3 ms·
If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part. Even the Steam Deck
by dangus 3y ago
If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part.
Even the Steam Deck as the most open commercial console on the market is pretty clever in that it doesn’t stop you from using competing software stores, but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. Getting my free copy of Control on the Epic Games Store to work on the console was something that took me a significant amount of time. I could imagine a less technical person being completely unable to do it, but if you owned the game on Steam you just click a button and play.
In my opinion, if Sony wasn’t being supremely lazy they would have made the Portal with AMD x86 hardware similar to the Steam Deck and designed it to natively play your PS5/PS4 library on the go instead of making it a streaming-only device.
- TheCapeGreek 3y ago>but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work This is far more related to their lack of Linux support, and forcing launcher usage via Steam for some games (EA, Ubisoft) than Valve making it difficult on purpose. Nothing stopping you from using Desktop Mode to do whatever you want on the device otherwise.
- xena 3y agoNothing is also stopping you from putting Windows on the Steam Deck, Valve even provides drivers for you to do it!
- dangus 3y agoMy point would be that a very small percentage of users will ever go through that effort, and the Windows experience is so obviously inferior with its lack of tailored UI that it’s not going to be very attractive. Valve knows that the lowest friction activity is buying a game in Steam Deck OS and clicking play.
- Zambyte 3y ago> but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. This isn't true for things that actually run on GNU/Linux. Installing the itch.io launcher is as easy as going to desktop mode, opening discover, navigating to the itch launcher, and clicking install.
- dangus 3y agoMy point would be that a large percentage of Steam Deck buyers will never even enter desktop mode or do so by accident and leave immediately.