It's been a long time since that was the case though. Now you have to update the console, update the controller firmware, install the game, and update the game.
Sure, but they're approaching a convergence. PCs have gotten easier and consoles have become less streamlined. With something like the Steam Deck, it's even more blurred.
Steam is legitimately easier and faster to get games going on than my PS4 these days IMO. Library is laid out alot better and there's no signing in whenever I turn on a controller. Its still easier to do local multiplayer on PS4, but not by much.
and there’s no signing in whenever I turn on a controller
Can you not sync your account to a specific controller on Playstation? Xbox has that for a while, though the whole software experience has generally been Xbox's strong suit imho
While only the Steam Deck has achieved massive success, it shows there are ways to reduce the prep time for PC gaming, to almost as little as modern consoles (since you do, ultimately, have to install drivers on console.)
I’m okay with this on the condition that that platform is PC.
You want developers to choose a specific set of hardware requirements and only develop games to target and work on that specific set of hardware specifications?
The context appears to be mainly about how having to develop for different consoles/hardware configurations/etc makes development harder. So, choosing PC as the "platform" in this context would be the worst possible option to choose.
Don't forget RISC-V, it's really the future i think. Anyone who doesn't want to live under the yoke of proprietary architectures, this looks to be the only alternative to the status quo.
If I was seeing RISC-V get widespread adoption in consumer-grade hardware, I'd be thinking about it (granted, having X86-64 and ARM on the market could make room for a third competitor compared to the 15-year x86 hegemony.) But I don't see a push for that, and there probably won't be unless RISC-V delivers better results than ARM. Keep in mind that you and I probably care more about CPU architecture than the average gamer.