Larian is having trouble fitting Baldur’s Gate III on the Xbox Series S, the lower-priced and lower-powered console in Microsoft’s ninth-generation lineup.
I was looking up more information on why there’s such an issue getting BG3 on Xbox, and found this article with a lot more detail on the topic.
EDIT: The issue isn’t graphics or frame rate; it’s memory. The article goes into detail.
I wasn’t referring to piracy, I was referring to unofficial releases. Think Wisdom Tree and their line of Bible Games for the NES/SNES (these are pretty well covered by YouTube creators which is why I mention them as an example). Also, some of the early consoles did have non-gaming uses. I believe there was a version of BASIC for the Atari 2600. There were several planned online communication systems for various early consoles. There was the “Work Boy” accessory for the Game Boy that turned it into a digital assistant/organizer. There were officially licensed cooking “games” for the Nintendo DS that were more of recipe collections than actual games. And you touched on media, which was another thing consoles did outside of gaming since CD drives became used on consoles. Wii Fit was more of a fitness accessory than it was a game.
Pretty much the only thing that separates PC from console in your definition is whether you can run your own code on it. I don’t disagree that being able to run your own code on a machine is a huge benefit, but do you consider the iPhone a console? What about the Amazon Echo Show? Smart fridge? These have the locked down ecosystems of consoles but aren’t gaming-first. I would say no, they are not consoles and I’m sure you would agree.