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That sounds very cool! Maybe a similar project could take off: sharing console instances. Flat community of 50 apartments would buy 5 consoles and share them with each other (you keep them all in a storage room and just connect with TV via ethernet). One major problem is that console manufacturers would probably need to be a part of this and I think they would rather sell 10 consoles individually than 5 for sharing.
> One major problem is that console manufacturers would probably need to be a part of this and I think they would rather sell 10 consoles individually than 5 for sharing. It would certainly work better with manufacturer involvement, but you could use HDMI capture to source the video, and USB to provide the inputs, so the console doesn't know any better. There's some licensing rigamorole and content management as well…
In practice we like things customized and only want to see our own savegames available on the list so this is a real issue that could break this especially if large number of strangers were to use it.
Another issue is waste - what if you want to play some game but it was installed on another console that is currently playing something completely different? Installing all games on all consoles seems crazy. Maybe have a large NAS with multiple games preinstalled? If we could add another type of game licensing which would allow for playing the same game on 5 different hardware consoles simultaneously that would be perfect.
Resources would be used to their maximum potential.