[echelon]

> I think gaming consoles are general purpose computers.

This is a contrived point of view, and I'm sure the product managers at Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, and Google would all strongly disagree.

Remember when the PS3 used to be used for super computing? Sony quietly ended that program when they realized that wasn't the business they wanted to be in.

[baddox]

I don't mean that consoles are the best device to do any computing task. Of course they aren't, and of course smartphones also are not. I'm also not making some technical claim, like that they are Turing complete (of course they are, but that's not really relevant). What I mean is that I do not consider modern consoles to be "single-purpose computers." They're more like "the computer for your living room," and they can and often do handle all sorts of media/entertainment and communication/socializing (which, let's be honest, is a huge part of what smartphones do). They can also handle home automation. If you consider "anything you would want to do on your living room TV" to be a single purpose, then sure, but you could construct the same definition for a smartphone.