I personally would by a ps6 in a heartbeat, and likely the switch 2. I’ve bought an Xbox one which I sold after the dust on it got too much, and a series x whoch also never gets turned on. 2 gen burns in a row is enough for me to exclude it from my console purchase next gen.
I’ll probably get the Switch 2 when they do their mid-gen refresh model, but I think I’ll skip the PS6. Sony ports their stuff to PC after a few years now and I’m a patient gamer type anyway.
I didn’t see that coming, and it’s a welcome development. If it warps the general PC hardware market enough that devs start optimizing for a standard platform, it’ll result in less buggy products at launch. And maybe orienting development towards a relatively underpowered platform will make it easier for those of us dumb enough to that like to spend more on a desktop to hit those 60 FPS targets.
I think it’s more important that it gives Valve a method of avoiding being shoehorned into a “Windows only world”. The Steam Deck is largely why Linux has pushed past 2% market share on the Steam Hardware Survey consistently now. Holo, which is the codename for SteamOS on the Deck, makes up over half of Steam on Linux.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dillusional. Windows is still far and away the majority platform and will be for some time. However, there is a real, functional choice now that didn’t exist a few years ago.
True, but even if Steam were to offer a x% lower cut on sales for Linux users if the developer makes a Linux-native build, it’d still not entice many to build and maintain a native port if they are only saving x% off a tiny y% of users. Other poster’s point being that incentives like this would actually become enticing to companies when Linux market share (Proton users) increases.
Doubtful Steam is gonna offer a share cut on all sales when it runs on Proton for the 2% of userbase using Linux, and from that only a minority would care whether or not it’s native anyway.
Valve could start by releasing a Steam Deck SDK for Visual Studio that exposes an “Export to Steam Deck” option when targets the latest release of Steam Linux Runtime.
Currently they offer Docker containers which is good but could be improved.
Back when Steam Machines were a thing and Valve tried to only push Linux native games, game developers got placements on Steam Store’s landing page banner in return.
Proton is so good that devs have actually gotten better performance by dropping their native Linux build and just running a proton-emulated version in Linux 😀
The benefit of Steam is backwards compatibility. The moment you force native porting you lose your greatest benefit. Since you anyway have to build backwards compatibility with Windows you gain nothing by incentivizing native Linux and the developers gain nothing from being incentivized to build native because their games will work through Proton.
There’s no reason for Valve to incentivize native builds. It’s the devs that need to have an incentive to develop natively for Linux. And with the market share being what it is there’s no incentive for the devs either.
I see you don’t know about Steam Linux Runtimes which are backwards and forwards compatible. 1.0 (“scout”) is based on Ubuntu 12.04, so already 12 years of binary compatibility.
I think you’re missing the point. It’s not about OS backwards compatibility, it’s user library backwards compatibility. Imagine if proton didn’t exist and you have 15 years of Steam library that has expanded on a yearly basis. You now buy the Steam Deck to play your library. What games can you play? I guarantee you couldn’t play 99% of your library because less than 1% of all games on Steam have been made natively for Linux. If you can’t play 99% of your library what’s the point of owning the deck? This is why Valve is pouring money into Proton, because Proton is the tool that gives users backwards compatibility for their library. Without proton the Steam Deck would be an utter failure.
It’s also why they don’t need to incentivize native builds, because they already solved that problem on their own with Proton. Why put effort into having developers develop native builds when you could just put that effort into Proton and essentially get the same result (and extra benefits) without hoping the developers do something they didn’t want to do in the first place?
I think you’re missing the point. It’s not about OS backwards compatibility, it’s user library backwards compatibility.
I never proposed to ax Proton, so I’m not the one here missing any points.
It’s also why they don’t need to incentivize native builds, because they already solved that problem on their own with Proton. Why put effort into having developers develop native builds when you could just put that effort into Proton and essentially get the same result (and extra benefits) without hoping the developers do something they didn’t want to do in the first place?
I explained several times already that game updates breaking Proton compatibility is a real thing that would not have happened with native games.
Game developers develop for dedicated platforms other than Windows all the time. They’re called game consoles. Native games don’t just mysteriously break on updates or suddenly ban players because the game developer out of the blue decided that Proton is cheating. First launch of games doesn’t annoy with those stupid Microsoft runtime installer scripts, etc. Proper native games could be optimized the way console games are instead of relying on multiple levels of Windows compatibility layers (the newest BS Proton has to deal with is gamepad compatibility for launchers via a special input wrapper) – they are just a smoother experience all around.
So you understand that it is way more beneficial for Valve to support proton than native Linux, and then say that Valve should incentivize native builds?
So you understand that it is way more beneficial for Valve to support proton than native Linux, and then say that Valve should incentivize native builds?
Proton should be the focus for older, existing games and native games should be the focus for new games. Not really that hard to understand.
