Console gaming is so anti-consumer. Who would prefer to use a console if they are even the slightest bit savvy with a computer?
Look at OS user numbers, most people aren’t the slightest bit savvy with a computer.
I’ve run into a few games that only have split screen on console so there’s that I suppose.
Console gaming is also easy for casual gamers and people who don’t want to fiddle with tech.
I don’t think there is really much fiddling these days. It’s probably about as much as setting up a console.
If you build your own, then sure that’s more work. But people can buy prebuilt, laptops, or handhelds.
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Before the steamdeck my gpu was an rx 740.
I never needed to tweak settings on a per game basis.
Just go into game options and hit auto detect or select a preset.
It’s really that easy.
Steam Deck
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Battlefield 6 (also bf2042)
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Call of Duty 2025 (whatever they’re calling it these days)
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R6 Siege
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Monster Hunter Wilds
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PUBG
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F1 2024
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FC 25
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Madden 25
Those are just a short list of popular titles that cannot be played on the deck, and in the case of BF and COD this year, possibly on your PC without tinkering. I don’t play most of these titles, just MH Wilds. I do know a LOT of people do play them though.
Consoles satisfy the lowest common denominator which covers most people. They’re easy and just work. Buy the game on a disc and put it in your PS5, let it update and you’re off to the races and very unlikely to have issues.
Windows PCs require minor tinkering from time to time, but they do need tinkering. Driver autoupdates in windows and you start crashing? Yeah, that’s happened a couple times in the past year. I had to get optiscaler going to keep framerate as well as settings high despite having very powerful hardware in Expedition 33 this year in windows, and it’s not even particularly demanding perf wise.
The deck though has tons and tons and tons of titles that need a little bit of poking or prodding, I love mine but it’s got many limitations. I’ve got games that just aren’t properly recognized by gamescope and thus no perf overlay works. After tinkering on linux i’m pretty sure this is a proton issue where it doesn’t properly recognize the game vs a launcher or anticheat.
I game a lot. I have a 9800x3d and a 9070xt running Pop OS (linux) and I can play basically anything I want to play, but it’s certainly not everything. I definitely need to tinker to get stuff to work on Linux, but it’s fairly painless once you figure out you need to carte blanche apply a pulse audio 60ms setting, and you get a good proton switcher to go between cachyos/GE/Proton latest/Proton Experimental versions depending on the game to find one that works without extra tweaking. It’s not easy for a layman, though anyone who has been a PC gamer and has built a couple of systems can probably manage it with a heap of patience and a dual boot config to fall back on when patience fails.
There’s no doubt that the steam deck has made linux more approachable than ever for gamers but it’s hardly a perfect implementation. All PCs require tinkering, and windows sadly is still the easiest among them. It is nice seeing a green checkmark on the deck for a game, but as i’ve seen with Eternal Strands this year, that’s hardly a guarantee that the game will be enjoyable without tinkering if at all.
I get you’re trying to dump buckets of rain on our entire thread here, but can you acknowledge that educating and inviting console users to the PC platform is beneficial for those users and the community as a whole?
There are definitely those who you can’t teach, can’t convince, who are too stubborn to believe there’s any other way than paying eighty dollars for games and spending hundreds of dollars on already obsolete hardware with a mandated walled garden.
However, there are many users who are simply not educated rather than inept, and when you show them the benefits of the PC ecosystem (Steam sales/alternate store platforms, no online fees, modular hardware, etc…), it is entirely possible to convince people to convert (I’ve done so myself), and they find joy in learning.
Additionally, there are solutions to the problems you listed that aren’t a flat out “won’t run” (Windows 10 IOT Enterprise LTSC comes to mind for a less bloated experience for those locked games, for instance), and while no solution is perfect, let us not make perfect the enemy of good here. Console users are fed up with their circumstances. Let us inspire them to join the other side, not feud.
I’m not trying to rain on anything. I’m just injecting some reality. It’s very approachable but you have to know how to research solutions occasionally, which is a pretty low bar. Nothing is flawless, not even consoles.
The deck is an amazing thing that is making PC gaming way more approachable for countless people all over the world. It’s something with a lot more support than any typical gaming PC build.
ProtonDB/Proton has been an amazing resource for streamlining gaming in the linux world, which I believe is the future of gaming some day.
I mean sure, but should we also list all the games you can’t even purchase on consoles?
The “poking and prodding” is literally just settings that you are locked out of on consoles. Literally just purchase games that are verified steam deck compatible, and you’re golden.
If you can’t even purchase a game on a console, you will never struggle to get it to run or pick it up at retail only to find when you get home that your TPM/secureboot config isn’t up to snuff, which is the bleeding edge trend.
