I don't think you really understood my point then, maybe I didn't make it clearly.

What I meant was we abandon perfectly good console hardware, not because it's outdated or obsolete, not because games demand the cutting edge, but because profit margins demand the consumer spend 500+ on new hardware every 5 years or whatever. It's nothing to do with the software and everything to do with shareholders.

The PC is the exact opposite of this.

There are no PC games that force you to buy a whole new device. There are games that your 5 year old PC might struggle with, but they're still compatible.

The top games on steam are mostly things that would run on 15 year old gaming rigs.

Backwards compatibility! I can still play games from decades ago on my current PC. On a console you're in luck if the game you played on the last generation is rereleased on the next one

You're not locked into a store, a network, or even an operating system.

It's true the AAA devs don't optimize much but my point is that Microsoft don't decide that you have to buy a new PC every five years and there are a bunch of new games coming out for it that are literally unavailable on your old one.

(Well ok technically they do exactly this but it's called an Xbox and it's a failure right now)