The story of Twitch has been staggering- what was once a niche website for livestreaming video games is now one of the biggest media websites in the world, and a major Video on Demand player. Twitch’s stock continues to grow (recently, Amazon purchased them for nearly a billion dollars), and the ways to produce and consume content for it continue to grow as well.

For example, Twitch is now available for Roku as well. That’s right, right alongside major media apps and platforms like YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, HBO, and Hulu, you will be able to download Twitch itself. This is, in case you don’t realize, actually a pretty big deal.

“The Twitch community has been asking for a Roku channel for a long time, and we’re finally able to deliver,” Twitch business development director Brooke Van Dusen said in a statement.

Roku joins a growing list of devices that can view Twitch- in addition to PCs, there are apps for iOS and Android smartphone and tablets, as well as Twitch functionality embedded into Xbox One and PlayStation 4. It is also available on Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV (naturally).

The controversy over the capability of the Xbox One and PS4 to run at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second continues to rage on. More specifically, the inability of the former to achieve anything higher than 900p and issues with the latter unable to offer a stable 60 FPS without judders or other issues has come up time and time again.

On one hand, critics say it’s too early to judge since both consoles just released but on the other, consumers feel that if you pay for a next-gen box, you don’t necessarily accept only a marginal improvement in resolution and frame rate over the previous generation. And then you have the PC – which is capable of 1080p/60 FPS on even modest hardware and which is only getting more powerful, a fact which hasn’t escaped most gamers’ notice.

Are consumers genuinely concerned about resolution issues on next gen consoles or just annoyed because said consoles are yet to reach the PC’s level?

GamingBolt spoke to Shadowrun Returns creator and Harebrained Schemes founder Jordan Weisman about the whole issue of “Resolution-gate” and whether consumers were overreacting or annoyed because the PC is still the superior gaming platform. While confessing that he has no basis to comment on the next gen hardware itself, it is a tough situation for both consumers and console manufacturers in general.

“Well, it’s tough. The rate of change in PCs is so much higher than the rate of change in consoles. It’s very hard for consoles to keep up on a technology curve with PCs. A gamer replaces their PC, if not annually, then pretty damn near every couple years versus the console – well, when was the last time you could replace your Xbox?

“It was seven years ago. So it’s pretty hard to fight that curve. Plus, when you’re buying your PC, you’re mentally amortizing it across a lot of things, not just playing games. When you’re buying a console – they tried to broaden it from amortizing it mentally just across games to being the hub of your living room, to be being your digital content player, but there’s already really good digital content players for tens of dollars.

“You don’t need to play hundreds of dollars for that, so I’m not sure how many people felt that ‘Oh yeah, that’s a good reason to pay a bunch more.’ It’s a tough curve to fight. That said, the kind of integration into your living room is easier for a console than for a PC. And to me, it really comes down to what kind of gamer you are.

Harebrained Schemes has been placing a very large emphasis on tablets and smartphones, with both Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Dragonfall available on both. Weisman feels that tablets are also becoming a fairly big threat to consoles with their increasing power. “The other curve that I would look at is tablets. The power of the tablets is climbing at a really quick rate. Your standard, off-the-shelf tablet is now more powerful than the original Xbox and damn near the Xbox 360. That’s where tablets are now, and I think we’re going to see, over the upcoming handful of years, more ‘gamer’ games coming to these platforms, rather than just mass-market games, and I think that’s going to be an interesting challenge.

“We view that as an interesting opportunity. That’s why we’re more focused on mobile than we are on consoles, because we see that as an interesting opportunity for a smaller publisher like us to go towards.”

You can be sure that various other small publishers feel the same way. One thing is for sure: both the PS4 and Xbox One face numerous challenges from all corners, aside from having to compete with each other. “Resolution-gate” will continue but it’s the least of both consoles’ problems right now.

