What platforms don’t force devs to buy developer kits or use their hardware? PlayStation and Xbox used to force devs to buy exotic hardware. Consoles are similar to phones and they lack simulators or emulators for the newer stuff.
We still use devkits because you cannot possibly develop a console game without one. They provide detailed hardware accelerated instrumentation, and also have specialized hardware that you can't emulate without a dramatic perf hit.
The difference in my mind is that no console markets itself as a general computing device, and the user understands they can't use it as such (you can't install whatever you want on an xbox).
