s/games/software and this could be a quote from 5 years ago about how nice it is to develop for iOS because of its uniform hardware and how long Apple supports their devices.
We can go back and forth naming differences between phones and consoles: phones are smaller and have cellular chips, consoles are usually connected to TVs -- but if you can't say why a difference is so fundamental that they should be treated as entirely different classes of things then it doesn't matter.
>We can go back and forth naming differences between phones and consoles: phones are smaller and have cellular chips, consoles are usually connected to TVs -- but if you can't say why a difference is so fundamental that they should be treated as entirely different classes of things then it doesn't matter.
Here's the fundamental bit:
For the vast majority, it's the primary (often only) way to connect with friends, family, colleagues, employers, news, government services, education, wayfinding, banking, emergency services, the entirety of the worlds information, and the world economy.
It also contains peoples most personal thoughts, search history, intimate conversations/photos, location history, political affiliations, and social graph.
For most of the disabled and/or isolated, it affords them a degree of dignity and inclusion that is life changing.
The above is doubly true in a post Covid world.
So, you can't artificially limit the discussion to technical similarities. The societal implications (the real fundamentals) should matter more than anything. Do you really want a world where we make our decisions based on what's best for society, or solely on what is technically true (smartphones and consoles are both just computers!)
We already treat things differently solely because of their importance to society, safety, health, and the economy. Yes, that does mean smartphones are, in a way, victims of their own success because they will be treated differently.
But that's not any different from other fundamental inventions in history (the printing press, banking, emergency services, automobiles, communications, etc).
NOTE: I'm not advocating for, or against, any specific policy. I'm only pointing out why equating consoles and smartphones is denying some very basic realties about how much the economy and society relies on smart phones (compared to consoles).
We can go back and forth naming differences between phones and consoles: phones are smaller and have cellular chips, consoles are usually connected to TVs -- but if you can't say why a difference is so fundamental that they should be treated as entirely different classes of things then it doesn't matter.