Honestly the Switch 2 is the only future console I have any excitement for.
Consoles have gone almost nowhere since the xbox, of course they aren’t going to be generating infinite growth. The ps5 controller is the first change in consoles I’ve seen in years that was genuinely interestingv outside of graphical quality. Nintendo is, of course, an exception to that. Every console they release is either genuinely different to the last or meaningfully upgraded, other business practices aside.
Good riddance.
Honestly the Switch 2 is the only future console I have any excitement for.
Steam Deck or literally any other portable PC over whatever the hell Nintendo regurgitates next.
They’re keeping the layout and “adding more storage”, even though you can easily buy a 1TB SD card for your current Switch. So, in all honesty, it’s just a Switch with a bigger screen. At least on a Steam Deck you can play an order of magnitude more games on it, with -much- better variety.
And the games actually go on sale
And you’re not supporting a godawful abusive company such as Nintendo.
The only thing I still buy from Nintendo is hanafuda. They got some pretty good quality, playable stuff. I guess their shogi equipment isn’t bad either.
Video games though? Nope, not anymore.
And it’ll play nearly every video game made since the invention of video games, which is a huge win.
Want to play Diablo? Sure, no problem. Destiny 2? Yep, that’s fine. Italian Plumber and Friends Kart Racing? Why yes, that works great.
And yeah, don’t have to support a company that hates you only slightly more than it hates people playing their older games.
Teach me how to get d2 running on steamdeck
You install what windows or better yet…
Don’t play D2
Fair, I brainfarted on that one.
I have an Ally, which is running Windows, which does run Destiny 2 and Fortnite and League and whatever else the steamdeck doesn’t because of rootkit anticheat.
So I’ll restate: you can run almost anything that doesn’t need malware to allow you to connect to their servers.
Ahh damn I got my hopes up I thought there was a legit workaround without windows
D2 and Fortnite are keeping me on windows instead of something like Bazzite, so I’m right there with you.
The annoying thing is that battleeye does exist for Linux, but the devs would have to implement it and they’re just… not.
You install Windows on it.
Several things in your list come with an asterisk, to be fair.
We regularly play the Wee version of Italian plumber and friends kart racing on the deck. Docked to tv, 4 controllers (Xbox one, ps4, stadia, steam). Really a magnificent machine. For the next version i hope they improve upon the docked experience.
I dispise how the switch will only work with controllers that have received Nintendo’s blessing. The switch just uses bluetooth, so why can’t I use my wii u and wii controllers that I already own with my switch? Oh right, because Nintendo need more money.
And I can refund the game if I don’t like it. And I can see reviews of the game by those who have been vetted as having bought it.
I can also play over a decades worth of games from my library that saved my saves. And there’s no monthly cost.
By this metric, the wii is better than the switch since it can backup saves without a subscription or internet connection.
Well, there also seem to be credible leaks that it’ll have some sort of duel screen system, potentially functioning like the DS. It’s probably going to be more than just a bigger switch.
Not remotely comparable, but sure, if you are like many here already a hobbyist PC gamer, you probably rather want a Steam Deck.
Handheld game systems of a similar size that play mostly the same games seem pretty comparable to me.
“Mostly the same games” except for all the Nintendo IP. Most folks aren’t pirating games I’d imagine so they’re aren’t really the same libraries for the vast majority of consumers.
The vast majority of Switch games are not made by Nintendo, and the vast majority of those are available on PC and Steam Deck, and typically better versions of those games at that.
Yeah, sorry, you’re not going to try have a neutral perspective about this, are you?
But humor me, why are so many Switch still being sold if other stuff is so superior? After all, like you said, they’re quite comparable and hey, Deck seems strictly superior. Right?
Because Nintendo games on Nintendo handhelds almost never go wrong and you know what parents love? Their kids shit always just working. You dont have to check the system specs, you buy the game at the store and it WORKS. You wrap the game under a tree at Xmas, you can tell grandma “Nintendo Switch” and while she might pick something shit, its going to work.
Lemmings love to act like they are enlightened for figuring out the Steam deck is better… its not for you. Its for 5 to 10 year olds.
I mean, I just said they were comparable. To say that they’re not remotely comparable is laughable. But here are a quick few reasons: one of them is in Walmart and the other is not; one appeals to children (not the least of which is the presence of a brand “moat” in Pokemon) in a way that most other electronics do not, which also translates to multiple children in a family each having their own, which drives up sales numbers; one of them already had an international distribution chain to handle territories like Australia rather than having to build one up; one came out 5 years earlier than the other, including existing in a time period where handheld gaming PCs were typically not driving comparable 3D graphics, but that changed a mere few years later with advancements from AMD in the x64 space.