I wish the verification process was bulletproof, but it’s not. Stuff like Eternal Strands get released and manage that coveted green checkmark, but end up performing poorly and looking like hot garbage. Looks and plays great on a normal PC though.
Generally the verified deck games are great but the verified profile for that game just… isn’t. It’s certainly playable, but the framerate drops are frustrating in a game that isn’t very easy. There’s no particular objective measurement that gives a game a certain level that i’m aware of.
Then there are games that are given a black mark of “unsupported” by the Steam Deck verification system but run wonderfully like Ghost of Tsushima. There’s a multiplayer mode in the almost exclusively single player open world RPG that doesn’t work on the deck, so it’s entirely disqualified despite being completely functional, absolutely gorgeous and running at very solid framerates on the deck.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the deck and think it’s a giant leap in the right direction with PC gaming, making it a lot more console-like for the plebs. I am realistic for this though. It’s still a poweruser tier device, especially if you want to play niche games or indie titles. The best experience imo is when you tinker and get it to run all manner of programs from competing app stores… and then you’re completely away from the on-rails console-like experience. Even getting chiaki4deck going is a poweruser task.
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Yes there is, you’re just used to it. There’s all the Windows 11 annoyances, anti-virus, fiddling with controller setting and blue tooth, GPU drivers, DirectX crap. It’s easy for you but if your tech experience is basically just turning on your phone then that is a lot.
None of those are things people have to deal with except in very rare circumstances. All the driers are basically handled by windows update or are already in the kernel.
You do not need to do anything with antivirus these days.
Windows 11 makes you sign into an account, so do the consoles.
Pairing a Bluetooth controller technically is something you need to do, but let’s be honest. Is it really challenging?
All those things you have to deal with at least once.
So for someone who doesn’t know how to do any of them, it is a barrier of entry. Why should they learn when they could just buy a cheaper box and be done with it?
I play both. Couch gaming is simply more epic (also comfy). Glorious 7.1 surround on a couch? chefs kiss
This next Steam console will be interesting. With all the success they’ve had from the Steam Deck it might stand a chance this time around.
One of the main failures of the Steam Machine was that there was no baseline “steam machine.” They were just a myriad of prebuilt machines running a specific OS, and was especially confusing to people not already into PC gaming.
The Steam Deck fixed that by being just one thing (pedants fuck off, you know what I mean). If their next console like offering is indeed console like and not just a rebranded PC ecosystem, it probably will see more success than their first venture in Steam Machines.
I really hope they come up with some kind of certification system for games targeting Steam consoles, in the same way Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo do. All the boring stuff like making sure controllers connect and disconnect gracefully, the console can be slept/woken at any point in gameplay without bugs, consistent language/UX etc. That stuff goes a long way to making things “just work” on a platform. IMHO it’s the one edge console still has over PC gaming. Even if it was an optional certification, it would give players some decent guidance as to what will work well.
They do have that for the Steam Deck.
Imagine buying a new console that you can play games you got over a decade ago. And then play on your PC same save files. Then move to your portable device and play your game there too. Crazy.
I’m very skeptical and think there is a reason that the gameboy/handheld form factor gaming laptop and VR headset are coming first.
As it stands? For 500-ish you can get an AMD NUC to throw under the TV and use to play a lot of games locally and stream the rest. You aren’t vibing to max settings Clair Obscur on that but it is well past a Steam Deck.
But the problem is that people want their consoles to “just work”. It is why the Series S was such a shitshow. And to get that performance? You are looking at a lot closer to a thousand bucks than not. Which is a much easier sell when “you need to buy this to play a remake of a PS3 game” versus “you can buy this to play a lot of the games you are already playing because it is a PC”.
Which ALSO ignores what is… probably the bigger problem. That AMD NUC? Good fucking luck getting VRR AND HDR to work on there. General rule of thumb is you can get one and it isn’t even consistent which one you’ll get. Because TVs (and receivers) run on HDMI, not Display Port. And AMD and HDMI 2.1 is like Open Source Alternatives and Raging Assholes. Can Valve get around that with some fairly hefty tweaks to SteamOS? Yeah. But it is gonna generate massive amounts of ill will when the FOSS community hear.
Another day, another record for Steam.
Come on steam deck, we need more users of you! This will drive Linux as a real contender in the gaming market and steam is driving that.
That was probably like 75% BF6 players.
PC gaming emulation on Android and hopefully someday high end regular Linux phones are going to be a big inertial multiplier for PC gaming. Performance for games that work isn’t far off from a Steam Deck from my testing on high end mobile phones. Compatibility and streamlining is still not great though. But a few more years at this rate and anyone with a phone as strong as a Snapdragon 8 gen 3 will have a pocket Steam Deck. PC gaming is going to grow a lot because of that
