&gt;&gt; <i>Consoles once represented predictability, stability and ease of use. Do they have much left beyond the set top form factor, 10 ft UI and a bit more flexibility on how often you&#x27;re required to be online?</i><p>I&#x27;d say console still have all of these properties. Also, some of these things like set-top form-factor should not be underestimated. Other important advantages are that the buying experience is much nicer (only 1 online store, or a disc), you can expect any game that runs to at least run well enough for a decent experience, every game is optimized for the control scheme that comes with the console, and initial cost of buying a console is a lower than a capable PC.<p>Really, the only downside is lower graphical fidelity, and lack of games that are not well suited for controller input.<p>I have a PS4 and a PC with Steam BPM hooked up to my TV, and while I enjoy both I still can&#x27;t cease to be amazed by the abysmal experience playing some PC games, it really is hit &amp; miss. Even though my PC far exceeds the system requirements of some games they still run like crap (screen tearing, framerate spikes&#x2F;drops, crashes), they have poor to no controller support, tiny fonts that are unreadable from the couch, they like to pop up mouse-only launchers, popups, updaters, whatever.<p>PC gaming can be great but let&#x27;s not pretend any of the advantages of consoles are suddenly lost because they will have mid-cycle HW upgrades (which I personally think are a great thing, if executed well).