Yeah, I agree on that. And although Google is a software company, gaming is kind of a different beast. Microsoft as a software company also struggled to get own content created, they bought studios to achieve that.

well I'm just saying that it hasn't been 16 years since someone entered the console industry, Ouya tried and a lot of people (idiots) thought they had something with a horrific underpowered mobile phone with no screen and a controller which looked like it was from poundland.

Always know a company is on the way to success when they insult their primary audience, I mean, has that strategy ever failed?

You basically just said it all.  If Microsoft needed to buy studios, then Google would have to as well.  I don't really consider this or any news about Google going into console gaming to be significant until I hear they are buying studios or doing something very games oriented like that.  In gaming, the most important thing is games.

...I don't think we will see any serious new entries into the market until one console maker retires, anyway. 

Google are rich and may play the long game, subsidised hardware and service costs at the beginning so that they are the major player left in 5-10 years when they can truly profit from that monopoly. Again without knowing the full details we can only speculate but I would not at this point count them out of the race but compelling content is still their biggest challenge. People really need to want a google box  under their tv and that needs compelling content that works flawlessly. It might be like cable boxes where only large cities with fast broadband connections will have reason enough to buy. If your out in the stix with rubbish broadband you might as well forget it. Those people may have to wait years before they can benefit from a google gaming box.