Edit 1: This is in retrospect. I'm not saying Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo need to change the entire way their console works now, because that obviously isn't going to happen.

Edit 2: I'm not saying there would be no OS. You would still have the home menu when you turn on the system, where you can watch Netflix, listen to music, web-browse, buy games, etc. The OS would just shut off while playing a game, until you exit the game and return to the home menu.

What I mean to say is, what if Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo had just completely dumbed down the system OS and resources and devoted 100% of it towards gaming?

Recently we've been hearing about how the Xbox One got a 10% boost in graphics just by removing mandatory Kinect. Now, what if all the console makers had went a step further and completely stopped the OS from running during gameplay?

We now know (courtesy of Naughty Dog) that only 5GB of RAM and 6 cores in the CPU are available to devs on the PS4, due to the PS4's OS running constantly. The PS4 is always recording your gameplay in the background, a feat which knocks off a couple hundred mbs of RAM, and many other non-gaming related tasks. I'm sure that's also the case on the Xbox One and (to a smaller extent) the Wii U.

All of this is nice and convinent to the user, but in the end comes at the cost of gimping our games. While I'm sure it's super convinent running a web-browser, Netflix, recording your gameplay, downloading an update, and playing a game at the same time, is it really neccessary, at all? We have devices that can do most of these tasks, but better.

For essentials like updates, or downloading games, the OS could run before you select a game or during standby, while during gameplay all other functions of the OS shutdown. Some people would complain because they can't post gameplay videos to youtube or stream on Twitch, but we would get much better games in the end result. It would give devs 25%+ power to work with. We could have all games at 1080p/60fps with that.

Sometimes, it feels to me like we regressed over the last two gens. Our gaming consoles are hardly just for gaming anymore. They are streaming machines, uploading machines, TV machines, web-browsing machines, etc. 

And all that we sacrifice for it is game quality. 

Game DVR is not the reason the PS4/XB1 reserves cpu cores or reserve 3GB of the 8GB of on board ram.

And some of that 3GB reserved ram will be given back to developers at some point.

All that aside, the reserved resources for the OS wouldn't result in any respectable performance benefits.

After 360 and now Xbox One, I can say I don't want a console that does just gaming. Sony figured that out, and I hope Nintendo eventually does also.

But to answer your question I'm not really sure sense I'm not all that familiar with how the hardware works for Xbox One and PS4. I'll leave that up to the devs to figure out.

"knock off hundred of gigs of RAM" they don't even have a hundred.

Exactly that. Both consoles use separate processors and H264 hardware encoders to allow it. It wouldn't be possible without that, if you record and encode your screen on a PC you actually get a punch in performance. Using dedicated hardware to do it was the smart way to do it.

While I agree that we've regressed over the last two gens and that the migration from dedicated console to multimedia hub has led to a lot of misplaced priorities, I don't believe that access to more power would lead to better games. Developers have never had more horsepower than they do right now, yet games in general have degraded in quality over the last nine years.

If you're just talking performance, then yes, I'm all for scraping the superfluous apps to produce a more seamless game experience. But more power isn't the key to unlocking gaming greatness.

One of the more interesting things about the wii u hardware is how it offloads the os onto a dual core 1 gig arm processor so not to hog resources.

Meant mbs, lol. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'm not saying we need to change it now, that's obviously not ever going to happen.

I'm saying in retrospect, it would have been nice to have the extra 2 cores dedicated for gaming instead of being reserved soley for the OS.

And 3GB of unified RAM has nothing to do with hardware encoders. 3GB could make a big difference in a lot of games. 

Edit: changed some of the wording in the OP to reflect that this is in theory.

no friends list
no messaging
no game invites
no chat rooms
no custom soundtracks
no background downloads and updates
no trophies
no sharing of screenshots and videos
no netflix
...
no thank you