The economics of consoles are in shambles.

It used to be you'd get highish-end hardware at cheaper price because of mass production and manufacturer incentives (made up for on games).

Now with people carrying massive game libraries, they're less likely to buy new games, at the same time as console gaming becomes enshittified cash grabs, at the same time as tech has hit diminishing returns in an industry where generational hardware sales drive software purchases.

Playstation has a few exclusives, but XBox has literally none--it's all cross compatible with Windows, and almost every single one of those titles is playable via Steam on Linux. You can build an equivalent PC for the same price or less than the equivalent console, and have improved upgrade and repair paths, plus mods, plus Steam sales... consoles make less and less financial sense every day.

The only console that is doing well is Nintendo, and that's because they built around content not hardware.

And that said, most kids are growing up gaming on tablets and phones, and they haven't gone through the evolutionary learning process that a 35-year-old life-long gamer. Chances are you hand an 8-year-old a complex two-stick game and they'll do about as well as my father would.

I think likely we'll have a profusion of quirky handheld consoles, but the big box consoles will be replaced with computers.