This is a paradigm shift that has occurred since the Switch’s launch. Here’s an interesting thought: do you think there will still be the “port everything to the Switch” crowd for the next Switch when the game already has a PC version ready to go on the Steam Deck? Because I’ll bet they just buy that device, or a competing handheld PC, instead without having to hope that the game they want to play gets a Switch version, and that’s exactly the weakness of the console model in the modern era.
Uh, yes of course? The customers for a console and a handheld PC aren’t the same so naturally the former wants a game posted to the console?
🤷♀️
The fact that “plateaued” is a cause for concern is everything wrong with our global economic system. Infinite growth shouldn’t be a necessary component of stability. A plateau should be a goal to aspire to.
the article is more about AAA games than consoles, and i agree with the article’s takeaway. graphical improvements have been an Emperor’s New Clothes situation for about a decade for me now. the reason we have those hundred hour AAA games is because with today’s technology, the only advantage big studios have over indies is sheer volume of content. people are starting to wise up to that more and more and those studios will have to find a different way to justify those massive budgets and price tags or simply go under
as for consoles, though? i think the average PC gamer underestimates the value of things Just Working to the vast majority of customers. PCs themselves are having a tough time against smartphones and chromebooks and computer literacy is decreasing from gen z to gen alpha as a result. the seeming failure of the newer xbox and playstation has more to do with the aforementioned dying AAA market and the fact that they’ve become dumbed-down gaming PCs themselves instead of Just Working. the Switch successor will probably not be great but still sell gangbusters because Nintendo is monopolizing the market on Just Works, even if just barely!
The economics of consoles made more sense when computer power was expensive, and the choice was an underpowered home computer with so-so graphics and sound or a dedicated game machine optimised for drawing sprites and scrolling the screen responsively, with the extra costs subsidised by the price of (uncopyable) software. When PCs caught up, the consoles started looking internally like x86 PCs with souped-up GPUs (and, of course, draconian amounts of DRM baked in). Now with devices like the Steam Deck (and similar form-factor devices running Windows in game-console mode), there’s no real reason to buy a dedicated game-playing machine.
There’s no need to worry about it, because long-term, this is a good thing for everyone. The market didn’t tolerate multiple home video or audio formats for very long, so it’s kind of a strange anomaly that we tolerated it for video games as long as we did. Now the concept is coming up on the end of its usefulness, especially since the platform holders won’t let up on certification/patch fees, online subscriptions, external digital storefronts, and all sorts of other concessions that have historically made them more money but maybe don’t make sense in the modern era.
This is it, guys. Console gaming’s over now 🙄
Year of Linux gaming when?
Everything is in a tough spot. Wait for the global economy to not be literal garbage and you’ll see stuff like gaming consoles pick back up.
I got a different take from this article. The economy doesn’t really play into the fact that games are so big today because you have to make it bigger than the previous one. Same with the console stats. Gotta make it more powerful. But we are at a point where most people can’t see the difference between PS5 and PS4. It’s going to be even less obvious when PS6 arrives.
I agree that it’s time for a hard reset.
Depends on which games though. Like a CoD or FIFA will continue as usual, small visual upgrades but still yearly releases with minimal changes. Going from a PS4 to a PS5 with those games will hardly be a difference. I think current generation consoles focused more on higher resolution and higher framerates anyway, which was a welcome change to me, since a lot of games on PS4 ran like sub-par 30 FPS.
But if you take games like Horizon Forbidden West, it’s a pretty significant visual upgrade from Zero Dawn. Same goes for Spider-Man on PS4 and then Miles Morales on PS5, visually looks like a pretty significant upgrade.
Perhaps not everyone notices the visual fidelity moving up in consoles, but honestly that’s never been all that different with previous console generations. Unless you compare games from early in the life-cycle of a console, and then another game from the end of a new generation console. It still mostly gradually happens over the lifetime of a console generation.
I do think graphical progress has been slower than before, mostly because they seem to have shifted focus on higher framerates and resolutions. But in 5 or 10 years we’ll look back at these visuals as laughable. I remember feeling like this every few years, like thinking something looks like the most realistic game ever, and 5 years later you look back at it is being pretty mediocre compared to new standards.
Within console generations, change has indeed always tended to be gradual, but I think the point here is that we’re talking about the step up to the next console generation, for which the visual difference in graphical power used to be very large, you could do a lot more on the newer console than the older one, but has become more gradual over time. Many already didn’t see the need to upgrade to the new Playstation or Xbox from the PS4 or Xbox One, and a lot of their libraries were backported to the older consoles (granted, the consoles dropped during Covid so scarcity played a part in that but even after production picked back up they’re not doing as well overall). The only console that could still likely make a big visual leap to a new generation any time soon is the Switch to the Switch 2, and we still don’t have confirmation on whether Nintendo is even planning on such an upgrade. Just like the Wii, it sold like crazy while still being the least powerful in the generation because it had a knockout combination of utility and quality games. On the other hand, it is showing its age now, so if Nintendo doesn’t make that upgrade who knows if the fans will continue to support it.
