I think they still make sense for the non technical user. Having an idiomatic control makes setup far easier than on a PC and the UI for a console is designed to be used with a controller instead of a keyboard and mouse. This makes dealing with a television easier. I don't see consoles disappearing ever for those reasons.
Also isn't a huge (maybe the largest?) audience for gaming these days children playing games like Roblox and Minecraft and Fortnite etc? For whom it's parents buying the equipment, so unless you have a tech-savvy parent they're likely to just buy a console.
The largest gaming market, by about an order of magnitude, is mobile games like Candy Crush. But we should differentiate the market further because most of us probably don't want to be making Candy Crush.
I think those games are mostly played on tablets these days.
But there might be a generational change coming. Basically the entire cohort of parents in my kids’ kindergarten is much more intentional about what kinds of games they’re playing and how they’re spending their “screen time.” I see a lot more people just giving their kids retro-consoles and emulation rather than setting them loose on the kiddie grooming and dopamine receptor-frying skinner-boxes.
I suppose it’s one of the benefits of having a generation of parents who grew up with formative memories of playing video games themselves combined with a growing awareness of UI dark patterns and their long term impacts on cognitive development and well-being.
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I don’t think the appeal is just to the less technically inclined masses. I’m a developer with a MacBook Pro and a Linux workstation. Proton has come a long way, but consoles just work for the most part; I never have to question whether the game will function and perform well on the console (setting aside the random buggy messes we see).
Then there’s the convenience. I don’t want to play games where I work. I want to play on my TV. I have no interest in moving my workstation into my living room. Streaming with Moonlight works well enough, but there’s still lag. Even if I wanted to move my PC to the living room, the setup isn’t as nice. The Steam Machine has HDMI CEC and can power on with a controller — all the major consoles have had that for years.
Even if I accepted all that, no one else in my household could play anything while I’m working on my computer.
Things are a little weird now. If I’m going to have to go all digital, Steam Family is by far the best option of those with DRM. But, due to the astronomical cost of components, consoles are still pretty attractive.
> I never have to question whether the game will function and perform well on the console
Thanks to recent moves by Sony, this is no longer the case!
Can you please elaborate? The recent moves I’ve seen have been announcing a shift to digital-only and another about clawing back movie purchases. Neither are appealing to me, but also aren’t related to game performance or compatibility.
The obvious next step will be to claw back game purchases. Come on now. This is extremely obvious.
> Come on now. This is extremely obvious.
I was talking about game compatibility and you brought up an utterly unrelated point and referenced non-specified “recent moves by Sony”. Forgive me for giving you the benefit of the doubt and inquiring if there were platform changes that would affect compatibility.
Clawing back games isn’t a particularly new risk. If you issue a chargeback, Sony bans your account, losing your library and any wallet funds you may have. And I already indicated that if I have to go all digital, then Steam is far more attractive. But there’s no guarantee any given game I buy on Steam is going to play on any given device. If I purchase a PS5 game I can be fairly certain it will run on a PS5 and what the performance is going to be like.
But, yeah, thanks for reminding me: physical games are still a major benefit for consoles. I buy Switch cartridges almost exclusively because Nintendo's DRM implementation is horrible for a family library. I lend games to friends and family members. I've even sold games and bought used ones. Steam Family is great, and the best of the current DRM options. But, while physical still exists, it's a good reason for favor consoles that has nothing to do with technical acumen.
How does that relate to "I never have to question whether the game will function and perform well on the console"?
The point being, if the game says its made for that generation of Playstation, it will run well on that generation of Playstation. There's no comparing specs to figure out if it'll run well on your specific hardware arrangement.
When I get a new Switch game, I know it will play perfectly fine on my Switch as how the developers intended it to be experienced. When I try and play a new game on my PC-gaming handheld, who knows how well it'll run until I try it or spend time reading reviews from others with similar hardware trying to play the same game.