Money from whales is not the same as money from gamers. What this means is that if Apple made a console, the consumers who spend currently the most on the App Store by far won't transition because they aren't interested in consoles to begin with. And obviously Apple would have to make a console, because it's abundantly clear that a non-console cannot make consoles obsolete.

So the proper sports analogy here would be a baseball player (baseball is not a respected sport, so it matches mobile gaming which is not respected gaming) thinking that he can compete in football (what Americans call soccer). He'll fail spectacularly and get booed off the field, because the required skills are in a whole different league.

Microsoft may suck at consoles, but they would still beat Apple easily. Microsoft lacks games in comparison to Sony and Nintendo, but that's still far above Apple's no games.

This and I can't my Apple software and change to lenova, Dell, HP, make my own, etc.

My brother loves Apple which is fine.  I respect the opinions of others.  But Apple isn't for everyone.  

lol, you seriously think if Apple really *really* wanted to compete in the console space, they'd be sitting here with a mediocre 24 million units sold after 3 years in this gen and 20+ years total experience in the business? Who here actually believes if Apple made a real push into the game console space with an actual console that 20 years later they'd be only selling like 8 million consoles a year. This is a company that sells 230 million iPhones a year, 50-60 million iPads (and that's a decline for them) a year, sold almost 60 million Apple Watches in 2021 (lol, I knew this was a solid product for them, but that number is bonkers). 

Apple has succeeded in almost every major area they'd put some effort into. iPod? iPhone? iPad? Apple Watch? Air Pods? All hugely successful products. Shit even the Air Tag is now taking off as a hit product that consumers swear by. 

Microsoft failed with Zune. They failed with Skype. They failed miserably with Windows phone. They can't get out of third spot in the game business despite spending massive amounts of money. 

No one if they really critically thought of this would believe that Apple would be in the same spot MS is in the game business 20 years in. Do you suppose like from Apple's massive war chest that they would develop a few games? They probably would manage their IP a lot better than the dumb ways Microsoft has. Better than 50/50 chance I'd say that they own Disney within 5 years. 

Look at Sony at virtually every other industry they do business in ... they are not the market leader in almost anything else and quite often struggle in other areas (even areas they once dominated in like TV sales) ... even with the same president and board of directors. They are only on top in the gaming industry because they get gift wrapped really, really stupid mistakes from their competitors, enough at least so they can maintain their grip on the stationary console sector.  

No, I don't think Apple would be in the same position as Microsoft after 20 years, because Apple would pull out of the console business after their first console fails. (Technically second, because they had the Pippin already.) Microsoft stayed in the console business because of their belief that they needed a console to protect their Windows cash cow from being disrupted by a PS console. Apple's motivation would be profits, so as soon as that couldn't be realized, they would be out again.

If it were so easy to get into the console business, we would have seen more entrants during the past two decades (there were none). All the big companies know that the entry level is set incredibly high with Nintendo and Sony as the established players. On one side you have the best first party in the business that is able to sustain a console mostly on its own. Of course, it's not realistic to replicate this approach, so it has to be the other side: Get all the big third publishers on board while having your own occasional hit games as supplement. But even that wouldn't be quite enough, because you have to do it better than Sony in order to convince gamers to leave PS behind. Apple could get all third party publishers on their console, but Apple has no games on their own, meaning there's no reason to buy the Apple console instead of a PS.

What makes the console business different to pretty much every other entertainment business is intellectual property. An iPod plays people's music, whatever it is. An iConsole wouldn't be able to do that, so its value is inherently a lot lower by default. IPs are why it's not as simple as buying your way into the console business and rolling in the money.

Another drawback of a stationary home console (you've said Apple could roast Sony, so this is the form factor it has be) is that it sits in people's homes. This removes Apple's biggest brand advantage altogether: Apple has managed to create an image of trendy products that people love to show in public as status symbols. It's no coincidence that portable Apple products are hugely successful while their other products are niche at best.