Nintendo has acknowledged that a new Switch is coming, and we’ve seen leaks come out of Chinese manufacturing that appear to be legitimate to those in the know.
What I mean is, whether or not there’s going to be a visible graphical upgrade in the Switch 2. The console’s existence has been known for a while.
It was an open secret at Gamescom that it’s going to be similar in performance to the Steam Deck or a PS4 except running on ARM. That will be a huge upgrade compared to Tears of the Kingdom struggling to hit 30 FPS at very low resolutions.
Focusing too much on image detail improvements over game play is definitely a problem that most AAA games have.
Because improving visuals is an easily quantifiable task, but improving gameplay requires creativity and risk-taking, neither of which are compatible with the AAA business model.
That’s what the publishers keep saying, because it distracts from the real issue. (also- 3D artists, 2D artists and graphics programmers aren’t doing gameplay systems…)
The real reason is the monetization of play, if they make things too fun, you’ll keep playing some osingle player game instead of their expensive live service titles.
They make everything bad to try and prop up those live services.
PC is the only console I’m excited about. Switch 1 was already collecting dust and I’m still waiting for that Metroid game that was supposed to be on it. However portable devices are on the rise, like Steam Deck for instance. I’d currently rather get that, than a Switch 2. we don’t even know what games S2 will have.
I’m still waiting for that Metroid game that was supposed to be on it.
Metroid Dread came out a while ago.
I think they might be talking about Prime 4, which was initially announced back in 2017. Dread wasn’t announced until 2021.
At least 3 Mario, Zelda, and Kirby games each. Maybe 1 or 2 metroids, splatoons, and megamans. At most one first party kart, party, and smash.
The switch only had Super Mario Odyssey. I don’t count rehash with a short new bonus level. SMO was amazing, but where is SMO2?
Zelda Totk is basically Botw and you just need the later to have the same map. Also both Zelda were no traditional Zelda’s, they were mostly sandbox games.
Kirby was largely seen as too easy, one really has to be okay with that. I was hyped but didn’t expect it to be that easy. Left me kind of disappointed.
Metroid Dread, I wish it hadn’t been a 2D platformer as there are so many of them. Most interchangeable. Looking forward M4 still.
Megaman, I’m no fan of so I can’t say much about it.
Splatoon is amazing and a big selling point. Same with smash, but you could just own one of the dozen different versions on a different system and would not notice.
Pokémon has always been my selling point, but everyone knows the issue with those. I literally have more fun playing old DS Pokémon games, even though challenge never was their strong point.
Nintendo Switch 2 is just Nintendo. While with a portable device you could play so many indie games on the go that either have expensive Switch ports or don’t exist for the Switch at all. Switch 2 is not going to change that. And yeah, I asked myself a lot if I have just outgrown Nintendo games, but truth is Nintendo changed a lot and so have their other publisher releasing for Nintendo systems. I’d not have as much fun with old games, who I have never played before otherwise.
I just roughly answered what the switch 2 would likely have during its life based on systems past.
And I definitely forgot about Pokémon.
The switch definitely had more than 1 Mario game though. The makers, a 3D world, the rabbid thing.
No, why would I give a shit? Let them die.
Lol. 90 hours games. Fuck that shit. I’ve never been on board with that nonsense. Give me a decent 8 hour game and stop destroying the lives of your employees with never ending crunch.
It must be nice to be so rich you can afford so many 8 hour games though.
So you know that really neat trick, where you don’t buy the newest games and you can get most of them for a few bucks?
Well, I have kids. So that 8 hour game will last me a month. Combine that with a 20 year backlog…
Console manufacturers will have to adapt and liberalize self-publishing to stay relevant. AAA gaming continues to enshittify, and indie games / smaller studios are the ones releasing the good titles.
Valve knows this, and the ease for developers to release on Steam means they’re well positioned to ride out the transition. By comparison, releasing on console means signing license agreements, getting access to proprietary SDKs, submitting your game through an approval process, getting each update reviewed, etc etc. The barriers make releasing on console very unappealing for smaller developers.
So IMO if the consoles want to ride out the decline of AAA games, they will need to reinvent their image and how they interact with smaller studios and indies.
When sustained sales is a bad thing and growth not being continuous is cause for question. Incredible.
Yes. The writing is on the wall, I think. Between Valve and Microsoft, I think the line between console and PC is about to blur, hard.
Valve starts selling a new generation of Steam Machines, Microsoft develops a handheld and pivots the Xbox brand to be a PC gaming label standardized to a handheld and set-top form factor, and suddenly Sony and Nintendo are swimming in a much smaller ocean. The PlayStation 6 not being PC-compatible suddenly makes it “a weird non-PC” instead of a category leader, and the Switch 2 by all accounts just becomes an echo of the previous generation, treading water on Nintendo franchises.
