The fixed hardware that is long-lived and affordable is possible because the hardware manufacturer subsidizes it, especially at the beginning. If they were not able to rely on money from game sales, the hardware would be much more expensive.

An alternative way for companies to make money manufacturing gaming hardware is to keep the prices low until there are a lot of great games for the system, and then jack up the hardware prices later on.

So you might want a hardware standard that multiple companies could produce, which games could interface with and be portable between..

Eventually it just turns back into PC gaming.