• IcePee@lemmy.beru.co
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    4 months ago

    This is yet another nail in the coffin of physical media. Or, in other words games you actually own instead of long term lease.

    • sanpo@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      It’s not like physical media makes any difference anyway these days.

      Actual disk often gets just a glorified installer, and even if it includes the entire game you’re likely to have to activate it online anyway.

      The “own your games” ship has sailed long ago, unless you only buy no-DRM and your own backups.

      • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        unless you only buy no-DRM and your own backups

        Going to have to plug GOG here as these are both things they offer. I try to buy games there instead of Steam, purely for this reason.

        • tal@lemmy.today
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          4 months ago

          Going to have to plug GOG here as these are both things they offer.

          Note that this is a major selling point for GOG and available on most of their library, but unlike their early days, not everything is DRM-free.

      • PunchingWood@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        The difference is the price of buying discs vs. buying from a digital store that has no competitors.

        I’ve bought almost exclusively second-hand discs for my PS5, because they’re like half the price for the exact same content.

        Sadly it’ll probably be just a matter of time before those will be phased out as well, one way or another.

          • PunchingWood@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            They can, difference is a vast majority of people don’t want to buy/build a PC, or deal with a PC setup in general, they just want to press one button to make it work and sit on the couch. So the easy option for them is buying a console, it’s plug and play, while a PC requires quite some setup.

            • iopq@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              So we need Steam Box. Steam Deck just works 99% of the time. I can only complain about the desktop mode being buggy and non-steam games being a pain in the ass to install.

              • sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today
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                4 months ago

                Then we return to the topic of not owning your games with Steam. Try installing non Steam games via the Heroic launcher and use Bazzite OS instead

                • callouscomic@lemm.ee
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                  4 months ago

                  Try getting non-playstation games on your Playstation. What about games from older Playstation? Can’t get most of those on there. And let’s not pretend you “own” Playstation games anymore when so many require online and patches anyways.

                  Steam is more value for money and improved services and support. I used to be a die hard Playstation fan but it got old being treated like shit.

        • sanpo@sopuli.xyz
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          4 months ago

          I got the disc version for used games too, but the sad truth is that where I live there isn’t really a market for used games.

          Or, well, there is, but the prices on used discs are often barely below retail price, if you can even find a copy.

        • webhead@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          If you wait for a good sale, digital is sometimes cheap or cheaper. I just go with whatever is cheapest at any given moment.

      • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I remember thinking it was bs when half life 2 required a steam account and now everyone loves it.

        • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          For better or worse, the landscape has shifted since then. I can’t imagine people love Steam for being Steam, but rather for being the most consumer-friendly platform on PC.

          Refunds? No questions asked if it’s within 2 weeks and 2 hours of playtime.

          User reviews and ratings? Yes, and even comments on those reviews.

          Community content? Steam discussions, guides, art, etc. Even mods with the workshop.

          Bribes development studios for exclusivity deals? Nope! Devs can release games wherever the fuck they want.

          Platform support? PC. Not just Windows, but going out of their way to make Linux a first class citizen. They even support Crapple despite its miniscule market share among PC gamers.

          • IcePee@lemmy.beru.co
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            4 months ago

            You’re right. But, all this good stuff is to obfuscate the central fact that you don’t own the property you bought. Sure, Valve has claimed that should they go away, as their last act, they’ll provide the ability for users to own their purchases, but who actually believes them?

      • dmention7@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        For $700 they could at least throw in a 4k Blu-ray player.

        Then again, I ponied up extra for the disc version of the original ps5 for that exact reason, only to find out the media player software is a giant piece of garbage that was clearly given no effort. So I can’t say I’m too surprised.

      • mesamune@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I’m glad some companies are going full media and the younger Gen is buying physical media. It’s creating a counter culture that smart companies are using to their advantage.

      • criticon@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        It does if you rent

        I’ve been using gamefly for a while, I can’t rent digital only games

      • B312@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Thing is, that’s not how it works on PlayStation. On PS5 you can download and play games without ever connecting to wifi. The whole glorified installer is mostly an Xbox thing ever since the XB1. I’d know since I own both and usually get discs to play my games.

