> To be mainstream [...]
> We must grant also an anti-piracy system full of fucking DRM.
Well, it depends, if we go the way of the TV-world convergence box with an optional desktop upgrade kit, we may not need so. Do you remember the controversies on the Android platform where developers are furious at google for its lack of a robust copy-protection to protect their apps (the developers were considering the Android platform inferior to iOS becauso of this)? Has this resulted in a lack of applications to Android (even though everybody is pirating en masse)? The Android platform has a DRM framework to protect videos but not much in term of protecting applications. Moreover, for video on the convergence box, since there should be an application store, why not let the developers of the video service be responsible for implementing any potential DRM which they consider necessary inside their own app without supplying such services at the operating system level (except for a single function to turn-on the HDCP on the HDMI port, which everybody knows can be removed with one of those made-in-China devices bought online)?
Finally, if you want DRM-free videos on the platform, there are many small such services and one big one EZtakes, it would be easy to make sure there is an EZtakes app on the platform. And there are DRM-free classic games on GOG, with some of the games bordering on legendary status. This is to say a (partly or maybe even wholely) DRM-free platform is viable

>> If they made x64 circuits without x86 backward compatibility, maybe you would have a point.
> With all due respect, this is poppycock. By that logic we shouldn't use PC video cards either, since they can still operate in a VGA compatible mode.
Well, this might be a worthwile point if the x86 64bit long mode was a purely separate mode (even though the processor including a backward compatibility mode is equal to carrying a bag of one's trash with oneself at all time), but the fact is the longmode includes the legacy instruction set with its horrors.

>> The MIPS market is growing.
> From nothing to slightly more than nothing? This was also the case of PPC in the mid 90's,
The same could have been said of the ARM processor 10 years ago. They targeted a different market than the desktop one and were successfull. The same can happen for MIPS. Moreover, the change of ownership has just happened. Give Imagination a bit of time to fix the flaws of its predecessors. Finally, the networking gear manufacturers are switching from PPC to MIPS, the printer manufacturers are switching from PPC to MIPS (or, less frequently, ARM) and the chinese are embracing MIPS as their favorite platform (they are not sheep that need to do like everyone else). The real reason why PPC is loosing ground is not because Apple left it, even though this fact doesn't help; it is because the two main companies behind it are not trying to push it. Until recently, with the creation of the OpenPower consortium, IBM only developped the Power Architecture for its own computers. On the side of Freescale they only care about their three main lucrative markets: automotive, industrial and aerospace and do not care about the rest of the world. They almost respond to the loss of the printer and router market by shrugging their shoulders.

@thread
I am baffled by the fact that most people seem to prefer the x86 processor to the ARM processor which, at least, while suboptimal, is much cleaner and is nonetheless widely available.