Many things are progressively becoming easier and easier for consumers to do with their own hardware. It is true that smartphones and laptops are still on the closed end of the scale, but laptops are becoming far more modifiable than they were years ago and some progress can already be seen to be taken shape in the smartphone market. Desktops, however, have for the longest while remained the best place for complete control over your hardware. Well, except two places.

The CPU and the motherboard remains the two unchallenged truths in one's computer once they are picked and inserted. For most people, when they decide to change motherboard, they need a new CPU and vice versa. This, however, is not what I consider a problem for desktops, but it should be considered a problem for more specific hardware.

Imagine breaking new ground by making a new console today. A next generation console. In two years, it will be old compared to the PC market. And a console generation usually lasts for four years (and this one has almost lasted for six!), meaning not as capable machines once we recline on their hay day. But how about if the CPU was easy to upgrade as to purchase a memory stick to your PS1 was back in the day? Like the Extension Pack for the Nintendo 64, but in regards to the CPU.

Now I know a lot of people will stop me here for two important reasons. One will regard the technical aspect of being able to change something this fundamental in a computer as easy as you suggest and the other will be about console compatibility. Ignoring then first concern (as this is what I am addressing), the second concern has merit. Part of what you are selling when selling a console, is an insurance to the developers, that every costumer will have this hardware. Unlike the PC market, where it is hard to predict what people will have.

But I would not worry too much. The Extension Pack imposed similar restrictions for Nintendo 64 games, and they got around it by simply making one version and required people to get it for certain games (which were clearly marked). Now assuming such a console had several CPU-upgrades, surely they would each be marked with a name. Not just a version number, but a name. And if a game required one, it work say so on its packaging. Moreover, better versions than ones it requires will also be usable; so old games could still be played after the upgrade. And even if not, then the downgrade would be just as easy as the upgrade.

The reason why this has yet to be done is because it is very difficult to do. But it would 'secure products for the long run', a far better motivation for customers to purchase their products when they are new and perhaps a bit too fresh. For the longest time, we have been obsessed with finding ways to increase a computer's power through software and other ways after it has become old. But we have yet to change the part that truly matters. And we have yet to make it easy.

But despite this, I am optimistic, I believe within ten years, we will see such technology available. I may not be using it, but some people will.