Xbox was an indication of what Microsoft have always really wanted to do, what Apple have always done, and what Microsoft have tried to do with the Win 11 roll out:
A narrowing of the technical specification and focus in order to minimise support and required testing. That costs money.
Cost bad. CEO mad.
Each Xbox release has been a release of a bunch of clones. Yes, they are based on PC hardware, but it’s one set of identical hardware to support across tens of thousands of instances, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of actual PCs, barely any two alike.
Then note that many people don’t want to use a computer at home. Computers remind them of work. They want to play games and goof off in their spare time. A games console is ideal.
And if that console happens to be based on PC hardware, the games can eventually be ported to the myriad actual PC options. But they can get the game out and running quickly on that one well-supported platform and cash in quick.
Xbox was an indication of what Microsoft have always really wanted to do, what Apple have always done, and what Microsoft have tried to do with the Win 11 roll out:
A narrowing of the technical specification and focus in order to minimise support and required testing. That costs money.
Cost bad. CEO mad.
Each Xbox release has been a release of a bunch of clones. Yes, they are based on PC hardware, but it’s one set of identical hardware to support across tens of thousands of instances, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of actual PCs, barely any two alike.
Then note that many people don’t want to use a computer at home. Computers remind them of work. They want to play games and goof off in their spare time. A games console is ideal.
And if that console happens to be based on PC hardware, the games can eventually be ported to the myriad actual PC options. But they can get the game out and running quickly on that one well-supported platform and cash in quick.