You couldn't be anymore wrong! Console OS's are very much like a PC OS... In the 8th console generation.
The Xbox One OS is based upon the Windows 10 kernel and leverages PC virtualization technologies (For it's other OS's) in conjunction with PC-like API's such as Direct X 12.

The Playstation 4's operating system is *nix derived.

Of course they have a different UI skins and have some specialized functionality... But the Operating Systems themselves are very much based on PC technology these days... Right down to the Gigabytes worth of Ram they gobble up and how the fetch and cache data.

Care to provide some examples on said redundancy?

That is generally handled by the drivers and API's.
Also... One of the issues during Vista's launch was actually due to the duplication of data in the memory pools... Especially for the Integrated Graphics and System Memory pools.

Starting with WDDM 1.1 that duplication was abolished... The PC does get more efficient as time goes on... It's not just consoles they get optimizations and performance tweaks.

See here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/display/video-memory-management-and-gpu-scheduling

In short though... My Ryzen 2700u notebook with 8GB of total ram games at similar quality settings to an Xbox One... So the consoles really aren't doing more with less memory.

Agreed.

I find 16GB to be too little for something that should last to at least 2026.
I remember very similar discussions back in days before PS4 was revealed, most people were dismissing guesstimates of 8GB RAM and 7970m GPU (which is more or less what PS4's GPU ended up being, with 2CUs disabled for yields).

If I should place a bet, I would say PS5 will have 24GB of total system RAM;   even though we could have a mid gen upgrade in 2023, and even though 16GB is "enough", a 2X increase in the amount of RAM is too similar to what XBox One X has to offer, and could be a limiting factor for the OS and gaming in the long distance.

Well it doesn't really drive costs up, it is just that Sony and others really like to make a lot of money from peripheral. They could probably release the controllers costing less than 20USD for them. So they could make a cheap bundled PS5+VR2 if they decided.

For Multi Platform I can understand and it isn't being lazyness but more like making the game "the same" on all platforms. But sure they could have different mappings.

I very rarely play a game that needs the touchpad, and curiously took me like 6 months to discover that the DS4 that came with my refurb Pro had the touchpad working for pressure but no sweep.

I believe you are the right guy to say it but why the fucking hell do they need to make OS so big on storage and ram? There isn't that much big difference from PS3 to PS4 OS imho to justify going from like 50Mb to 3.5GB that is like 70x jump while all else had less than 16x.

It infuriates me that Windows 98 was already a very competent and elegant system that we need to make Windows 10 such a hog for resources in comparison... to me it seems like even programmed obscolence. Every time you think you'll have a very fast computer because the performance of the HW is much much much better than what you had before they decide to make SW hog it for minimal improvement.

VRAM prices has barely fallen since the last console launch, look at Pc gpus. The mid-ranges cards geforce 660/radeon 7850 had 2GB of Vram which was 4x more than the last console generation. The rumored Geforce 1660 TI will have between 3-6GB of Vram which is still lower than current gen consoles. That's the reason we can't expect much, prices to high.

Here's my spec prediction for next-gen consoles:

Xbox two
CPU: Zen2 8 cores, 16 threads, 2,4 ghz
GPU: Navi 5TF, 30CU with 1300 Mhz clock, 570 radeon performance
Memory: 8GB Gddr5 Ram, 256-bit bus, 256 GB/s Bandwidth
Storage: 1TB NVMe drive
Launch: Fall 2020 300$

Xbox two+
CPU: Zen2 8 cores, 16 threads, 3,2 ghz
GPU: Navi 11,5TF, 60CU with 1500 Mhz clock, slightly above vega 64 performance
Memory: 16GB Gddr6 Ram, 256-bit bus, 448 GB/s Bandwidth
Storage: 1TB NVMe drive
Launch: Fall 2020 500$

Playstation 5
CPU: Zen2 8 cores, 16 threads, 2,8 ghz
GPU: Navi 9TF, 56CU with 1200-1300 Mhz clock, Vega 56 performance
Memory: 12GB Gddr6 Ram, 192-bit bus, 336 GB/s Bandwidth
Storage: 1TB NVMe or SSD drive
Launch: Spring 2020 400$

So far we seen CGI-Q make predictions and I got a pretty good idea of Pemalites prediction based on his comments here and previous ones, I hope others will make some predictions so we can see who wins. After GDC 2019 we will likely get a better clue what we can expect from next-gen consoles and hopefully leaks shortly after.

Its not so much the size that matters its how you use it!

Are you absolutely sure about that? The sweet spot of the original playstation was at 299 (~450 today).

No they are not. And I am not referring to underlying architecture..... yes XB1 is windows based and PS4 is FreeBSD based..... but they are not like a PC OS by function. Especially with regards t the PS4. We can argue that everything is "based on PC technology" and you will be right, but that is more to do with "PC technology" already having everything and less to do with specific use case scenarios.

Hell even android can be said to be based on PC technolgy cause technically its a linux kernel. And we have PCs that run FreeBSD OS and what nt which is also where apples Mac OS is derived from.

Point though is that the PS4 OS is not like a windows OS r a Mac OS or even an android OS. Its more limited..... that could be by design or whatever but its not like you can just download exel or powerpoint and use it on your PS4. So if the PS4 S even has the underlying APIs to make those work then its just a waste of resources since it doesnt need any of that.

Looking purely at whats capable with a PS4..... there is no concieveable reason (besides piss poor software design) as to why its OS should be taking up as much as 3GB of RAM and still be more laggy and slower than an android phone with 2GB of (slower) RAM which also happens to be capable of so much more.

I have pointed out the the whole copying data in multiple places thing. And I am sorry but when talking about systems that have a CPU and GPU with separate  pools of RAM unless there is something I am missing, or unless the CPU has direct access to  VRAM... Data shared between the CPU and GPU in a PC has t have that data be in both pools of RAM This is even considered to be one f the primary advantages of having a system with unified RAM.  

And I am saying they should because they aren't doing anywhere as much as any number of other OSs out there. They are required to do significantly less... and yet even with their 3GB ram allotment they can`t even do the little they have to do very little quickly. 

I mean I have an android TV box with a an amolgic arm cpu and a mali GPU with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage that runs rings around the PS4 and XB1 when its comes to OS functionality.

Is an SSD really a possibility?  Seems like something that most consumers wouldn't care as much about or give that much better performance considering the cost involved?  Considering how much more the box would cost to produce they would really be taking a hit either in the performance of more important parts for graphics or be taking a hit in price.  Over millions of units it saves a lot while really not sacrificing much performance.  Also isn't that the same amount of RAM as the XboxX (better type I know) while this machine is supposed to last through 2026 at least?  I know it's $100 cheaper than the X currently but that still would be short sighted to me.  I recall Sony doubling the RAM in PS4 shortly before they announced it from 4 to 8 and that was a huge increase over PS3

Yes Sony doubled from 4 to 8, with space for game going from 3 to 5.5 ... I really would have prefered they had 7Gb and kept OS to 1Gb.