Pippin is somewhat irrelevant as it was made in that weird era where Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple and they completely lost their way as a company. Since Jobs came back and subsequent to that they are much better run company (to put it mildly). Your point about Microsoft thinking Sony was going to be a threat to their OS business just underscores their stupidity ... they were watching the Playstation when they should have been paying attention to Apple who actually did create the next big OS post-Windows.

If Apple was in the game business and took it seriously with a Jobs or Cook at the helm, they would've broke Sony in half with the Playstation 3 and never let them recover from that. It's not that hard to invest in some good dev studios either when you have that much money. Apple makes some high quality TV shows and movies now despite being a newcomer is those areas without a lot of experience. 

Sony as I said dominates in almost no other business they operate in except the stationary console market. It's not because they're brilliant, it's because in the stationary console market their competition frankly is pretty stupid. 

Nintendo has basically been this in that market after the SNES ended:

Just drunk off their ass for most of that period with a short 3 year stint where they looked sober but were drinking behind the scenes and then hard back into the booze right after. 

And Microsoft is basically the equivalent of this in the console business:

Not the brightest bulb in the pack. 

People can feel free to disagree but I'm just not that impressed by that. Sony just sits around and wait for their opponent to gift them a dumb mistake and MS/Nintendo at least with stationary home consoles just go out of their way to take the bait every time. Even this generation where Microsoft supposedly "learned their lessons from XBox One", they apparently forgot you need to have even one 1st party exclusive that is a system seller at some point in your 1st 3 years. 20 years and tons of money invested in multiple studios including the mismanaged Rareware and they can't even come up with one lousy title that is a must have. How hard is it really to beat an opponent that poorly managed. It's really not terribly difficult to conceive of a better competitor than that. 

I mean, we can pretend like we know what 12 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage mean, but I wouldn't guess most people have a true grasp on how that would play out on the console.

EShop: What we do know is that the current Switch chugs in the EShop, and that should be a slick experience. This is the main place, and for some of us the only place, where we buy games for the thing, fixing the experience here is necessary. Their priority should be getting the EShop running slick, without the loading problems--this includes its video previews, which I've noticed skip a lot on some games. If I'm going to the online shop, I want a pleasant experience that will make me interested in exploring the content there every week (I mean, to be fair, I'm in the Switch EShop and News channels most weeks looking at new games and sales).

Games: I don't buy the "Switch is missing games because of the hardware" argument at all - the best way to get devs onboard with a console is to get that console into the hands of customers, not simply making it powerful. The Switch has TONS of games. If a developer wants their game on it, they'll make a version of it that works on Switch - we got Witcher 3. The Wii, DS, and 3DS all had a lot of games as well, these included mainline Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter games. Nintendo made hardware to exceed the PS2 during that generation, and yet got a fraction of the games that the PS2 got. While they've been lower fidelity versions, the Switch and Wii both had more third party multiplatform titles than the Gamecube. In addition, the Gamecube multi platforms were missing features and content, and had no added benefits over the PS2 counterparts. The Wii, on the other hand had added features (notably IR aiming) and occasionally added content - and the Switch has added portability and TV play with a smooth transition between the two. There are people who play it exclusively in on handheld or home console version (https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/10/poll_do_you_play_your_switch_more_in_docked_or_handheld_mode - 20% according to that poll) but the other 80% take advantage of that convenience. It's true there are going to be some games that more powerful hardware will make much easier to port, and developers who are iffy about Switch 2 might be coaxed because of the lower effort needed to port... but again, Gamecube vs DS, Wii, and Switch 1 showed that getting consoles into the hands of gamers is the most effective way to get more games onto the platform.

RAM: I think the main appeal to it for most gamers is a dick measuring contest more than anything. Saying that "12 GB of RAM" actually means something is mostly bullshit (at least from the vast majority of gamers). The Wii had 88 MB of RAM and the OS ran slick, but the Wii U had 2GB of DDR3 ram (literally 23X as much) and the OS ran like shit. While it's true that more RAM is better, that doesn't mean a smaller amount can't be used effectively. They could have 16 GB of RAM and make an OS that still requires too many resources to run smoothly, or they could have something as slick on 6 or 8GB. In my opinion, the amount of RAM is not something that should concern gamers, just Nintendo's engineers.

