Its been interesting to see how this conversation has progressed! My lamentation was mostly about how new and big videogame business is making me shy away from new hardware across the board. This was spurred on by what Microsoft is doing. Despite being in “3rd place”, they have a lot of money/ weight and are using that to consolidate development. They are also focusing on gamepass which is convenient but takes ownership away from users. The recent announcements of the Series consoles being digital only and blocking a bunch of 3rd party controller options are worrisome as well. I don’t like any of these developments, as they are focused on shareholders. Sony isn’t much different and we may as well throw apple, samsung, meta, alphabet, et al. into that pile.
I can safely say I’m pretty much done with Microsoft’s new stuff going forward and am leery of whatever the PS6 might be. BUT! I really dig my PS5! I use it all the time - no dust collector over here. I’m also playing the heck out of that Mario Wonder. A lovely game. I also just ordered a new Macbook Air because my current lappy is over 10 years old and quite sluggish for some of the freelance work I do. BUT! Between all that I just mentioned, plus all the old consoles/computers I have, and the ability to hack/mod/everdrive my way into thousands of games - enough might be enough.
I am very much reiterating my initial post - oh well.
I will say that the most problems I’ve ever had with a game console are with my switch, but I think I’m just unlucky:
I’ve replaced the sticks twice [edit: three times?] because of drift
bought two pro controller types both of which succumbed to drift. third one I got worked.
the fan is often blazing and clicking audibly in handheld mode to where I keep thinking the game is notifying me of something
randomly turns itself on in the dock, turning on the TV (until I figured it out and didn’t let it turn on the TV)
it’s doing random button presses now so I’ve had to leave it out of the dock and let it run out of batteries because you simply can’t use it at all now.
I have like 90% given up on using the switch at all. that last 10% is I know I’m gonna have to judge tears of the kingdom for an awards show so I need to figure out how you do the thing of sending it off to nintendo, during which time I’m gonna say “I dunno, it’s mostly broken and has ghosts!?” and cross my fingers. Like you know when I send it to them it’s not gonna do any of the problems I have.
Unfortunately I highly resent my switch because it has never worked right and in total, trying to make it function like it’s supposed to, I’ve spent more than a PS5’s launch price on it. Frustrating!
@sdate I’m not trying to be a jerk here either because this is a useful resource and all that, but do compare purchasing a console and then simply plugging it in, vs researching things via a spreadsheet, buying various components, watching videos to assemble them, then separately sourcing peripherals and an operating system. It’s simpler than it used to be, but it’s certainly not simpler than getting a console!
my 2 cents as a recently minted-PC guy is that it’s easier to assemble and set up than I had feared, but it’s still a real obstacle coming from a bad-at-computers background such as mine. Doable and good skills to carry forward, but there is a real though not insurmountable learning curve imo
Overall: in my view the PC route is the way to go over the medium haul (1.5-2 console generations and thereafter), and it’s only recently that the combined dynamics of PC stuff getting pretty nice (8 bitdo, custom keyboards, etc, making playing would-be console games on the PC feel less something hacked together (as other posters have alluded to)) and consoles getting more “pc-like” (impersonal, reliant on firmware, internet shit, etc) that makes this desirable
I was at a party yesterday and some guy I barely knew started talking about video games to me and he was talking about Alan Wake 2 and wanting to play it but couldn‘t justify a PC or a new console just for it.
It got me thinking about the lowest barrier to play “new” games being the $300 series S but eventually (after the party) I figured out that if this guy’s internet connection is decent he should just get one month of the Nvidia Cloud thing. I‘ve read some pretty good stuff abut it and it’s probably better than playing on a Series S.
Now I'm curious whether there's a cloud market for people who just want to play one triple A game a year and just getting a month a time. idk.
@穴 feels like it could be a thing - and I think Stadia should’ve been targeting places like central and south america, SEA, etc, instead of the US and Europe. That’s where the model has the most applications! But they didn’t, so… honk
One sentiment mentioned early on in the thread here is that new games are bad, and I’ve had a bit of an experience with this, too.
I think most big new games kind of suck, I hate always-online gank and whatever other crap that comes along with that, as most do and the forum would agree with that.
But I’ve also tried to intentionally take the old-game pill and anything older than the PS2 era, with the exception of some strangely progressive N64 and PS1 titles, I just can’t do it. As Exodus mentioned earlier here, games just keep getting more and more playable. It’s weird booting up SM1 for NES and figuring out you’re supposed to draw your own map.
I think I like the idea of being a mister-dude more than actually accepting that lifestyle.
But even then maybe it’s weird to rut yourself into a particular kind of lifestyle and playing some good games is what it’s all about at the end of the day.
Steam Deck has been the perfect blend of console and pc for me, too. Have done almost all of my gaming on that, or my gaming PC plugged into the TV with an xbox controller, for YEARS!!
Anyway i dunno what I added to this thread but uh Lunacid is a great example of an indie game that just absolutely smokes. Maybe I should become an itch dot io delver (And there I go with lifestyle ruts again!)
@sdate I do think the resource is good and appreciate it! you did indicate you were holding yourself back from saying “actually it’s very simple,” but maybe I was misreading that somehow.
Oh, I also just want to add that yeah I agree that new consoles are super boring. I mean it's always kind of been about the games on whatever console at the end of the day but even that is going away + you have the design language of each major console right now just being very corporate and bland. What the heck happened to 3DS-style themes, Nintendo!
