If consoles were open source then it would not be possible to hide the fact that they are little else than DRM ridden crappy computers with outdated hardware anymore.
And here I present a case study of everything that is wrong with the mindset that brought us the marvellous video that started this thread. First, Mikes demonstrates a remarkable misunderstanding of the way current DRM works. To wit, DRM and open source are utterly incompatible (insofar as DRM mechanisms on consoles rely on having an unbroken chain of trust from the game manufacturer to the console hardware. Once you open source that, that trust doesn't exist anymore).
Now, another point raised is crappy hardware. More on that later, but let me ask you this. Would I be able to get a gaming PC as powerful and as hassle-free as a console for the same price? Not talking about games yet, just about the hardware. If you can point me to a PC that is commonly available, that is guaranteed to work out of the box,
and that is easy and simple for people with little to know PC background to set up and operate, it would be appreciated. Remember, the one big advantage Consoles have is that they just work out of the box. You unpack them, hook them up to your TV (and internet connection), push the power button, make some initial adjustments, and you're done. Assuming you treat the hardware well, you can reasonably expect several years of operation without ever having to go into the nuts and bolts of things, as you inevitably would be forced to do with a PC.
Not to mention that you won't have to pay for new hardware for the console's entire lifetime (which usually is 6+ years), while still getting a constant stream of new games that are guaranteed to work on your chosen piece of kit.
Point in case: If consoles were truly open source... you could emulate any given console that is out today on a midrange PC without even having it break a sweat. The only reason you can not, is proprietary operating systems and DRM.
Again, wrong. While on paper the hardware seems less powerful than current PCs, I rather doubt that modern CPUs have the power to run a hardware emulation of (for example) the cell chip in the PS3. Emulating a completely different hardware layout is
hard.
Also, custom hardware kinda dictates that you'll have to use a custom OS. Microsoft got around that for the original XBox (which, for all intents and purposes, was an industry-spec x86 PC with custom graphics hardware and a heavily cut down OS geared for maximum performance). In short, Console OS's are built to spec, to perform extremely well in a narrowly defined set of situations. getting the same kind of performance out of a general-purpose PC with a general purpose OS running an emulation of a console hardware and OS is impossible, unless you have a gap of several hardware generations. I'd imagine you could get a rather decent PS2 emulation going, though.
If consoles were open source, then one moderately powerful computer would be enough to emulate any platform and play any game that is out... and companies couldn't try to force you to buy a piece of DRM ridden crap hardware at inflated prices anymore, to play the "exclusive games" of their bought-out developers. (Which is effectively what anyone who buys a console supports... more "exclusive games" for single platforms. That's how business works...)
Umm.
You do know that exclusive titles that come out for only one console are incredibly rare nowadays? Only very few A-list titles in recent years has stayed exclusive for long, most game developers tend to target all platforms at once to get a greater chance of getting their investments back. Producing an A-list title is horrendously expensive, on the order of a minor hollywood blockbuster. Locking out a portion of the potential customerbase only makes sense if you expect said title to bring in second-order effects through increased hardware sales (case in point: Halo).
So Mikes has now demonstrated he doesn't know how the majority of the games business works.
Sadly... that's really all their is to it. That... and effective marketing.
No. Again, I come back to a point I raised earlier. Consoles are more convenient for the average end user to buy, set up, and operate. Consoles benefit from having locked-down hardware and operating systems because they remove ambiguity from the whole process of buying a game. If I go to a store and buy a PS game, I know I'll be able to play it at maximum details and just the way the developer intended. The same cannot be said of PC games.
Oh, and before you say "But PC games could be so much better looking!", let me again point out that content generation for current consoles (remember, the ones you think could be emulated by mid-range PCs) is really, really expensive and takes a long time. Doing stuff with even higher resolutions, even more detail, will not be cheaper.
If anything Apple abuses their hold on the market even more than the Console Crowd - but that is a different topic for a different thread i'd say.
The amount of ignorance for what Apple does is really astonishing. Apple does not sell PCs, or mp3 players or Laptops or phones. Apple sells an experience. Apple sells you the certainty that it will just work, right out of the box. They sell you Computers that do not require the kind of in-depth maintenance Windows PCs need from time to time. They give developers clear guidelines for how their applications should behave so that that experience is maintained, and the user kept happy. It's a tradeoff. For a bit of freedom you lose, you get a whole ****ton of convenience.