      • Usernameblankface@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Is it possible for modern games to fit on a disk?

        I think it would be an interesting change if brand new games had a hard limit on file size so they can fit on and play from an actual disk.

        • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Absolutely. It just depends a lot on the game of course. A blueray disk can contain over 100 GB. But a game could be split over several disks too. It was rather common to do that with CDs on the original PlayStation.

        • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The issue isn’t the game engine, it’s the texture files.

          If you don’t care what it looks like, you cut 80-90% or more from any modern game subbing low quality textures.

          • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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            4 months ago

            If they use a good, 12X bluray drive, it will be quicker to install from a disk than to download it unless you’re lucky enough to have a good fiber internet connection. Even then, the servers you download from will often be overloaded and slow on release day.

            • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              That’s not my point. Most games do install fine from the disk.

              He’s talking about playing from the disk, too, and that’s a problem.

          • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Maybe someone could do the numbers and see if a memory (USB, SD*, …) can be cheaper than a BR for this case.

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        unless you only buy no-DRM and your own backups

        or you straight up pirate it.

        • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          There’s not a lot of brave souls doing this as a passionate hobby any longer. Now it’s for the clout, to inject malware, or to receive monetary donations. Or all three!

          I hope I am wrong, and we can get back to the passionate hobby, but it’s looking kinda grim from my point of view.

          • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            its always been for the clout in the scene. but ive been pirating shit for a couple of decades now, no malware so far.

            • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              If you have been doing it for a decade, then surely you’ve noticed the drop in active crackers…?

              • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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                4 months ago

                you can still pirate games without getting malware, even if a little late.

            • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              4 months ago

              Yeah. Piracy is alive-and-well. You can even acquire and play PS5 games right now if you wanted to.

      • Pasta Dental@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        This in my opinion is one of the valid use cases of a blockchain/NFTs: they provide provable ownership of digital goods. This means that if implemented, in the future we could actually own games music movies ebooks etc. The only remaining step would be a decentralized torrent-like system that allows the users to download the licensed content that they own via their nft.

        • tabular@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          If you can’t modify it, sell it or know what the game software is even doing then calling that “ownership” would be rather lacking. I mean in terms of traditional ownership, not the modern definition: “page 69 of the EULA defines “purchasing” (the software) as a limited, non-transferable lease which can stop working at any time due to dependency on a proprietary server code we will never share I fucked your mom”.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            You could sell the NFT and lose access to the game just like a disc

            You wouldn’t be able to modify it as the nft would just allow you to download (edit and run) the game.

            Edit: But allowing people to freely resale their digital copies would be a big win for people. No gatekeepers just like with discs

              • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                If it’s a networked game, but there’s no reason a offline game shouldn’t work other than incompetence.

                Also since the NFT is the DRM the game could be available for download outside of the publishers purview, such as a public torrent site.

                • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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                  4 months ago

                  But if the game has to call home every time it starts and there is no server your game won’t work. StarCraft can be played offline, as it was created, but you need to connect to play because Blizzard.

            • Pasta Dental@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              One big “advantage” (for the companies) of NFTs is that the emitter can take a commission or fee every time the NFT is sold. This can kind of alleviate their fears of people buying from each other instead of buying a new copy. I think that’s a fair middle ground for owning a fully digital copy, between physical copy that companies don’t want and digital copy that consumers don’t want.

              • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                How can they force that and not also force a fee to move it to a different wallet you own?

                People change wallets all the time and putting a fee on that would be inexcusable

                • IcePee@lemmy.beru.co
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                  4 months ago

                  Without knowing why people change their wallets, it’s hard to nail down a solution. But, perhaps a smart contract wallet whose access is controlled by an underlying wallet that can be swapped out may help. In any case, all transfers or smart contract execution attracts a fee. Even sending money between wallets.

        • Zorque@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I mean, I can actually own a bunch of stuff as long as it doesn’t have some sort of proprietary DRM bullshit attached to it.

          The problem isn’t that there’s no way to obtain media in a non-bullshit way. The problem is that distributors don’t want to provide media in a non-bullshit way.

          • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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            4 months ago

            Sure, you can still own digital media, but you can’t sell or trade it like you can with a physical copy.

            • Zorque@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Meh. If life weren’t so focused on material gains and losses, I wouldn’t need to.

              It would also mean potential losses for the distributors, as people are (supposedly) less likely to buy directly for them.

              So, again, the problem isn’t the media, it’s the distributors.

        • patatahooligan@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          How would an NFT help in any way? We’re not lacking the means to prove you bought the game. We’re lacking companies willing to sell you games and laws that prevent companies from saying “buy” when they mean “rent”. If we got to a place where torrenting software you’ve bought in the past is legal, we don’t need NFTs to accomplish it…

    • dan@upvote.au
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      4 months ago

      Or, in other words games you actually own

      Newer games rarely have the entire game on the disc. Usually there’s mandatory patches that must be downloaded to play it. I’ve seen games where there’s only a few hundred MB on the disc while the whole game is maybe 15 or 20 GB.

      This means you don’t really own the game, since if Sony (or Microsoft or whoever) take down the downloads for the game, you won’t actually be able to play it any more.

      Essentially your choice is between a physical license key (the disc) plus a download of the game, or a digital license key plus a download of the game.

      • IcePee@lemmy.beru.co
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        4 months ago

        And now, the physical licence path is even less accessible. The thing with the physical licence key is it’s transferrable even if the actual data is stored elsewhere. It’s a thin veneer, I mean, Sony could gate access to this data to the first account/machine that activated it. So even this advantage is taken away.

        • dan@upvote.au
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          Some enterprise software used to (or maybe still do) use USB dongles for licensing… I’m honestly wondering if games are going to move that way too. Given the fact that practically every game needs a launch day patch, why even have a DVD/Blu-Ray if instead you could just have smaller, more reliable USB dongles? I suspect that in the next generation or two of game consoles, we’ll no longer see discs at all.

    • realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.clubOP
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      4 months ago

      IDK. Between the price tag and lack of the disc drive IDK how many people are gonna buy this thing. It’s probably just for people who HAVE to have the highest graphics, to keep them from getting a gaming PC until the PS6 is ready for them.

      • IcePee@lemmy.beru.co
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        4 months ago

        I’m not sure. If that is their strategy they’re dancing on a razor. I mean, the market is pretty slim. Basically, you can get a pretty sweet gaming PC for the price they’re offering. And if you project the amount of games you’ll get and estimate the price differential with prices of the same games on a PC you might be able to uprate the specs a few times. I would say that a PS5 with a reasonable amount of games is probably worth a similar amount to a $1k PC.

  • Lad@reddthat.com
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    4 months ago

    I think the steam deck is genuinely the only console worth buying these days.

        • Facebones@reddthat.com
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          4 months ago

          Wait can it run ps3 emulators?

          Double wait are ps3 emulators working now? I remember pscx2 or whatever being buggy as shit.

          TLDR I’m ancient in internet years

          • mrvictory1@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            RPCS3 can run most PS3 games but Steam Deck may fall short in some of them. Recommended specs include 6 core CPU but Deck has 4.

            • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              4 months ago

              It’s also worth noting that even Sony can’t be bothered to properly emulate the PS3, which has resulted in many PS3-era games being remade into either native PC versions, or PS4/5 titles.

              While it’s true that there are still some PS3-exclusive games that aren’t available in other formats, many of them are, so most people can get pretty far without needing PS3 emulation.

              I only bring that up for anyone that may think they need PS3 emulation, but maybe haven’t been made aware of newer remakes or native PC ports of the games they’re actually looking for.

            • anivia@lemmy.ml
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              4 months ago

              Going by core count alone is a pretty shitty metric for CPU performance. The 4 core APU in the steam deck will outperform an 8 core bulldozer cpu by any metric

              • kurcatovium@lemm.ee
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                4 months ago

                Except for power consumption and heat generation ;-) This is where Bulldozers were hot shit!

          • anivia@lemmy.ml
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            I’m gonna blow your mind by telling you there are already working PS4 and Xbox One emulators, although both only support a small number of games so far

            PS3 and Xbox 360 can be emulated very well by a modern PC, the majority of games work without glitches

            • Farid@startrek.website
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              4 months ago

              PS4 is actually easier to emulate than PS3, because former has regular x86 architecture, but latter has a very weird CELL/PowerPC architecture CPU.

            • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              PS3 is the trickiest. They had that weird Cell architecture which is more difficult to emulate than simply “less-powerful x86” emulation required for more-recent consoles.

          • smort@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            I’ve had good experiences emulating PS2 on my Steam Deck. PS3 I haven’t gotten anything to run well enough that I’d call it enjoyable. Some don’t run at all

          • Farid@startrek.website
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            To be fair, PS2 emulation is still not that great, but I guess it’s due to sheer amount of games for that system. Last summer I decided to check the PS2 emulation after 10 year break and 2 out of 3 games I tested didn’t work properly. Granted, those are kinda niche games (Transformers (2004) and Free Running), but compatibility still needs work. Hardware requirements are decently low for the games that do work, though.

      • Farid@startrek.website
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        Vita can Run 99% of PS1 games “natively” and has a bunch of PS2 ports (some through PSP). Not PS3 though.

      • callouscomic@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        I wouldn’t trust Sony to not fuck that up somehow like everything they do.

          • fluckx@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            To be honest my steam Deck doesn’t go that far beyond 4h either on a single charge when I lower all the settings.

          • iopq@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Playing witcher 2 at decent FPS only gives me 2 hours on the original steam deck

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            That’s the one drag for me about the PS5 contrllers, the battery life before recharging. The PS3 controller did great, but the PS5 ones have so many features built in they die to quick for my liking.

  • Don_alForno@feddit.org
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    4 months ago

    It would be so funny if the EU decided Sony was a gatekeeper on the consoles without disc drives and forced them to allow 3rd party app store on them.

    Hey, a guy can dream.

    • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      What the EU actually needs to do is to spearhead and help find everyone a way to actually “own” digital things. I think I’d be fine with not having a disk drive if I could buy my game, not be reliant on servers to download it in the future, trade my games with friends, and choose to sell it when I felt like it.

      We need to find a way to get back (most of) the benefits of physical media without actually having to go back to it.

      • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        “If a game needs a server and the official servers shut down, the protocols have to be released to the public”. I think it would be a good starting point.

      • RecallMadness@lemmy.nz
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        4 months ago

        Imo, the term “buy” for all goods should pass some sort of litmus test. Eg:

        does the product being sold have the same properties as a brick?

        • can the product be resold privately?
        • can the product be lent to another user temporarily?
        • would the product still perform its function when the manufacturer stops supporting it?
        • would the product still perform its function if the manufacturer ceased to exist.

        if the product does not pass all these tests, the customer is not buying. Consider using terms such as ‘rent’ or ‘lease’ or ‘subscription’

    • kalleboo@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The gatekeeper legislation sets minimums for revenue before you’re counted as a gatekeeper, and all the game consoles are too small a market to count.

  • 4vgj0e@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    One big reason people still play on consoles to this day is because they own a physical copy of their games and can play on their consoles even offline.

    Sometimes

    • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      I couldn’t play Baldur’s Gate 3, a single-player game, when my internet went out. That pissed me right off.

      • 4vgj0e@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah that’s what I meant by sometimes

        Its becoming a trend where game companies are now making single player games require a internet connection just to play. I saw some games on Steam where single player games come with anti-cheat, like wtf.

        • Gamoc@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Becoming a trend? This has been a regular frustration in gaming since the PS3 generation.

      • anivia@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        If you pirated it you could have played it offline though. Paying customers get a worse experience than pirates

        • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Xbox series X. I couldn’t sign in to my profile, so the game wouldn’t load because I bought it electronically and it’s tied to my user. I sent them a little love letter for that.

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            4 months ago

            Generally this works just fine if the console you are using is set to your “home console”. That’s what the home console toggle is for. I could see this being an issue if you have multiple consoles in your house, or you are game sharing with another profile.

