*only $1500. SMH

 Get 5 Roku's for the price of one XBX. Get 5 Roku's and one XBX and save $500. But whatever.

It's odd how much some people want to complain of other people expense habits. They are probably the same ones that get pissed when relatives complain of how much they expend in gaming.

Never happened. Try again.

I think you're ignoring one was a gift. So less than $1200 out of my pocket. SMD (the D is dick).

Also, a Roku doesen't play Xbox games and from my experience doesn't handle video files as well.

Last, each console came with a gamepad so I was able to fuck up a lot of d-pads.

I get the frustration of having a feature you use removed (especially if its surreptitious or feels capricious). I've been frustrated with many companies doing this over the years. I have not tried to sue MS, but, given that the topic focuses on it, I will relate a scenario involving MS. Having both a laptop and a desktop, I like to keep all of my documents, photos, etc. synced between both machines. With Windows 7, I was able to save a lot (cannot overemphasize this) of time by using the "briefcase" function. Windows 10 initially had this function carried over from Windows 7, but it was eventually disabled by one of 10's mandatory updates. Of course, the internet being the internet, people found a way to re-enable the feature. MS then responded by removing the feature altogether in a later OS update. The feature not only did not impact the OS's performance, it was already coded into the OS. So, they basically had to spend extra resources (albeit, likely not much) to get rid of it. I don't know MS's reasoning, but my suspicion (as well as many others' who used the feature) is that this was meant to push briefcase users to OneDrive. So, again, I get the frustration.

In this case, it sounds like the performance of the Xbox One benefited from the removal of the feature. That's fine and well, but it seems to me that there was a better solution to be had. I imagine MS could have made it a feature that could be toggled on and off to try to please both users and non-users. This could have been similar to 'Boost Mode' and 'Supersampling' on the PS4 Pro, which both state that they might break games (except in this scenario, MS could add that it may also make games run worse). MS/developers could have even had certain games require the feature be disabled before the game would launch, if the extra performance was that essential. Then again, I'm always in favor of more toggles and customizable options, so one's mileage may have varied with this approach.

Folding@Home preceded the PS3 and has continued after it was removed from the PS3. It undoubtedly got a boost from the PS3 application, but it never went away. You can fold@home right now!

I'm not sure what the Lifewire article you linked above is thinking, but Sony never removed the PS2 software emulator via a firmware update (that's my understanding of your meaning because of the article and your grouping it with the removal of OtherOS - apologies if I'm misunderstanding your meaning). If you mean they quit selling PS3s with any PS2 BC, then, yes, this is true. At any rate, I have several friends with fully updated PS2emulating PS3s and they still play the PS2 games they always have. Also, that same article states "now that Sony has closed the PlayStation 3 store", but it hasn't. I was just on there 2 days ago (which was well after the article's 23 March 2020 revision date).

At the bolded, the software you might be thinking on on the PlayStation Store was the PS2 System Data file (here's the US PSN link (I actually got this question all the time back when I worked at a game store). All this file does is enable PS2 games which had HDD functionality on the PS2 to use the same HDD functionality on the PS3 (only on PS3s which are already BC with PS2s). This list would include games like Socom 3, Socom Combined Assault, & Final Fantasy XI. So, if you were to play Socom 3 or Combined Assault online right now (via the SOCOM Virtual Dedicated LAN utility) using one of these PS2emulating PS3s (or a hardware BC PS3), you would need said PS2 System Data file.