I mean the hardware is at least decent. And they aren’t shitting out another one because they aren’t seeing the generation improvement in performance they wanted (its coming). If I buy a Steam Deck, I at least get capable hardware.
Nintendo last several generations of hardware are born anemic. They start behind where even close to the cutting edge is. Nintendo has long since gave up pushing any kind of interesting boundary with its hardware.
I can’t just download “SwitchOS” and throw it on some non-anemic hardware to get a decent experience.
As much as people want to project onto Steam the idea that its a walled garden, its not. It is a cultivated garden, but its not walled off. You can enter and leave freely.
I legitimately thought you were talking about Nintendo hardware there for a while.
As far as we can tell the Switch 2 seems like it’s a bit ahead of the Deck, which is on the low end of the current batch of PC handhelds anyway. I don’t think the quality of hardware is the differentiating factor here, one way or the other. I also don’t think “anemic” was what the Switch felt like at launch. It was somewhere between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One, which was only slightly inadequate for a home console and incredibly bulky for a handheld in 2017. “Not pushing any interesting boundary” is somewhere between extremely opinionated and outright incorrect, quite frankly.
I have to say, it’s a bit surprising to see all the hostility from… I don’t know who this is. PC master race bros? Steam fanboys? You’d think that last group at least would have some fondness for the Switch, given it effectively invented the entire segment of modern hybrid handhelds. Not that I have a horse in that race, there are pros and cons of both, I own both and I think both are pretty great. The Deck effectively replaced the Switch on my rotation, then it got replaced by a Windows handheld and I assume the mix will lean slightly more towards the console end when then Switch 2 comes out, then swing back when newer PC handhelds come out. I am fine with that.
I find the last point interesting, though. What IS a “cultivated garden” platform? I don’t know that I think of Steam in those terms at all. Steam is a software platform that just happens to be tied to someone else’s hardware and OS and seems very unhappy about it. From the perspective of a PC user I think Steam’s dominance is a problem. For one thing because my storefront of choice is GOG (screw DRM, thanks) and for another because the entire point of an open platform is competition. From the perspective of a console user Steam is… well, not that. It’s a PC gaming thing, so I don’t see it as direct competition in the fist place. Which I guess is why I’m more weirded out than anything else to see people taking sides this aggressively.
“Not pushing any interesting boundary” is somewhere between extremely opinionated and outright incorrect, quite frankly.
I mean its not. Nintendo, in ancient history, did actually push boundaries around hardware. Most console makers did. The switch did not represent that. The completely transformed their approach to hardware, to shift to weaker, cheaper hardware so that they don’t push themselves out of reach for their target market: children.
The steam deck was a real advance in that regard. The handhelds that have followed have also pushed further. That’s not at all what the Switch2 is. Its behind the starting point for things that were available a few years ago.
The hostility is that Nintendo products have developed from actually capable, latest capabilities things, to a ticket you need to have punched to play a brand of games. The franchised is being carried by fan-boy-ism, not anything that they are doing that are objectively good, or that advance the industry. Its annoying also, that they are constantly being white knighted.
It seems like you are mostly concerned about grinding your axe against steam.
Theoretically you can spin up a used thinkpad from a yard sale and run steam. Nintendo doesn’t (legally) run on anything that’s not Nintendo branded ¯_(ツ)_/¯
And theoretically you can install Windows on a Steam Deck. Not making something specifically unsupported doesn’t mean you’re not building your business model around the default use case.
For the record, Nintendo games can be legally run on an emulator, much as Nintendo may protest this. It’s a pain in the ass to do so without technically breaking any regulation, but it sure isn’t impossible, and the act of running the software elsewhere isn’t illegal.
Yes but the act of dumping a game or acquiring it in any capacity is illegal (circumventing DRM measures) as well as running the game (which also requires circumventing DRM measures)
I will acknowledge that when it’s tested in court. And I mean internationally.
The notion that copyright is absolute as long as the content is hidden behind any and all DRM is nonsensical, as is the assumption that literally any function not enabled to the user on purpose is illegal to use. I suspect the reason nobody has had to really defend that softmodding their console and dumping their owned keys and carts is legas is that no game maker, Nintendo included, wants to see how that goes in any way that would set a precedent.
Is the switch 2 even competitive?
It’s a hall pass to an ecosystem. It’s barely hardware.