On internal storage: Switch can be expanded fairly easily with SD memory cards, and I've yet to come across any perceivable performance differences between games running off an SD card vs games running off internal storage. price isn't an issue, internal or external, you're still paying for it. Personally, I think a minimal amount of internal storage would be better because that means a lower baseline for the price, which means when I'm buying Switch 2s for the rest of my family I can use up a Christmas and a birthday to give them the hardware and a massive SD card :D

Just my 2 cents.

This discussion hasn't been long yet, but it's already at the point where it's better to just let time resolve things. Apple sucks at gaming and not even Microsoft has to worry about them.

You don't even realize that you're kind of making my point.

Why should I as a publisher pay for a 64GB card for example when 32GB costs me less?

Yeah, exactly. So if you can, as a publisher, squeeze your game onto a 16 or 32GB card by using lower quality assets and having DLSS polish that turd into a 1080p/30 fps diamond, then why wouldn't you? Within this same thread, you made the argument about how the cost of memory lowers year-by-year and a 32GB card in 2017 won't cost what it will in 2025, so what makes you think no publisher will ever eat that cost?

Yes, the game industry absolutely salivates over an all-digital future, and we have BS like Capcom making the Megaman Legacy Collection, aka eight fucking NES ROMS, a partial download on all consoles (which they then acknowledged and didn't do again with subsequent MM collections), but we also have many examples of publishers footing the bill on "impossible ports" of full physical retail games on a single cart: Witcher 3, Dying Light, Subnautica Collection off the top of my head.

All I'm saying is that if DLSS can make HD games even HD-ee-er, then it can let publishers cheap out on costs and allow for the existence of more full games and collections on a single cart. And I'm OK with that, because I'd rather have a full card of a less pretty game/collection than a prettier game/collection that makes me shell out for and shuffle between more SD cards. There will absolutely be publishers that will still do the code in a box or "one game here, the rest you gotta download" BS, but if it helps more of them not go that route or move the needle to more consumer-friendly physical options, then we should acknowledge that.

Nobody really does your hypothetical even on the current Switch though. Having to redo your entire texture set is not that easy either, it's more work and zero gain for the publisher.

They're just going to do what they already do ... you get some small portion of the game on a small cartridge to start and you have to download the rest. 

Some people will cry and whine about it and then get over it. Buy a larger SD Card or whatever external storage the Switch 2 will have (proprietary?) and you may have to "clear the fridge" to get a game onto the faster internal flash storage, but that is what it is for everyone, even PS5 owners who only have the 825GB base SSD ... well when it fills up that just means they have to delete an older game to make room for the new one they want to play. 

Uh, yes they do... they did it for all those games that people once swore that the Switch would never get, like No Man's Sky, Mortal Kombat 11, Mortal Kombat 1, Doom and its sequel, The Witcher, Dying Light, Wolfenstein, Dragon Quest XI, Nier Automata, Tony Hawk, and Divinity: Original Sin 2. I'm know there are others that I'm forgetting, but I'm limiting the criteria to PS4/XB1 games.

So which is it, did those developers have to redo any texture work on those Switch ports? If the answer is yes, then why would they suddenly not be willing to do so for Switch 2, a console that they should have even more faith in? If the answer is no, then you're basically saying that they didn't have to anything for those ports other than to turn down the graphical settings and make sure they properly run on a much weaker console.

*I've seen you make the argument that porting games to Switch 2 could be as simple as turning down the resolution and frame rate and letting DLSS do the legwork to get it back up to par for the player to see in the end. Not a word about making artists have to redraw textures. Why would this now be a requirement for outputting lower quality assets on the cart, at say 480p or 720p, and having DLSS display them at 1080p?

*: If I've mixed you up with someone else, then you have my sincere apology. You should really add a picture.