I only use PlayStation for gaming and occasionally to play a BluRay. It’s really not a great general media box; it would need a better remote control, for starters.
And yet Sony insists on wasting screen space with a a pointless media library icon that can’t be removed.
Forgive my pedantry, but the "Fat" (CECHA~Q) PS3s do not support this, only the "Slim" and "Super-Slim" models: http://www.edepot.com/playstation3.html#PS3_Model_Difference...
It takes longer to run the game ever since the 360/PS3/Wii gen, and the 360 is notoriously annoying about user sign-in, and there's that center button you accidentally press mid-game to bring up the hub. Wii has probably the worst dashboard cause you need to set up the IR transmitter and Wiimote to get past it even for games that only use GC controllers.
I get the media center thing as a selling point for other people. I just have never used a game console for things besides games.
When sleeping (how most people use the console) it’s practically as fast, especially with Instant Resume on the Series X/S.
At the same time I don’t think there’s anything preventing you from ignoring 90% of a console and just launching disc-based games. You’ll need an internet connection for patches but beyond that it’s pretty easy past initial setup.