8 ms·

Consoles are on their last run in my opinion. Valve has improved the Steam experience for Steamdeck, along with the Proton compatibility layer. Then they added

Consoles are on their last run in my opinion. Valve has improved the Steam experience for Steamdeck, along with the Proton compatibility layer. Then they added "Great on Steamdeck" that will encourage devs to aim for better controller support. Now there are rumours Valve is working on a new "console". Imho once there is a "console" that is basically Steamdeck with builtin Steam store and a powerful GPU... in otherword a fully capable PC with desktop performance + the console user experience (or almost there) there is strictly no reason to buy a Sony/Nintendo console anymore.... especially since SEGA, Sony & al are porting more and more games to PC. I think we are all in a better place if those platforms converge, and Sony/Nintendo just focus on making great games. But it doesn't matter anyway, since if Valve can release an actually good "console" experience, with builtin Steam store... Nintendo and Sony have nothing more to offer bar a few exclusives.

teamonkey 5y ago
> Consoles are on their last run in my opinion. I've heard that for every console generation for the last 15 years. I don't think the arguments are any stronger now than they were in 2013.
- AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
  Two big reasons why things are different: 1) with Valve's Steam Deck and the console-like experience for the Store on their Steam OS, PC GAMING is going to reach a broader market : you no longer need to install Windows, figure out driver updates or even how to use Windows, etc. in order to benefit from STEAM. edit: I have seen these type of gamers in the reddit discussions : they know about PC GAMING, they want a part of it, to enjoy it like their friends, but they never really got into the whole "building a pc" .. but now they are looking at the possibility finally of playing "PC games" on the Steam Deck (which is "good enough") ... not to mention the countless discussioons comparing the Switch and the Deck ... which ties right into #2 : 2) now you benefit from HUGE sales all year long. Every weekend games go on sale. Every holiday season there are huge sales. You might argue there are also sales on PS/Nintendo, but I don't think they are as good there? Plus, with Steam you get access to a huge catalog of "pc gaming", including so many smaller and super cheap games, many of which are actually quite decent. Basically, if Valve gets thing right with the Steam Deck OS and their rumored "console"... pc gaming is reaching into the console market which they could never do before. And over the years the PC could become a platform to converge to since it is now on handhelds (Steamdeck) and games developed for it can provide a console experience. And since SONY & al are already porting more of their games to PC, with controller support etc... their games are pretty much already "steam deck verified" and will be a premium experience on the future Valve console, so they've kinda already dug themselves into this "converging towards PC architecture" hole. Imho the only question left in this scenario, is whether Linux platform + PROTON will be able to support AAA games consistently... but it looks like Valve is confident about it.
  - dagw 5y ago
    Imho the only question left in this scenario, To me the real question left is one of price. Will Valve be able to release a 'Steam Console' at the same price and performance as an Xbox? Or will people buying Xboxes today be willing to pay significantly more for a Steam Console than they are currently paying? As cool as the Steamdeck is, it's also twice the price of a Switch.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    1) The fact that Steam OS is Linux-based and mostly running games through Proton (Wine), I doubt we're going to see any console-grade "it just works" experience for a long time. I've been playing Forza Horizon 5 during the weekend on my gaming PC. If I look it up on ProtonDB, I'm greeted with a red "BORKED" text for "won't start or is crucially unplayable". Forza Horizon 4, which is now three years old, is given a "Silver" rating. Looking through the comments, it varies between "Single player runs great", "Having minor issues" and "Won't run at all". 2) I think you're way overestimating the amount of money people spend and the amount of titles they buy. I'd wager that most people do not care about massive sales that much and they have a handful of titles they will play per year. And of course, there are the people who just buy FIFA / Madden / whatever when it comes out and play it for a year.
  - salamandersauce 5y ago
