Before folks go *too* overboard allow me to point out that a couple of
years ago, the OEM price of a 3x5 inch circuitboard that was
essentailly an XT *with* 8087, but no peripherals was something like
$15. This puppy was intended for use as a dedicated controller, and was
software compatible with an XT.
With a bit of creative design, you could design a game machine
of some sort around this, and sell it *cheap*. I and a couple of
friends are semi-seriously thinking about seeing how cheap we could
assemble a ready to go BBS from this sort of board (Intel, or the AMPro
equivalents). The results are rather surprising even if you just use
*standard* components!
Also, the GUI/text-based argument has a similar flaw. A true
GUI is nice, but most people will be just as happy if the application
is text based and merely used *windowing* effectively. This can be made
portable *much* more easily!