  • Mwa@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    for that value just get a pc honestly not a locked down freebsd based console

  • kitnaht@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    At $700 you could build a pretty decent PC that would last a lot longer (3060 12gb, Ryzen 5 5600, 16gb of DDR4), and build a steam library that you’ll have 20 years from now. I’ve had the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for an easy 10; controllers don’t last that long. They’re reaching a point where there’s less and less of an actual argument for owning one.

    • dan@upvote.au
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      build a steam library that you’ll have 20 years from now

      How do you know that Steam will be around in 20 years?

      Use GOG instead. The DRM-free game installers will outlive Steam :)

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        How do you know that Steam will be around in 20 years?

        Use GOG instead, since the DRM-free game installers will outlive Steam :)

        How do you know Windows will keep compatibility in 20 years? Valve money partially goes into Proton/WINE development and an evolution of that will absolutely be around in 20 years, just WINE was around 20 years ago already. CD Project doesn’t put any GOG/Cyberpunk money into breaking the Windows monopoly. (Also plenty of titles on Steam come without DRM because DRM is optional.)

        • dan@upvote.au
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          How do you know Windows will keep compatibility in 20 years?

          I didn’t mention Windows anywhere in my comment? GOG has Linux versions of games too, for games with Linux ports.

          plenty of titles on Steam come without DRM because DRM is optional

          That’s true - for the DRM-free Steam games, you can just keep a separate backup copy of the game files. They usually run fine without Steam installed.

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            4 months ago

            Barely any game on GOG has a Linux port and CD Project enforces the Windows monopoly. GOG Galaxy only available for Windows, their own games only available for Windows, none of their massive resources put into improving WINE.

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              4 months ago

              I was more successful running witcher 2 with the windows installer on the steam deck than with the linux one.

        • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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          4 months ago

          My GOG games run great on wine, it just takes a bit more work to install them. Wine has better support for early windows games than windows does now.

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        4 months ago

        How many people actually download and store those installers though? I think GOG is awesome too but practically if you exclusively shop there you have the same problem unless you have a massive NAS on hand

        • dan@upvote.au
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          I’ve still got my original installers and CD keys for Unreal Tournament 99 GOTY, Need for Speed Underground, Trackmania United, and a bunch of others, and even some DOS games, so there’s at least some of us that keep the installers. I have a few of them on USB hard drives I’ve collected over the last 25 years or so… I really need to move them onto my NAS. :)

          I used to buy directly from the publisher though. Some of them still have working download links, for example Ubisoft/Nadeo still have a working download link for Trackmania United even though it’s nearly 20 years old now.

        • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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          How many people actually download and store those installers though?

          … The hundreds of GOG-based torrents disagree with this sentiment. You don’t need EVERY person to store it. Just a handful of seedboxes can feed the world sort of thing…

          Edit: But this does risk someone being malicious with the torrent of course…

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        4 months ago

        It comes pretty close to feature parity in terms of ownership. My kids can play my steam library on their own computers, I can play it on any machine I own, I don’t have to pay them any kind of rental fee, and they maintain my software for me.

        Only thing I can’t do is what…sell my games to someone else? I don’t do that anyways.

        • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I’m not betting on Steam disappearing in the next ten years. I probably wouldn’t even bet that they’ll disappear in my lifetime. But, they could, anything could happen, and then you don’t have that library anymore. Physical is the only way to truly own.

          • kitnaht@lemmy.world
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            But, they could, anything could happen, and then you don’t have that library anymore. Physical is the only way to truly own.

            That’s exactly my point. Steam has allowed me to OWN Half Life longer than I would have been able to with physical media. Those CDs don’t last that long. I’m not that careful.

            So the balance is “own my own stuff and all the problems that come with keeping it pristine so that it continues to work, taking up space in my house” - or the infinitesimally small chance that STEAM goes belly up. Steam has allowed me to own my games for a lot longer than I could have kept them myself. So the argument of “oh they could go away!” doesn’t really hold any water for me. Especially for games with an online component (which is all of them now) – What’s the use of physical media when the game requires some servers that vanished long ago anyways?

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              That’s a strange point, imho. We disagree on what own means. You being bad with your physical media doesn’t mean you didn’t more truthfully own it. We will have to agree to disagree, have a nice day.