    Sales are IME just as good on console as steam. And to semi-confirm I took a look at few big recentish titles and one older one and using websites like Steamdb and psndeals recorded the lowest price (non-PS+) for my region (CAN). Deus Ex Mankind Divided: PSN: $5.99, Steam: $5.24 Mortal Kombat 11: PSN: $17.49 Steam: $17.49 Call of Duty 4 Remastered: PSN: $19.99 Steam: 24.99 Far Cry 5: PSN: $11.99 Steam: $11.99 Resident Evil 4: PS3: $4.99 PS4: $9.99 Steam: $4.99 Oh and for whatever reason PSN doesn't charge taxes in my region but Steam does so PSN is actually 15% cheaper. Obviously this is just a tiny sample of games I could think of and more comparison could be done but IME PC prices are not significantly lower if at all. Humble Bundles might be an exception on a per game basis but you also get a lot of crap you may not have otherwise bought... Games go on sale on PSN/Live/eShop all the time, every weekend and week there's usually something. Might not be the best deal ever on a game but that applies to Steam too.
simiones 5y ago
This doesn't make any sense. The biggest advantage of consoles over PCs is the fixed hardware, allowing developers to focus on hyper-optimization and bug fixing for all the quirks of that hardware. Not to mention the economies of scale console manufacturers can get when they are building tens or hundreds of millions of devices with the exact same specs. Of course, Valve can design and release their own console with fixed hardware and they could perhaps out-compete Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft. But a customizable PC, especially one where you can install any Linux-based OS you want, will never be able to destroy the console market. Not to mention, nothing that Valve has done indicates that they are willing to create a full Console OS, that would hide all of the desktop OS complexity from users and developers: headache free updates where you don't assume the user can just drop to a root shell if something breaks, network config utilities that can be used with a controller, fully standardized drivers, libc, OpenGL/Vulkan version etc. Not to mention, part of the advantage of consoles is that they offer some amount of trusted computing: the fact that it's mostly impossible for users to install anything on a console is a major advantage even to end-users for Online games, where you have almost 0 problems with cheating compared to PC where it is a constant struggle.
- AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
  > Of course, Valve can design and release their own console with fixed hardware and they could perhaps out-compete Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft. But a customizable PC, especially one where you can install any Linux-based OS you want, will never be able to destroy the console market. I don't understand your argument either. I think it's logical to assume when they already introduced "Steam Deck verified" (cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0NIhJpHg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0NIhJpHg0 ) that Valve will release a fixed config, and that developers will be able to finetune their game to run great on it. Where I follow you is that in theory Valve allows other manufacturers to build a Steam Deck compatible hardware, and hence there may be third party alternatives to their rumored console, which indeed could have perhaps different GPU / CPUs... In that case first thing comes to mind, is when you hear of all those 30 FPS games on today's consoles.. what are we losing here? Some mythical "console experience"? When consoles today do have all kind of lags and stuttery gameplay since games engines nowadays are more complex than ever? There's basically no downsides.. I mean even Nintendo I was watching someone play a simple game like Animal Crossing and the loading times were so long... where is the mythical console experience? Seems like it's been gone for a long time. Now you get a polished experience, and a platform that (in theory) doesn't crash, and doesn't require you to figure out drivers and whatnot. Next thing comes to mind is, for those people who are new to PC GAMING, they don't need to touch anything. They are not going to "install any Linux-based OS they want". Why would they do that? That scenario is strictly for the advanced users like us who would already have a capable "gaming PC" and are confident about hacking things. The cheating part is partially addressed by Valve, they're working with anticheat developers. Regarding cheating it seems like consoles are no longer a "pristine environment" due to crossplay: https://www.pcgamer.com/on-behalf-of-pc-gaming-sorry-about-all-those-cheaters-in-your-console-games/ https://www.pcgamer.com/on-behalf-of-pc-gaming-sorry-about-a...
SirHound 5y ago
People will always buy the only device Mario Kart is on.
somehnacct3757 5y ago