One of my best friends is a pc gamer. Don’t think he even has anything else to game on. Every time I try to watch him play anything or any time* an exciting game has come out he has problems. Game defaults to wrong monitor. Game defaults to right monitor but is locked on wrong resolution. Midspec machine won’t run games on low settings. Sound comes through speakers when he wants headphones, but can’t detect speaker when he wants that. He had some problem in Elden Ring where when he finally got a playable frame-rate something important disappeared (I think player or enemies turned invisible in a way that was not Miyazaki-approved). He’s not even an idiot.
*Assasins Creed Valhalla may have actually run fine for him at launch, idk if this counts as exciting.
@deepspacefine This is, unfortunately, just kind of the crap you put up with when it comes to PC gaming. I wish it was better!
There is certainly something to be said for turning on the magic box and it just works. I’ve been debating on buying a modern console for exactly this reason, but my PC is problem-free enough for my setup and I’ve sunk uhm a lot into steam so it’s my preferred “console” (And also my Steam Deck)
I’m a dummy who loves collecting physical media, so I’ll always have at least one new-ish console in the rotation, as long as they still support it. If all the consoles go fully digital only, then yeah, I’ll switch to PC. I own so many digital games on PC that I forget what I have there; I like the tangibility of my unplayed games staring me in the face lol. I admit this is a dumb problem to have.
But anyways, who could hate the PS5 when console exclusive R-Type Final 3 Evolved is on there?
Haha, I‘m not sure that the ’just build a PC, it‘s very easy’ crowd understands how much of a negative getting told that ‘it’s very easy‘ is when you express any amount of reticence about building a PC. It’s like being told ‘you should just use Linux’ on Stack Exchange or w/e when you ask a question about some Windows error message you‘re getting. I’m being salty, but I still maintain that one of the big problems with PC builds is sinking money into a pricey and pretty new graphics card, only to find out a month later that to play the new game you want the way it was intended to be played, you need an even newer, even more expensive graphics card.
@Karasu PC building is especially awful when you look at modern prices. This stuff ain’t cheap anymore!! I love me my PC gaming and all its benefits but I never, EVER tell anyone it’s easy or cheap and I almost never recommend to any of my coworkers that they do it. Buy an Xbox or a PS5 instead.
what worked great was the Sega Dreamcast. Affordable too all things considered. But all the RATS in this world failed to buy it + Shenmue and it's all been down hill since
As much of a crusty approach this is in the era of “everything pre ps3 is trivially downloadable” my main mode of operation is some kind of self-imposed role play of bygone days of limited information and access. This is facilitated by being in a place (Japan) with plenty of used game access and things I haven’t been exposed to, but I find new old stuff to play by looking at shelves and getting stuff is weird or cheap, or looking at lists of works developed by people who made some other thing I like. I’ve been wandering around the PS1 library that way for the past four years and I still am encountering stuff new to me. When I look at my collection (which I’ve culled down a few times) it has become a bunch of stuff that speaks to me in some way. When I consider looking at the archive.org torrent of all NTSC-J PS1 games, I know that my experience would be just completely different, even if my access is better.
Ultimately it’s an overuse of time and money that not everyone can do, but I get in return more time to think about what I’m playing/going to play next and that’s fun, and also gives me enough fuel to burn and do shit like read a manual or draw a map or get over a screwy interface.
I also am hypersensitive to things that feel too slick or frictionless design-wise - e.g. Cities Skylines 2 having this progression system - sure it might be some “Oh I wanna level up” driver but the goddarn reason I wanna play a city builder is to just be faced with a palette of tools and some rough problem to solve and then be faced with the issues I create along the way. Being given high fives feels like a current requirement of a vast majority of new games, and I don’t like feeling like the reason I’m playing is to get a high five or a slot pull or a ticket to be socially relevant. A lot of new stuff has some thread of one of those in it, and it’s just not worth it for me.
So, I go off and pretend I’m the first one finding out about old shit, and thus have a blast finding my way and at the same time get the kinds of game experiences that generally feel better to me.
That all sounds super hipster/oldmannish but it’s what works for me. I don’t need to know it all right now, or to have it all. I will come across something cool in a bit, it’s always just a matter of time.
Right now I’m thinkin hard about the Carnage Heart franchise and deciding which game to start with, if not EZ, which I got off psn for cheap (but you can’t use a mouse on PS3 sooo maybe I gotta scope a physical copy). The basic premise of those games is really making my mind spin without even really playing - fun stuff.
@KennyL I must admit… this brings me a non-zero increase in respect for Nintendo (though Iwata isn’t here to singlehandedly make games for this thing :( )
In general I’m very happy with my PC purchase—besides playing games, just learning how to organize files in a Windows environment feels like such an essential skill to my using the computer. However the battery and trackpad are terrible so it’s functionally not even really a laptop. Also I have like three documents saved and two web addresses bookmarked to tell me how to undo whenever Windows or HP or whoever it is mandatorily, automatically, randomly updates (reinstalls?) RealTek audio drivers, which make the computer audio only kick on several seconds after I’ve started playing music or a video. Like, what? Now I have a PhD in fixing audio problems because of the culture of regular software updates except I don’t have a PhD in anything because the entire problem with this culture is “they” don’t want you to fix or tinker with anything, google is broken, tricking a broken search engine to give me a fix for my problem without learning anything feels bad, the internet is broken and how can we fix it
I grew up messing around with the insides of computers, so I am absolutely predisposed to building my own feeling accessible and fun. It‘s definitely not easy or cheap, and I avoid telling people that. I wish having a console made sense in my living situations of the last 8 years. Like, I still want a PS5. It looks like fun, and I cherish the “sitting in front of a TV” game-playing experience, and that’s easiest on consoles by far. I'm not sure it will ever make sense for me, though.