You mean as opposed to the Steam branded Steam PC running the Steam OS that boots straight into Steam?
I mean the hardware is at least decent. And they aren’t shitting out another one because they aren’t seeing the generation improvement in performance they wanted (its coming). If I buy a Steam Deck, I at least get capable hardware.
Nintendo last several generations of hardware are born anemic. They start behind where even close to the cutting edge is. Nintendo has long since gave up pushing any kind of interesting boundary with its hardware.
I can’t just download “SwitchOS” and throw it on some non-anemic hardware to get a decent experience.
As much as people want to project onto Steam the idea that its a walled garden, its not. It is a cultivated garden, but its not walled off. You can enter and leave freely.
I legitimately thought you were talking about Nintendo hardware there for a while.
As far as we can tell the Switch 2 seems like it’s a bit ahead of the Deck, which is on the low end of the current batch of PC handhelds anyway. I don’t think the quality of hardware is the differentiating factor here, one way or the other. I also don’t think “anemic” was what the Switch felt like at launch. It was somewhere between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One, which was only slightly inadequate for a home console and incredibly bulky for a handheld in 2017. “Not pushing any interesting boundary” is somewhere between extremely opinionated and outright incorrect, quite frankly.
I have to say, it’s a bit surprising to see all the hostility from… I don’t know who this is. PC master race bros? Steam fanboys? You’d think that last group at least would have some fondness for the Switch, given it effectively invented the entire segment of modern hybrid handhelds. Not that I have a horse in that race, there are pros and cons of both, I own both and I think both are pretty great. The Deck effectively replaced the Switch on my rotation, then it got replaced by a Windows handheld and I assume the mix will lean slightly more towards the console end when then Switch 2 comes out, then swing back when newer PC handhelds come out. I am fine with that.
I find the last point interesting, though. What IS a “cultivated garden” platform? I don’t know that I think of Steam in those terms at all. Steam is a software platform that just happens to be tied to someone else’s hardware and OS and seems very unhappy about it. From the perspective of a PC user I think Steam’s dominance is a problem. For one thing because my storefront of choice is GOG (screw DRM, thanks) and for another because the entire point of an open platform is competition. From the perspective of a console user Steam is… well, not that. It’s a PC gaming thing, so I don’t see it as direct competition in the fist place. Which I guess is why I’m more weirded out than anything else to see people taking sides this aggressively.
What are you on about with the switch having higher specs?
https://hothardware.com/news/switch-2-vs-steam-deck
I mean its not. Nintendo, in ancient history, did actually push boundaries around hardware. Most console makers did. The switch did not represent that. The completely transformed their approach to hardware, to shift to weaker, cheaper hardware so that they don’t push themselves out of reach for their target market: children.
The steam deck was a real advance in that regard. The handhelds that have followed have also pushed further. That’s not at all what the Switch2 is. Its behind the starting point for things that were available a few years ago.
The hostility is that Nintendo products have developed from actually capable, latest capabilities things, to a ticket you need to have punched to play a brand of games. The franchised is being carried by fan-boy-ism, not anything that they are doing that are objectively good, or that advance the industry. Its annoying also, that they are constantly being white knighted.
It seems like you are mostly concerned about grinding your axe against steam.
Theoretically you can spin up a used thinkpad from a yard sale and run steam. Nintendo doesn’t (legally) run on anything that’s not Nintendo branded ¯_(ツ)_/¯
And theoretically you can install Windows on a Steam Deck. Not making something specifically unsupported doesn’t mean you’re not building your business model around the default use case.
For the record, Nintendo games can be legally run on an emulator, much as Nintendo may protest this. It’s a pain in the ass to do so without technically breaking any regulation, but it sure isn’t impossible, and the act of running the software elsewhere isn’t illegal.
Yes but the act of dumping a game or acquiring it in any capacity is illegal (circumventing DRM measures) as well as running the game (which also requires circumventing DRM measures)
I will acknowledge that when it’s tested in court. And I mean internationally.
The notion that copyright is absolute as long as the content is hidden behind any and all DRM is nonsensical, as is the assumption that literally any function not enabled to the user on purpose is illegal to use. I suspect the reason nobody has had to really defend that softmodding their console and dumping their owned keys and carts is legas is that no game maker, Nintendo included, wants to see how that goes in any way that would set a precedent.