You're not following the trends closely enough. Nintendo combined their portable and console markets with the Switch and this console format is a huge hit with kids, parents, and adult gamers even. I suspect if MS takes another generational shellacking from Sony they will try a similar maneuver, combining the Xbox and Surface brands to make a single SKU gaming PC. The Xbox already runs Windows 10 with a custom ui. They won't drop out off the console race without trying this. (It would be a compelling student device.) Sony is stuck selling dedicated TV attachments but luckily they command the biggest audience and have "won" the console war against MS three of the four generations. The PS5 has done so well there's no reason to believe there won't be a PS6. Sony plans the obsolescence on a 10 year timeline. They refused to put an SSD into the PS4 era consoles knowing that adding it would be a generational leap for the PS5, more than graphics.
- AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
  > Windows 10 with a custom ui. They won't drop out off the console race without trying this. If Valve effectively releases a Valve "console" (a fully fledged desktop PC with the Steam Deck experience + powerful GPU)... who are we kidding? Who will buy a walled garden after that? Seems to me like Microsoft will at best be just competing... If you follow the discussions on reddit about Steamdeck people are SUPER excited, and some gamers are alreadsy asking questions about linux and whether their next PC could be linux ; since Valve's endoresement of Proton on the Steam deck and the "Steam Deck verified" experience is making them confident that Linux will replace Windows. Tons of gamers nowadays really only need a PC for gaming and general entertainment... meaning Windows is completely optional. NihongoGamer has really good commentary on related topic: About the "Steam Deck verified" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0NIhJpHg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0NIhJpHg0 I don't know , I'm 47 and honestly Steam Deck + their rumored console that comes after it; is the most exciting news I've heard in gaming for a LONG time... I'm a casual as you might expect at 47... I still want to play A game like NMS occasionally, but I don't want to spend all day updating Windows and tweaking GPU drivers and all the bullshit that is "pc building" today. Last AAA game I bought was Assassin Creed Oddyssey. I paid 50 EUR during a Steam sale. Still pricey but it was pretty new. ... I played the game for few hours and realized I didn't like it all that much. This is the reason why I never bought into PS and Nintendo for the past fifteen years.. pretty much since the Dreamcast: is is hugely expensive. if you pay 70 EUR for a game you have to be really committed not just to like it, but to get your money's worth. I can"t afford to buy a 70 EUR game when I get bored of most games after a few hours. Having a console like experience with the Steam store is hugely exciting for me... so many silly / smaller games, that you pay pennies and still can have fun for a few hours.. it opens up a whole new genre of games that consoles aren't well suited for, or that are just not easy to consume on the console. I mean, just browsing steam is fun in and of itself.
Toutouxc 5y ago
> Imho once there is a "console" that is basically Steamdeck with builtin Steam store and a powerful GPU... in otherword a fully capable PC with desktop performance + the console user experience (or almost there) there is strictly no reason to buy a Sony/Nintendo console anymore I'm not sure I understand. What kind of device are you waiting for? The way I see it, a "fully capable PC with desktop performance + the console user experience" already exists, it's called a gaming PC with Steam Big Picture. > But it doesn't matter anyway, since if Valve can release an actually good "console" experience, with builtin Steam store... Nintendo and Sony have nothing more to offer bar a few exclusives. If Valve releases a console with an actually good console experience, then great, one more console with good console experience to choose from. So what does it bring to the table that other consoles don't have? Their PC-gaming oriented game catalog full of games that are either also available on consoles or are for some reason unsuitable for the usual couch+controller style? Because if I wanted that, I would've bought a gaming PC with Steam Big Picture, a thing that already exists.
- AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
  A PC where I never need to know about the OS. Using a controller in front of my PC, while sitting at a desk, has never felt right for me. Always was awkward, when I have a keyboard and mouse in front of me. So there is the form factor, plus all the hassle that goes with maintaining a PC.

