why can’t we use playstation Or xbox as a desktop computer and install Windows or linux in it… It’s has everything a cpu has I mean?

595 viewsEngineeringOther

Curious

In: Engineering

8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Analogy: consoles are like printers. Games are like ink. To sell consoles for cheap, Microsoft and Sony have to make their profits on the “ink” (games) and the most effective way to do that is by forcing you to buy _their_ “ink” or at least buy it through _their_ store.

Longer version:

Console hardware is subsidized by the manufacturers on the idea that they’ll be able to make up the difference through profits from selling console games. That’s why they’re much cheaper than PCs with similar performance.

Restricting what software can run on the console is necessary for this business model to work: you can’t benefit from the hardware subsidy unless Microsoft or Sony also gets their cut from you buying games. Otherwise, the Xbox and Playstation are just competing with similarly-specced PCs at the expense of Microsoft and Sony, and the income from them is diluted across other platforms like Steam, Epic, or GoG. It’s unlikely that consoles would be profitable at the same hardware price point if they didn’t also lock users into the console maker’s marketplace.

(I’m basing this on recent arguments used by Microsoft when they complained about not being able to put XCloud on iOS. Apple doesn’t want Microsoft to be able to set up their own little marketplace without giving Apple their 30% cut. Microsoft argued this was anti-competitive. Apple pointed at Microsoft’s own practices of locking down the market for Xbox games. Microsoft argued that it’s okay for Xbox to do it because it’s not a “general-purpose” computer whereas iPhones are.)

You are viewing 1 out of 8 answers, click here to view all answers.