How many MP3 files were you trying to decode at once? Decoding music is one thing, and even a Nintendo DS can do that. Decoding 50 layers of environmental noises and sound effects is something else entirely.

What percent of one of the cores of your quad core does the DSP take?

Unless you're Intel. Its GMA integrated graphics processors (nicknamed "Graphics My Ass") offloaded vertex transformation to the CPU. Only during the Bridge era did Intel graphics catch up with the PS3.

So where do proper adult gamers sit when they spend quality time playing a game with their own children or with the children they're babysitting?

Yet OEMs accept the low profit margin for sales of commodity desktop PCs. What makes set-top PCs necessarily different, other than that they need a differently styled case?

Now I separately address the cost of hardware:

Or $1,400 plus monitors plus OS plus furniture for four players.

Good luck dumping your authentic game cartridges to create the ROM files you need to play your console games. Last time I checked, Retrode was discontinued indefinitely.

As for work or other non-gaming uses of a PC, console gaming families are apparently happy with just taking turns on the family PC, possibly adding a tablet or low-end laptop to the mix.

I know some people who are afraid of buying things through classified advertising, given news reports of pickup encounters that have turned violent. And how much for furniture? A console uses your existing living room TV, while each gaming PC generally needs its own dedicated desk.

I thought the expectation that PC gamers would wait for a Steam sale was devaluing PC gaming. This allegedly causes publishers to believe they can't get much more revenue from a Steam bargain hunter than a copyright infringer, which encourages established developers to concentrate on consoles and treat PC as an afterthought. Apparently PC gamers are more likely to wait for Steam sales than PlayStation gamers for Greatest Hits. (References: 1 2)

I also thought one had to have multiple Steam accounts in order to buy multiple copies of a game. Does Steam allow using one credit card with multiple accounts? That and you still have to buy a gaming PC and monitor for each player, plus a copy of Windows for each player to run those games that aren't ported to Steam OS.

The Huffington Post requires pairing a verified Facebook account. It displays at least the first name and last initial unless the applies for and is granted the privilege of a pseudonym, which I assume would be granted only in cases comparable to whistleblowing.

Multiplayer is one reason. People don't want to have to wait for the other players in the room to reconfigure their bindings every time.

I don't have a PS3 or PS4, but the directional pad on at least PlayStation, Dual Shock, and Dual Shock 2 controllers is all one piece of plastic. It has four separate raised segments to avoid Nintendo patents on the cross shape. And in practice, with the thumb lying flat across a PlayStation directional pad, the feel of rolling the thumb from one direction to the next isn't that different from Nintendo's design.

But which of the four is the X button?

If you refer to the fact that A and B are swapped and X and Y are swapped between the Super NES and the Xbox, the Xbox was not the first. Xbox inherited this layout ultimately from the Sega Genesis, which predates the Super NES.

I've been collecting links to Slashdot comments that recommend local multiplayer PC games. Mostly the problem has been that very few people are willing to either A. carry a desktop PC back and forth between the desk and the living room or B. buy and maintain a second computer that lacks consoles' advantage in ease of use.

Sending the picture to be displayed on a touch screen needs a faster (and more expensive) radio link.

To verify your account, you need a mobile phone that can receive SMS.

A big orange RSS icon should work well for that. "If you want to follow me, go ahead and follow me using your browser."

And that's the problem. Internet mail became less useful to people when spammers learned how to defeat Bayesian filters. Facebook has the resources to filter spam centrally and apply an effective death penalty to repeat offenders because making and verifying a new Facebook account means getting a new cell phone number.