At least sports cars are built to be toys.

And consoles are specifically built to be toys. That it non-contendable.

Sports cars are built to be higher performance versions of road cars, increasing performance does not change a vehicle from a vehicle to a toy, it just creates a "premium" option.

If you're a race driver, a sports car is a tool used to win a race, if you're a businessman, an expensive car delivers an image, a car is a vehicle and a tool, not a toy. Just like buying a high power sniper rifle when a standard sniper rifle would accomplish the same, doesn't make a gun a toy either.

Prostitution is the exchange of sexual services for money, from the punters perspective, a service of delivering entertainment, that does not make the prostitute a toy, "Entertaining" is not a universal indicator of something being a toy.

We can't follow this path without recalling the old question about what Art is. Which is disputable still today anyway. As disputable is putting a book and a video game on the same line, no matter what. Video gamers still tend to suffer the complex of each minority, which is that of who feels him/herself "marginalized" because he/she belongs to a specific category. I think we truly need to change this mindset, because it won't lead us anywhere.

Words have meanings so, even if toys are not always "entertainment", video games are. In this regard the definition of "toy" is constraining, I agree. But Art is not always and necessaryly "entertainment". A book can be artistic and entertaining, in some cases at the same time; that doesn't mean each book is Art: it simply means Literature is.

I know the subject is quite complex and my explanations seem to take many things for granted. I apologize for that. Any attempt to elevate this medium right after depriving it of its specific peculiarities is destined to failure. The fact more and more adults started to play video games in the last twenty years, almost on a regular basis, doesn't imply any change about the essence of this medium at all, but in the way it is perceived. In other words what we're facing it's not a "technological" change but an anthropological. It says there's a segment of people out there who believe the entertainment video games are able to offer is appealing.

But it would be worthless addressing this evolution without noting how our lives changed as well. By the time online multiplayer was still a chimera, or at least a marginal phenomenon (let's say until mid/end '90 on PC, then on consoles starting with Xbox 360), the idea of video games was a solitary experience. Pong seems to say the opposite, so lots of coin-op do; but between '80 and '90, when video games became 'something', you imagined this person alone with his/her joystik (or pad) and a monitor. Any social implication was secondary in the best scenario. Nonetheless it was a time where shared experiences still meant a bit, when even the so called "dying" cinema was alive and healthy - meaning the theatre, which is its temple, was alive. Then something started to change (VHS, for istance, was a very bad news for theatre owners and lovers) and the recent success of mobile devices in the last few years reinforces the idea people are not interested in shared experience anymore. They want to play, read or watch everything everywhere but as they were at home, in their rooms.

What's the point? The point is that not too long ago the business of Zynga was way more profitable of EA's, which is not exactly a niche. Either you speak about Farmville or Battlefield, substantially, you are speaking about the same thing: entertainment. «What about ICO, Limbo and so on?», someone would justly note. Those are the proof that video games can be artistic: Art is still far. We can define a medium as a form of Art when that medium is capable of at least one essential peculiarity that defines it; the one which makes inconceivable a product from that medium in any other.

I mean, of course you can film the Divine Comedy, but there's no way what you have on pages would be the same on film. I guess someone is thinking about 'interactivity', but I'm not sure this would be enough. Not just because any remote could be interactive (too much philosophy in this observation), but because I feel something is still missing. Paradoxally "Strange Days", the movie by Kathryn Bigelow, could be the right path in order to understand how video games can become Art. At any rate, is a long way by now.

Honestly....../thread

Well then what the hell is the definition for a toy then?

Come on, when God created bananas, cucumbers, courgettes, etc. he clearly had a hidden agenda!   
About the rest, I agree.

No they buy it because of status bragging to show off and/or small genitalia.

Give it to them Tachikoma, people love to split hairs & twist the reality to fit their opinion but the fact is a console is a toy, a high-tech toy that does things beyond gaming but it's main function is to be used as a toy.

Same goes for a car, it's a mean of transportation, some people develop racing cars & race them, making the driving a sport but it doesn't not change the nature of what a car is & it's primary function, even when racing to go from A to B!

Depends on how wide you define toy and how narrow you define the console.
Some people broaden the word toy contextually. "Men and their toys" toys there can range from power tools to entertainment systems.
Modern consoles are more and more becoming media centers and multifunctional so that the primary use of the systems end user might not even be just to play games.

In most cases I wouldn't consider a Blu-ray player a toy. Nor a smart tv.

Considering that the hobby itself is called video games and not games, I'd think there would need to be a word to distinguish it from other toys.

Thinking further I don't even think of board games in most contexts when I think the word toys interesting how words and definitions work

So a cell phone is a toy?