It’s not as if the actual console is being rubbished, so much as Microsoft’s direction for it. Instead of games, there was talk of having an all-in-one media solution – which is how the console gets its name – where you can play games and catch up on your movie and TV viewing at the same time.

The implementation and symbiosis of Kinect into the console’s ecosystem is now complete. It now tracks your controller, automatically loading up your saved games while responding to your voice commands. But the question still remains: Where were the games?

When Major Nelson announced that the conference would only be an hour long, I took it as a sign that Microsoft was going to focus more on what’s worked for it so far – that is, Kinect and the technology’s appeal to mainstream consumers. Aaron Greenberg’s statement later about the exclusives being shown at E3 pretty much clinched it. If nothing else, Microsoft had done a repeat of its now universally mocked E3 2010 conference wherein it devoted an entire extra day to showing off the Kinect. Of course, the next day wasn’t much better since Kinect appeared again but that’s a different story.

The point is: Microsoft no longer needs to focus on gaming. What does it have to do to appeal to its core audience? Why, release a new Halo and create some exclusive titles. Maybe get a new Forza game out. And if Remedy Entertainment can somehow impress people down the line with Quantum Break without delaying it for several years, then great.

But getting after the real money that’s in the Tivo and Smart TV market? Now that takes time. And it takes a lot to convince consumers that a device that was formerly best known for bro bashes and whiny Xbox Live players is their best bet for their living room needs.

The presence of appealing to gestures is a way to acclimate more users to the Windows 8 experience, if the appearance of the new Xbox Dashboard wasn’t enough. As such, the entire exercise is an attempt to appeal to the consumers making up smartphones and tablets, and who were responsible for Kinect being such a success in the first place. With everything that’s happening, Microsoft wants to get a leg up on Apple TV and Roku with its next generation console. If it can appeal the hardcore gamers along the way, then great.

It’s not like it takes much to satisfy us. Last I heard, the only positive thing about the conference is that there 15 exclusives planned, 8 of which are new IPs. Because if there’s anything that gets a “hardcore gamer” excited, it’s the words “exclusive” and “new IPs”.

I don’t blame Microsoft for heading in that direction. I do find that the Xbox One’s reveal felt incomplete with all this talk media and very little information about how certain things would work. So now I can’t pick up a game and play at a friend’s house without paying a fee? If my Kinect breaks, then what happens to my play experience? Can I carry on as usual? What if I don’t want to use Kinect at all? What if the gestures and Snap Mode and Instant Switching don’t appeal to me, and I just don’t use them?

Microsoft doesn’t have to focus on gaming anymore. It pretty much stopped along the way with PCs when it realized it couldn’t compete on the same level as real, hardcore developers. Somewhere along the way – with the Wii’s dominance and subsequent success of Kinect, doubtlessly – it realized it can’t really succeed on the consoles unless it offers consumers something they don’t already have for enjoying the things they can’t be entertained without.

And as much as we gamers will bitch and moan about it, the fact remains that it doesn’t take much to satisfy us. Alternately, it doesn’t take much to make us mad either (see how many people forgot about the “always online” rumours?). As long as we’re content to let Microsoft throw us a bone every now and then in the form of Halo or Gears of War or Forza, we’ll be fine.

“I’ve actually heard from, by the way not one or two people, several people who’ve said, ‘based on what I’ve seen, Sony is going to blow them away.’ Based on what you’ve seen? You’ve seen nothing. What are you talking about? No, but you’ve seen literally nothing from Microsoft.”

And given how this wouldn’t necessarily mean all Xbox fans jumping aboard the PS4, Thurrott stated that Microsoft’s problem “has nothing to do with Sony or Nintendo anymore, it’s Roku and AppleTV.

“The market for hardcore video games, the market of people will always buy the next Gears of War game, the next Halo game, the next Call of Duty game, it’s fairly finite. It’s a decent market, yada yada yada, it’s not the market for tablets, it’s not the market for smartphones.”

Thurrott has claimed that the Next Xbox will be revealed on May 21st and released in early November this year.