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                4 months ago

                Well then you don’t own your home. With that argument, nobody does. Because the government has the ability to take your home from you, then you don’t own it.

                Ownership has granularity to it. You’re failing to see the grey spaces in between, and only seeing black or white.

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      4 months ago

      Replace the 3060 with an equally-priced AMD card and you’ll actually get something decent for your money. Nvidia is horrible at these “lower” price points.

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        I mean, if you like horrible driver stability; sure. There’s a reason NVidia has like 75% of the market share, and it’s simply because they have a better product. Drivers are more stable, everyone develops for CUDA processing, lots of games only support DLSS for frame-gen, all of the GPU accelerated AI stuff is all NVidia centered, etc.

    • realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.clubOP
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      And something that can run PS3, PS2 and PS1 games!

      I’m sorely disappointed that none of that fancy AI-powered Sony upscaling can be put to use to any of those old games.

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      I’ve had the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for an easy 10;

      I guess it depends on frequency of use, but I’ve never had a mouse last ten years. I wear through the switch on the mouse button in less than that, starts to act unreliably.

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    Unfortunately, physical media for gaming died when always-online DRM was normalized. It doesn’t matter if you have a game on a disc when you have to phone home every time to use it. The corporation may still block your access.

    One more step in ensuring no one owns anything. Lease or rent are your options.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Physical media or full rejection. Fuck you business school zombies squeezing blood from rocks

  • Lucy :3@feddit.org
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    4 months ago

    Reminder that you can put in whatever you want in a PC. And that you can get a decent gaming machine for 1k (700+PS plus).
    CD Drive? No problem. DVD? Of course. Another SSD? Get some random 50$ thing and throw it in there. Floppy? Harvest some old PC and voila.

    • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      The real point is that you can upgrade it incrementally, you don’t have to throw it away, and upgrading will allow you to play all your old games from generation to generation without having to rebuy them for the latest Gen.

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        4 months ago

        Depends how old you get. After 30 years some games just don’t work like they used to!

        Thankfully we do have modern solutions for old fashioned problems now.

      • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Even if you give a shit about upgrading, binding yourself to sony or whatever company.

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        Within limits though. E.g. If your mainboard only supports old CPUs that is a huge limiting factor and we saw MS messing with older CPUs just not being supported at all by Win 11.

        Now i made the switch to Linux myself too and i am very happy, but for people who want to start somewhere, maybe starting with their own linux gaming PC is a bit much for the start.

        • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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          I think that’s overkill, but a Steam Deck is on par with a PS5, but portable, and for a cheap dock and a ps5 controller you can play it like a console.

          Linux has made such leaps though, have a container with lutris and vulkan and it can handle most basic gaming that doesn’t deal with modern AAA titles.

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            4 months ago

            I got a Steam Deck because it’s a little computer. I can put my own OS on it, that’s awesome. The marketing page was talking about DIY repairs and offering spare parts, too.

          • Saleh@feddit.org
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            4 months ago

            I mean i am fully in support of PC gaming and in particular Linux gaming. It is just not as easy to keep upgrading PCs component by component. Eventually there is limits, mostly from the mainboards limits.

              • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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                4 months ago

                I was using the same board and CPU I started with back in 2016 up until last year. My bottleneck wasnt even the CPU it was the fucken RAM.

    • polle@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      While this is true, consoles still manage to have a way more convenient experience. Its the only reason why they exist (today)

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        I think that’s mainly a relic from the past. I didn’t have compability or driver issues for a long time.

        Once the PC is set up, it’s as comfortable as a console. Setting the PC up to console standards is reduced to installing steam.

        • polle@feddit.org
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          Looks like you never played on a computer on a TV screen. The experience is plaged by pad connection problems (Bluetooth), windows popups, random no full screen issues, sound suddenly on the wrong channel, microphone not working, mouse cursor in the middle of the screen (often reset to the middle after launching the game, even when you are playing with a pad) and so on. You still need a keyboard and a mouse near your couch and there is always something. For sure iam still not paying the markup for a console, but i get why there is a big market.

          • vxx@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            What are you on about? I use my PC on my TV all the times and I don’t have a single issue you describe. I just have it connected with Hdmi. The TV even turns on and off automatic if function activate.