In some far future, sure. But at the moment Linux barely makes up 2% of the users and that number is not going to rise if developers started developing natively for Linux. There is currenttly negative incentive for developers to develop natively for Linux, I can’t find the article but there was a developer who ported their game to Linux and while Linux was barely a speck of their playerbase the Linux users made up the majority of support tickets. Valve would need insane incentives to get developers to develop for Linux. Or they could take fraction of that effort and make Proton better. Quite frankly I’m not sure why I even need to explain this, it should be a no-brainer to understand why supporting Proton right now is much better for Valve than incentivizing Linux builds.
In some far future, sure. But at the moment Linux barely makes up 2% of the users
Fun fact: Whenever a console maker launches a new console, ahead of launch the user base is 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000%. And yet no one of them would even think about not incentivizing game development for the upcoming platform.
and that number is not going to rise if developers started developing natively for Linux.
Based on which argument? Games on occasion break on updates. Players get banned for using Proton. That’s negative publicity.
There is currenttly negative incentive for developers to develop natively for Linux, I can’t find the article but there was a developer who ported their game to Linux and while Linux was barely a speck of their playerbase the Linux users made up the majority of support tickets.
Doesn’t change the fact that native games lead to a better experience for consumers (which I already outlined).
Valve would need insane incentives to get developers to develop for Linux. Or they could take fraction of that effort and make Proton better.
Start by offering a proper SDK that plugs into Visual Studio. You’re acting as if incentivizing would cost insane amounts of money, based on no fact at all.
Quite frankly I’m not sure why I even need to explain this
You barely explained anything. I explained why emulated Windows games lead to worse user experience. You refuted nothing of that.
Fun fact: Whenever a console maker launches a new console, ahead of launch the user base is 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000%. And yet no one of them would even think about not incentivizing game development for the upcoming platform.
Actually, no. There’s a reason why for multiple generations we’ve had only 3 console selling companies, because all of them have a pre-existing user bases. We saw when a new player wanted to come to the market, Google tried with Stadia. Not exactly a new console, but a new platform where to play games. Sure, they literally paid companies to get their games on their platform, but in the end they still failed because they could not build a user base. And to bring this point back to Steam Deck, Valve doesn’t need to incentivize native Linux builds because Proton can make those games available on the Steam Deck. Steam deck is literally a success without Valve ever incentivizing Linux builds. Oh, and Valve also had a pre-existing user base to make Steam Deck a success. What you’re saying is so wrong I shouldn’t even be explaining any of it.
Based on which argument? Games on occasion break on updates. Players get banned for using Proton. That’s negative publicity.
With those negatives you’ve shown that at best native builds retain the existing user base. That is not the same as growing a user base.
Doesn’t change the fact that native games lead to a better experience for consumers (which I already outlined).
That is not a fact. That comes down to implementation and considering most developers are not familiar with Linux it’s very much a stretch that they could actually give a better experience than what Proton gives by default. Proton does a really good job, I personally have had minimal issues with Proton and considering the impact it has had on Linux gaming I don’t think I’m the exception here.
I also urge you to look at it from a game dev perspective. You see your game run acceptably on Proton. Do you really want to put in the effort to learn Linux to such degree that you can make the native experience better than the acceptable experience Proton gives, for no additional effort? If I was a game dev, I wouldn’t do it. I’d put that effort into making a next game.
Start by offering a proper SDK that plugs into Visual Studio. You’re acting as if incentivizing would cost insane amounts of money, based on no fact at all.
Sequeing from the previous point. Okay, Valve offers the proper SDK. What’s the incentive for the game dev to actually use it? Why should they spend time learning how to make a game for Linux when they could make another game for Windows and know that it probably also works on Linux thanks to Proton? Unless they themselves want to make a game for Linux there’s no reason for them to actually use it.
You barely explained anything. I explained why emulated Windows games lead to worse user experience. You refuted nothing of that.
Because it needs to explanation. Just go into any Linux gaming community and ask what has been the most impactful thing in Linux gaming for the past decade. The unquestionable number 1 reason is Proton. If there’s anything right now growing the Linux user base it’s Proton.
Does Proton do a worse job than a developer making the game natively for Linux. As I alluded to before, not that clear cut of an answer. But the part you’re so adamant on ignoring is that does making a native build pay off compared to just having Proton handle it? I imagine most game devs would say “no”. Linux playerbase is still too small for developers to give it any attention, which is why Proton is a fucking godsend because it allows users to play games on Linux even if the developers don’t even consider Linux support.
As long as the user base is too small for developers to care all efforts should go into Proton. Valve can’t make developers care unless Valve literally throws money in their face to make them care. And Valve does not need to do that because Proton does a good enough job to not need to throw money at the developers.
