Indeed - a Nintendo Switch would be a perfect remote controller for robots if only Nintendo let you actually write code for the device you own!

Well, Nvidia just went ahead and gave everyone permission to do just that :^)

In principle I like the idea of non-locked down game systems, regardless of whether they're made by Apple or Nintendo. I find it appealing that the Steam Deck isn't locked down and can run non-Steam games as well as Steam games.

However, the killer app for jailbreaking locked down game systems does seem to be running unlicensed copies of commercial games.

Comparing a nice entertainment gaming device to a general computing device isn't very fair, is it?

Well they did ship out official Linux discs for the PS2 and PS3.

Linux for the PS4 and PS5 is just a normal x64 Linux binary. The 2 and 3 had very exotic architectures.

For a while, you could get the most FLOPS/$ by networking PS3s together instead of buying commercial computing hardware.