            • Katana314@lemmy.world
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              I’ve definitely had some of those issues. I won’t count an old issue where my GPU needed a special connection to attach audio to its DVI output (rare oddity). Some others:

              • Most computers would need to swap default audio device between whatever you use at a desk, and the TV registered as an HDMI audio device.
              • Bluetooth connections to arbitrary controllers have gotten better, but they had often needed manual enablement each time through mouse-based menus or a number of firmware updates to work with Windows/SteamOS.
              • My Steam Deck, even in its current iteration, takes some time to recognize the connected TV and swap resolution.
              • The mouse cursor issue can come up if you had to do any mouse-based option swapping, like that thing with audio devices.

              I’ve definitely gotten it working and had a blast, but the number of button presses to get to starting the game can sometimes be hard to predict. Even when I had a computer dedicated to the TV (a long time ago when SteamOS was fledgling) it was pretty unreliable about having all the right updates and not needing a mouse.

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            4 months ago

            You’re doing something wrong. I’ve been playing PC games on my couch for a decade and haven’t had any of those issues.

    • SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      They make pull out cup holders to put in the CD rom rive slot. There are so many goofy fun things a computer can have in it.

      • fishbone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        Having a pull out cup holder seems insane to me, my personal rule is no drinks near my pc at all.

        That said, I have a drawer in place of my cd drive that holds all my small peripherals (thumb drives, usb to sd card adapter, stuff like that) and it’s great.

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          I can use it as long as I like. Ps plus just gives you 3 “free” games a month and let’s you play online with games that require ps plus. Imo the three games a month for six bucks and change is already worth it. And you keep those games for as long as you have your account, even if you don’t renew your subscription. You can also just get games that don’t require an online component, though those are becoming harder to find.

          • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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            Eh, on PC you can keep your games forever as long as you don’t lose the drive they’re stored on. And you don’t need to pay extra to access online features.

            And you can play any generation of games going back to pong.

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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            4 months ago

            If we’re talking raw capabilities… Piracy is subscriptionless and grants you access to virtually 99% of all games from all time and across all consoles. I’m going to say that PC is the clear winner here…

            • LordGimp@lemm.ee
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              I’m not justifying console vs PC. I’m just pointing out that the $300 on the original comment I replied to for ps plus is insane. $80 a year for a positively moderated, optimized gaming experience the vast majority of the time is worth the money imo.

              • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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                I’m just pointing out that the $300 on the original comment I replied to for ps plus is insane.

                And you justify the value of it based on the 3 “free” games a month. To which I’m arguing against. $80 a year for the life of the console will almost certainly be more than $300. With console generations lasting nearly 5 years on average each that’s actually $400 in subscriptions, keep in mind that generations have been getting longer, and seventh and eighth gen consoles lasted for 8 and 7 years respectively… So closer to $600 in cost.

                I’m not justifying console vs PC.

                But that’s the context of the whole thread…

                positively moderated, optimized gaming experience

                bwuahahahah. Sure. Cause console lobbies aren’t filled with kids screaming racial slurs. And it’s so positively moderated that all your data including credit cards leak (https://firewalltimes.com/sony-data-breach-timeline/).

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Floppy drives connect to the PC via ATA. I don’t have that connector in my computer

  • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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    Sony’s problems are twofold:

    • They are charging an absurd amount of money for a game console
    • They are selling a game console that has practically no first party games for it.

    If they had plenty of the latter, they could weather this. But there are still games releasing for the PS4, and they have had 1, maybe 2 PS5 releases that would qualify as first party this year (that don’t bubble down to PC).

    Jesus christ, Nintendo is gonna win it all aren’t they?

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    I stopped buying consoles after they wanted to charge me to use the internet. That’s not how this works.

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    All good points in the comments, but something I haven’t seen a anyone talk about yet:

    WHY is a DISK DRIVE $80??? All it does is read a disk. Any encryption on the disk would be decrypted on the console. External disk drives are like $20. If you specially brand them maybe you could go up to $40.

    But $80? That’s like a Gameboy Advance. That’s a miyoo mini plus. That’s an entire console in itself.