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Consoles are single purpose devices, phones are general purpose ones. Far more phones than consoles. Phones are much more useful and integrated. Consoles are

Consoles are single purpose devices, phones are general purpose ones. Far more phones than consoles. Phones are much more useful and integrated. Consoles are sold at a loss which complicates things. Btw - I totally support the idea of homebrew and sideloading on consoles. But the phones are the elephant in the room.

pnpnp 3y ago
Conceptually I understand this. In order to be codified, I think the legal system needs to come up with clear and accepted differentiation between the two.
jsnell 3y ago
> Consoles are sold at a loss which complicates things. It doesn't really. Nobody forced the console makers to adopt that business model, and they must have been aware of the regulatory risks. They chose to do it anyway.
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  True but so far the common view is that when you buy something subsidized you play by the rules of the person that subsidizes it. Like buying a phone from a carrier and it locking only to it's sim cards and so on. Of course as a consumer you must have a right to break vendor lock in (free market and competition is good right), but in case of subsidized goods you should also expect some kind of additional fee for the unlock.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    > True but so far the common view is that when you buy something subsidized you play by the rules of the person that subsidizes it No thanks
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    With carrier-subsidized phones, you sign a contract at the time of purchase agreeing to those rules, and if you don't like them, you can pay full price for an unlocked phone instead. With game consoles, you don't sign any such contract, and the manufacturer won't sell you an unsubsidized unlocked one.
twobitshifter 3y ago
I could be wrong, but I don’t think there are any laws specific to general purpose computing, and the internals of newer consoles in particular are just PCs. The fact that they’re able to do this is an exclusive carve-out from PC gaming for a few manufacturers. Yeah, they sell at a loss, but it’s at a cost to their competitors and PC gamers. Absent this, a gaming PC would cost more than a PS5 but it would also run xBox exclusives, people wouldn’t have 2 consoles, and they could use their gaming computer for things other than gaming!
jeroenhd 3y ago
Consoles have games but they also do chat, browsers, video players, streaming services, you name it. We're not in the Nintendo 64 days anymore, there's nothing special about these devices.
charcircuit 3y ago
>Consoles are single purpose devices What is the single purpose? Web browsing? Media watching? Gaming? They are not single purpose.
- kyleee 3y ago
  How about leisure purpose devices
Toutouxc 3y ago
Exactly like my iPhone, my PlayStation plays games, has a web browser, runs Netflix, gets updates, can message or call my friends, has only one real kind of competing product (PS and Xbox, iOS and Android), and is even significantly more powerful than the iPhone. So far I haven't heard a single objective reason why selling a console as an appliance is okay but selling a phone as an appliance should not be.
- kyleee 3y ago
  What % of the population uses a play station as their primary general purpose computing device?

pnpnp 3y ago

Conceptually I understand this. In order to be codified, I think the legal system needs to come up with clear and accepted differentiation between the two.

jsnell 3y ago

> Consoles are sold at a loss which complicates things. It doesn't really. Nobody forced the console makers to adopt that business model, and they must have been aware of the regulatory risks. They chose to do it anyway.

ReptileMan 3y ago
True but so far the common view is that when you buy something subsidized you play by the rules of the person that subsidizes it. Like buying a phone from a carrier and it locking only to it's sim cards and so on. Of course as a consumer you must have a right to break vendor lock in (free market and competition is good right), but in case of subsidized goods you should also expect some kind of additional fee for the unlock.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  > True but so far the common view is that when you buy something subsidized you play by the rules of the person that subsidizes it No thanks
- josephcsible 3y ago
  With carrier-subsidized phones, you sign a contract at the time of purchase agreeing to those rules, and if you don't like them, you can pay full price for an unlocked phone instead. With game consoles, you don't sign any such contract, and the manufacturer won't sell you an unsubsidized unlocked one.

twobitshifter 3y ago

I could be wrong, but I don’t think there are any laws specific to general purpose computing, and the internals of newer consoles in particular are just PCs. The fact that they’re able to do this is an exclusive carve-out from PC gaming for a few manufacturers. Yeah, they sell at a loss, but it’s at a cost to their competitors and PC gamers. Absent this, a gaming PC would cost more than a PS5 but it would also run xBox exclusives, people wouldn’t have 2 consoles, and they could use their gaming computer for things other than gaming!

jeroenhd 3y ago

Consoles have games but they also do chat, browsers, video players, streaming services, you name it. We're not in the Nintendo 64 days anymore, there's nothing special about these devices.

charcircuit 3y ago

>Consoles are single purpose devices What is the single purpose? Web browsing? Media watching? Gaming? They are not single purpose.

kyleee 3y ago
How about leisure purpose devices

Toutouxc 3y ago

Exactly like my iPhone, my PlayStation plays games, has a web browser, runs Netflix, gets updates, can message or call my friends, has only one real kind of competing product (PS and Xbox, iOS and Android), and is even significantly more powerful than the iPhone. So far I haven't heard a single objective reason why selling a console as an appliance is okay but selling a phone as an appliance should not be.

kyleee 3y ago
What % of the population uses a play station as their primary general purpose computing device?