teamonkey 5y ago

> Consoles are on their last run in my opinion. I've heard that for every console generation for the last 15 years. I don't think the arguments are any stronger now than they were in 2013.

AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
Two big reasons why things are different: 1) with Valve's Steam Deck and the console-like experience for the Store on their Steam OS, PC GAMING is going to reach a broader market : you no longer need to install Windows, figure out driver updates or even how to use Windows, etc. in order to benefit from STEAM. edit: I have seen these type of gamers in the reddit discussions : they know about PC GAMING, they want a part of it, to enjoy it like their friends, but they never really got into the whole "building a pc" .. but now they are looking at the possibility finally of playing "PC games" on the Steam Deck (which is "good enough") ... not to mention the countless discussioons comparing the Switch and the Deck ... which ties right into #2 : 2) now you benefit from HUGE sales all year long. Every weekend games go on sale. Every holiday season there are huge sales. You might argue there are also sales on PS/Nintendo, but I don't think they are as good there? Plus, with Steam you get access to a huge catalog of "pc gaming", including so many smaller and super cheap games, many of which are actually quite decent. Basically, if Valve gets thing right with the Steam Deck OS and their rumored "console"... pc gaming is reaching into the console market which they could never do before. And over the years the PC could become a platform to converge to since it is now on handhelds (Steamdeck) and games developed for it can provide a console experience. And since SONY & al are already porting more of their games to PC, with controller support etc... their games are pretty much already "steam deck verified" and will be a premium experience on the future Valve console, so they've kinda already dug themselves into this "converging towards PC architecture" hole. Imho the only question left in this scenario, is whether Linux platform + PROTON will be able to support AAA games consistently... but it looks like Valve is confident about it.
- dagw 5y ago
  Imho the only question left in this scenario, To me the real question left is one of price. Will Valve be able to release a 'Steam Console' at the same price and performance as an Xbox? Or will people buying Xboxes today be willing to pay significantly more for a Steam Console than they are currently paying? As cool as the Steamdeck is, it's also twice the price of a Switch.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  1) The fact that Steam OS is Linux-based and mostly running games through Proton (Wine), I doubt we're going to see any console-grade "it just works" experience for a long time. I've been playing Forza Horizon 5 during the weekend on my gaming PC. If I look it up on ProtonDB, I'm greeted with a red "BORKED" text for "won't start or is crucially unplayable". Forza Horizon 4, which is now three years old, is given a "Silver" rating. Looking through the comments, it varies between "Single player runs great", "Having minor issues" and "Won't run at all". 2) I think you're way overestimating the amount of money people spend and the amount of titles they buy. I'd wager that most people do not care about massive sales that much and they have a handful of titles they will play per year. And of course, there are the people who just buy FIFA / Madden / whatever when it comes out and play it for a year.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  Sales are IME just as good on console as steam. And to semi-confirm I took a look at few big recentish titles and one older one and using websites like Steamdb and psndeals recorded the lowest price (non-PS+) for my region (CAN). Deus Ex Mankind Divided: PSN: $5.99, Steam: $5.24 Mortal Kombat 11: PSN: $17.49 Steam: $17.49 Call of Duty 4 Remastered: PSN: $19.99 Steam: 24.99 Far Cry 5: PSN: $11.99 Steam: $11.99 Resident Evil 4: PS3: $4.99 PS4: $9.99 Steam: $4.99 Oh and for whatever reason PSN doesn't charge taxes in my region but Steam does so PSN is actually 15% cheaper. Obviously this is just a tiny sample of games I could think of and more comparison could be done but IME PC prices are not significantly lower if at all. Humble Bundles might be an exception on a per game basis but you also get a lot of crap you may not have otherwise bought... Games go on sale on PSN/Live/eShop all the time, every weekend and week there's usually something. Might not be the best deal ever on a game but that applies to Steam too.

simiones 5y ago

This doesn't make any sense. The biggest advantage of consoles over PCs is the fixed hardware, allowing developers to focus on hyper-optimization and bug fixing for all the quirks of that hardware. Not to mention the economies of scale console manufacturers can get when they are building tens or hundreds of millions of devices with the exact same specs. Of course, Valve can design and release their own console with fixed hardware and they could perhaps out-compete Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft. But a customizable PC, especially one where you can install any Linux-based OS you want, will never be able to destroy the console market. Not to mention, nothing that Valve has done indicates that they are willing to create a full Console OS, that would hide all of the desktop OS complexity from users and developers: headache free updates where you don't assume the user can just drop to a root shell if something breaks, network config utilities that can be used with a controller, fully standardized drivers, libc, OpenGL/Vulkan version etc. Not to mention, part of the advantage of consoles is that they offer some amount of trusted computing: the fact that it's mostly impossible for users to install anything on a console is a major advantage even to end-users for Online games, where you have almost 0 problems with cheating compared to PC where it is a constant struggle.

AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
> Of course, Valve can design and release their own console with fixed hardware and they could perhaps out-compete Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft. But a customizable PC, especially one where you can install any Linux-based OS you want, will never be able to destroy the console market. I don't understand your argument either. I think it's logical to assume when they already introduced "Steam Deck verified" (cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0NIhJpHg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0NIhJpHg0 ) that Valve will release a fixed config, and that developers will be able to finetune their game to run great on it. Where I follow you is that in theory Valve allows other manufacturers to build a Steam Deck compatible hardware, and hence there may be third party alternatives to their rumored console, which indeed could have perhaps different GPU / CPUs... In that case first thing comes to mind, is when you hear of all those 30 FPS games on today's consoles.. what are we losing here? Some mythical "console experience"? When consoles today do have all kind of lags and stuttery gameplay since games engines nowadays are more complex than ever? There's basically no downsides.. I mean even Nintendo I was watching someone play a simple game like Animal Crossing and the loading times were so long... where is the mythical console experience? Seems like it's been gone for a long time. Now you get a polished experience, and a platform that (in theory) doesn't crash, and doesn't require you to figure out drivers and whatnot. Next thing comes to mind is, for those people who are new to PC GAMING, they don't need to touch anything. They are not going to "install any Linux-based OS they want". Why would they do that? That scenario is strictly for the advanced users like us who would already have a capable "gaming PC" and are confident about hacking things. The cheating part is partially addressed by Valve, they're working with anticheat developers. Regarding cheating it seems like consoles are no longer a "pristine environment" due to crossplay: https://www.pcgamer.com/on-behalf-of-pc-gaming-sorry-about-all-those-cheaters-in-your-console-games/ https://www.pcgamer.com/on-behalf-of-pc-gaming-sorry-about-a...

