Quote from: Neenyah on April 27, 2024, 13:20:54Quote from: indy on April 25, 2024, 18:08:12I'd pick a closed console for gaming over Windows at this point.
Tbh I wouldn't touch consoles as there is literally no freedom at all; you can't upgrade hardware to get better experience, you will likely lose everything you have at some point as they will just shut down online services (like Sony recently with Gran Turismo Sport), their politics (Sony and Nintendo) are even worse than Microsoft's... With Windows you have a pretty good set of options - use it, use it in VM, or simply don't use it and wipe it if you don't need it.
Have to agree with Indy here, Neenyah. The last consoles I had were the Dreamcast and psp. Been a windows pc gamer for over 2 decades but just don't see the point anymore.
Regarding the lack of freedom or closed nature of consoles, I'd say it depends which ones you speak of, if you mean the AMD based ones (e.g. ps4/5 or Xbox one/series) — sure. But the original Tegra switch is fully hacked and wide open. People running multiple distros and I think I saw someone even running windows on it. The only issue is it is underpowered but the switch 2 will rectify this and hopefully it'll get hacked fast just like every other Nintendo console.
You can't upgrade hardware yeah, but what does this accomplish? Still seeing digital foundry videos of people with RTX 4090s getting compilation stutter along with many other issues. Rather have weaker hardware with just more consistent optimized software experience. Current studios and / or game dev's really don't give a sheet pc market or users. Besides "lol, if it doesn't work well, maybe try upgrade to rtx 5090 next year" and it'll still likely run like trash. I don't wish to support such an industry anymore.
The argument of online services shutting down and likely to lose stuff in future isn't a pc specific issue anymore. It affects all including consoles and mobile. This is what emulation efforts for preservation are for. And I'd argue the console emulation preservation scene is light years ahead of PCs. Lost count how many older pc games from ms-dos era and after I just can't find anymore. In comparison, the entire console libraries are fairly well preserved (well especially the Nintendo ones). And even efforts for reviving or reverse engineering the online server emulation code are well under way for them.
Don't get me started on the fact that you've to install multiple drm infested store fronts on pc or that pc games are 150+ gb these days because nobody feels like optimizing their sheet to get with proper compression.
Yeah, you can install VM to reduce risk, you can try to mitigate the issues by "upgrading" to the next RTX **90 every 2 years. But tired of having to go through all that effort and hoops.
Rather just get a switch 2 wait for it to get hacked and can then get my freedom without being forced to spend $3000+ including upgrades just to minimize stutter.
Literally nvidia is currently making a mockery of pc gamers at the moment, AMD is too busy supply/focusing on Data center, consoles and attempting to follow nvidia in AI market to care about pc consumer issues. And intel / Qualcomm I don't think they honestly have the competence to help pc gamers. No clue how anyone can support windows pc segment at the moment.
Entire market is a joke. Dont know much about Linux but I can't imagine it being all that much worse. The only bright side is I see too all this is that due to all this (inadept) competition, I do think we're going to start seeing quite some decent deals on meteor lake, hawk point and possibly even on snapdragon x elite (if recent rumors are to believed that it's a dud) by the end of this year for laptops.
Did I forget to mention how it's almost impossible to easily stop windows 11 home (literally what is preinstalled on 98% of laptops out there by oems) from force updating and restarting without paying Microsoft more to upgrade to win pro version? That alone has just almost killed any future interest I had in windows. And the fact that windows office is essentially limited time only trial ware these days on most laptops. Don't remember if this was always the case, and not such a big deal since most people are just moving to google docs these days anyways but you'd think due to all this increased competition now maybe the right the to do would be a more consumer friendly move?