I own two consoles currently (well, four, if you count two that are stashed away–my Xbox One and Nintendo DS Lite): an Xbox Series X and a Nintendo Switch.
The Xbox is used pretty much every day–as a streaming box and media player. The Switch mostly sits idle. I bought two games for it, early in the pandemic (Super Mario with Flying Hat1Super Mario Odyssey and Animal Crossing: Subtitle2New Horizon). I have never actually purchased a game outright for my Xbox, though I have games for older Xboxes available for play, if I get the urge to jump into, say, Lode Runner.
This is to say that while I spent my teen years playing various consoles, among them the first consoles ever (Atari 2600, Intellivision, ColecoVision), by the time the next big wave of consoles arrives with the NES in 1985, I’d already moved onto home computers (an Atari 400 in 1982 and one with a “real” keyboard, a Commodore 64, in 1984).
And yet I have two current gen consoles that I do no play games on. Why did I even get them? With the Switch, it was a desire to get games that Nintendo simply doesn’t make available anywhere else. Then I never played the games, because if I really want an Animal Crossing-ish experience, I can always play Stardew Valley on my PC or something like it if I want.
For the Xbox, all the big releases are also pretty much on PC, plus I just don’t feel like sitting on the couch to play games. I like plugging in headphones and immersing myself with a screen right there in front of me. Also, the couch sucks, so it would probably kill my back for longer gaming sessions.
And I think I view consoles differently because of my age. I was young enough to experience the first consoles, then “move on” from them when technologically superior computers came out, and skipped pretty much everything that came after from Sony, Nintendo and (briefly) Sega.
I got an original Xbox in 2002 (?) in part because it didn’t feel like much of a leap from a PC–something that would dog the Xbox forever more (“just play on PC!”) It remains the console for which I got the most games, and played the most, too. It was fine. I also lived alone when I had it, which I think made it feel more like playing games on my PC.
Anyway, just a Sunday morning ramble to explain why my two consoles either sit collecting dust or never get used for actual games.