SirHound 5y ago

People will always buy the only device Mario Kart is on.

somehnacct3757 5y ago

You're not following the trends closely enough. Nintendo combined their portable and console markets with the Switch and this console format is a huge hit with kids, parents, and adult gamers even. I suspect if MS takes another generational shellacking from Sony they will try a similar maneuver, combining the Xbox and Surface brands to make a single SKU gaming PC. The Xbox already runs Windows 10 with a custom ui. They won't drop out off the console race without trying this. (It would be a compelling student device.) Sony is stuck selling dedicated TV attachments but luckily they command the biggest audience and have "won" the console war against MS three of the four generations. The PS5 has done so well there's no reason to believe there won't be a PS6. Sony plans the obsolescence on a 10 year timeline. They refused to put an SSD into the PS4 era consoles knowing that adding it would be a generational leap for the PS5, more than graphics.

AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
> Windows 10 with a custom ui. They won't drop out off the console race without trying this. If Valve effectively releases a Valve "console" (a fully fledged desktop PC with the Steam Deck experience + powerful GPU)... who are we kidding? Who will buy a walled garden after that? Seems to me like Microsoft will at best be just competing... If you follow the discussions on reddit about Steamdeck people are SUPER excited, and some gamers are alreadsy asking questions about linux and whether their next PC could be linux ; since Valve's endoresement of Proton on the Steam deck and the "Steam Deck verified" experience is making them confident that Linux will replace Windows. Tons of gamers nowadays really only need a PC for gaming and general entertainment... meaning Windows is completely optional. NihongoGamer has really good commentary on related topic: About the "Steam Deck verified" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0NIhJpHg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0NIhJpHg0 I don't know , I'm 47 and honestly Steam Deck + their rumored console that comes after it; is the most exciting news I've heard in gaming for a LONG time... I'm a casual as you might expect at 47... I still want to play A game like NMS occasionally, but I don't want to spend all day updating Windows and tweaking GPU drivers and all the bullshit that is "pc building" today. Last AAA game I bought was Assassin Creed Oddyssey. I paid 50 EUR during a Steam sale. Still pricey but it was pretty new. ... I played the game for few hours and realized I didn't like it all that much. This is the reason why I never bought into PS and Nintendo for the past fifteen years.. pretty much since the Dreamcast: is is hugely expensive. if you pay 70 EUR for a game you have to be really committed not just to like it, but to get your money's worth. I can"t afford to buy a 70 EUR game when I get bored of most games after a few hours. Having a console like experience with the Steam store is hugely exciting for me... so many silly / smaller games, that you pay pennies and still can have fun for a few hours.. it opens up a whole new genre of games that consoles aren't well suited for, or that are just not easy to consume on the console. I mean, just browsing steam is fun in and of itself.

Toutouxc 5y ago

> Imho once there is a "console" that is basically Steamdeck with builtin Steam store and a powerful GPU... in otherword a fully capable PC with desktop performance + the console user experience (or almost there) there is strictly no reason to buy a Sony/Nintendo console anymore I'm not sure I understand. What kind of device are you waiting for? The way I see it, a "fully capable PC with desktop performance + the console user experience" already exists, it's called a gaming PC with Steam Big Picture. > But it doesn't matter anyway, since if Valve can release an actually good "console" experience, with builtin Steam store... Nintendo and Sony have nothing more to offer bar a few exclusives. If Valve releases a console with an actually good console experience, then great, one more console with good console experience to choose from. So what does it bring to the table that other consoles don't have? Their PC-gaming oriented game catalog full of games that are either also available on consoles or are for some reason unsuitable for the usual couch+controller style? Because if I wanted that, I would've bought a gaming PC with Steam Big Picture, a thing that already exists.

AltruisticGapHN 5y ago
A PC where I never need to know about the OS. Using a controller in front of my PC, while sitting at a desk, has never felt right for me. Always was awkward, when I have a keyboard and mouse in front of me. So there is the form factor, plus all the hassle that goes with maintaining a PC.