Apple TV, in my opinion, has been a really expensive streaming device with a nicer UI. I only have one because it was a work gift. What changed for me in the past year was having young kids and letting them play freely in apple's walled garden - arcade. You get the benefits of privacy and lack of monetization. For the most part, the quality/gameplay isn't up to nintendo, but at their age I can see they're just as excited to play these games as we did with ones made for 90's consoles.<p>The next thing was seeing how well a fairly hardcore FPS ran on my iphone (it's the one with warfare in it). Put that on an apple TV with a new chip or variant of the M1 and you have enough tech capabilities to play the majority of last gen console games. You won't have all the graphics capabilities but I think the nintendo switch and the mobile market have shown it's not a necessity.<p>Total cost needs to include two controllers too - $200 for an apple tv plus $100. The one bit of accounting that consoles do, is take a hit on the hardware for licensing fees on games. Doubtful apple would play that game, but I could see them throwing some app store credits and package in all the services they have now. Fanboy or not, all these add up to a compelling future for the apple gaming console.