers 5y agoComputers controlling the car's movement should be isolated and ideally certified as fit to control large and dangerous vehicles. Media computers could be subject to the same side loading regulations since compromise should only impact non-critical functions.
- olliej 5y agoBecause they can't? People were making a lot of noise about Sony retroactively removing functionality not too long ago. But even if we accept the bogus argument that a console (a behemoth CPU with 100s of watts of power available) is not a general purpose system, that's not relevant: Why should a company have to go through Sony or Microsoft's stores to buy games for their console? What makes consoles somehow different from phones? - I would put money on the primary apps people buy from the App Store being games? Claiming the Sony/MS make a loss on console sales isn't relevant either - firstly because they're charging ~30% on games with an average sale price in the region of $60 they make up that "loss" very quickly, secondly neither company expends significant (any?) resources developing features for their consoles once they've been sold (vs. Apple that is still providing major updates and functionality to devices 5 years after they stopped being sold)
- thiht 5y agoI actually used to do it. When I was younger, my parents offered me a PS3 and I had no personal computer of my own. So I installed Ubuntu on my PS3 (it was possible at the time, until a later patch where they disallowed it) and used it both as a desktop computer and as a PS3. That was pretty cool. A PS5 today could easily run whatever desktop OS.
- Dracophoenix 5y agoThe PS2 was good enough to run Linux. The Xbox One and Series X run Windows 10 under the hood.
- ohgodplsno 5y agoFor a very specific definition of Windows 10. It is extremely stripped down and with a wildly different set of APIs in many places, it's just that it supports D3D and XAML
- ciupicri 5y agoWhat general purposes do phones serve, other than making and receiving _audio_ calls?
- NoSorryCannot 5y agoSmartphones are general-purpose devices not just in potential but in practice. I think we're beyond pretending that they are just phones.
- aaomidi 5y agoPhones can (even right now, with the limitations placed by Apple, Google) do everything a computer can. Capacity limits apply, but the general activities that a laptop/pc can do, a phone can as well.