I still don't see a major software entertainment system maker going with an open operating system that they don't control the rights to publish for.
Even the systems that had a Windows based OS (Dreamcast, Xbox, and 360) were so closed in their manufacturing you still needed to purchase a dev kit to legitimately develop for it.
Open OS on gaming consoles will lead to the same inevitable fate that the grandfather consoles of gaming faced when there were too many developers releasing poor quality titles in large amounts in the early 80's. Didn't we learn anything from the crash of '83?
As much as people complained about how Nintendo controlled every aspect of game production on its system, it was that strategy that allowed the gaming market to rebuild itself, and we've kept the same strategy for years. Now we are going to go backwards and repeat the same mistakes.
If the iPhone was strictly a gaming system, and there was no phone plan or music portion of iTunes to tie to it to constantly draw revenue, it would have failed long ago on the software side due to the massive amounts of shovelware on its store. I mean really, how many damn tower defense, castle siege, infinite looped platform jumping, and catapulting games do we need?
We don't need an open OS on a console, we need one that is closed so that there is a greater level of QA for games being published for the system. Open OS's are really only viable on phones (to make among other things, interoperability between carriers and other models easier), computers (because sometimes you just need to customize certain things for varying hardware and needs) and home theatre entertainment devices like BD players and TV's so that it's easier for those to interact with each other with HDMI-CIC content and such.
Consoles don't need open OS's because there isn't any variation in the actual hardware specs aside from some improved fabrication processes to reduce cost and increase power/heat efficiency. The only reason anyone would need (and I'm talking actual NEED not WANT because I might use it on a random whim) an open OS on a console is to pirate and/or practice developing games. Which is what the general consumer does not do, and therefore tips the entire balance of risk reward for the manufacturer to leave themselves open to possible malicious use versus the additional appeal to the mostly rare power user who would make use of it without abusing it. Also, makes things easier when it comes to troubleshooting, for the most part with a closed OS, if you have an issue it's one they are aware of and know how to fix (or if it can't be fixed) and expedites the process a lot faster than if there was an open OS where someone could literally rewrite the kernel and jack things up beyond belief.
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