That’s it, I’m done. If you’ve got anything to say I have my middle finger up towards the camera. I get it, your pet dream is native Linux gaming. Nothing I say matters because you want to believe your dream. Nothing you say matters because I’m not going to believe your unrealistic dream. I literally don’t care what more you have to say because to me it comes across like a flat earther explaining why the earth is flat. I’m not going to waste any more time explaining how the world is round and with that I consider the discussion concluded.
It doesn’t really matter though, because Wine is mature enough that it’s not a hacky diy fix, it’s a viable solution. None of the games I play run any worse on Linux than they did on Windows, and some run better. The vast majority of people don’t care whether it’s native or not, they just want it to work.
how i personally see it is that it welcomes devs to set a new minimum pc requirement to target. due to valve not doing contstent iterations (which imo is actually a good thing), it gives people a point of performance comparison reference to when wanting to play a new title.
When Xcloud eventually (promises, promises, Phil) gets purchased games access, there’ll be no need for the console anymore. Hell, PC gamers could (in theory, anyway) play GTA VI by buying the Xbox version and playing it on Xcloud (again, if purchased games comes to it, it’s been promised for years).
I have no interest in my gaming experience being at the mercy of network latency. It’s bad enough for online games, but there’s no getting around that other than physically going to the same location as everyone else you are playing with. Big no for single player games. If cloud gaming does replace locally computed gaming, it will be another case of enshitification.
I have a buddy with a catering gig who works on film sets all over, an RV trailer with kitchen and a tv and Xbox in the back that we’d fire up in between meal times. No wifi when you’re filming a snowboarding video in the mountains …if they force that into every game then him and people like him will just stop buying new games altogether.
First off, that’s not Nintendo. That’s a third party controller manufacturer. Secondly, they’re basing that entirely off the specs they got for new controllers and docks. All that’s really confirmed by the article is that the next system will have a similar form factor with iteratively improved controllers and docks. Which is in the ‘fucking obvious’ category. Their speculation about the actual internal hardware specs was pulled straight from their ass.
They’ve made a lot of good peripherals like keyboards, mice, joysticks. Xbox one used to support Kinect and TV tuners which was nice.
The surface line has been interesting, and I’d be tempted to buy one if they didn’t come with Windows 11 (I need to look up if you can install Win 10 on the newer ones).
They came out with some wild stuff during the Sidekick phone days like Microsoft Kin and Zune. But honestly current management doesn’t seem to be interested in anything but boring but profitable software services (like Xbox game pass) that they can charge a subscription for.
Edit: I wish Zelicam hadn’t deleted his comments. They were good questions/conversation.
At an old company I joined they had rolled them out to all employees. Six months before me getting onboard they had already given up, but we still had to support the ones out in the field. Fun fact about Surfaces, despite it being MS hardware running an MS operating system, the Windows 10 and 11 base system does not have drivers for the keyboard or mouse. You have to use a special image for the Surface devices. That meant maintaining two custom WIM images for deployment and keeping them in sync. We scrapped the remaining Surfaces and gave people the choice of Macs or ThinkPads instead. You can guess which was more popular among the office folk.
I’m really curious when Microsoft will start seeing the fruits of all their purchases. They’ve bought up a lot of game devs. Seems modern games cook for 3-4 years before publishing, so some might be turning up soon.
I think next generation could have some.pretty good Microsoft exclusives. If they had a Xbox handheld next Gen I would buy it. Otherwise I will pass honestly. I’ve had every Xbox since the original. I’m old and just play steamdeck now!
Microsoft has pushed and pushed and pushed and finally achieved their goal of going digital-only with Game Pass. I’m 100% confident that the next console won’t have physical media options, so I probably won’t be getting it as I don’t want Microsoft dictating whether I own something or not.
It’s pretty late in its life, could be that anyone who would be a potential sale got one at this point? I remember that being, at the time, the reason for the sharp decline in Ocarina of Time sales in Japan, they effectively sold one to everyone who has an N64 so they “maxed out”.
According this chart from Ars Technica the switch and ps5 were still growing during the same period so then the question would be why the number of Xbox potential buyers is so much smaller than the others.
I am not a marketing expert, but when headlines pile up implicating that Microsoft doesn’t fully stand behind XBox anymore, no wonder the number for new customers tank. I wouldn’t “invest” in something that seems to be on the way out either.
Judging by how Sony is doing even though they clearly “won” with the PS5, it looks like consoles as we know them are not long for this world, and that seems to be the idea Microsoft is pivoting around.
Xbox should just go straight pc game setup for the living room. A mass produced windows (I know, blegh) pc with a pretty solid gpu and Xbox controllers. Basically the steam deck treatment for the living room.
That’s pretty much what the Xbox has been since the beginning. The original runs fucking directX and runs so similarly to PCs of the era under the hood that porting shit to it is famously easy. It’s why the homebrew scene for it was so mind bogglingly huge.
Numerous times at E3 when they had demo units of new consoles people saw that the debug menus meant for staff were some mangled form of the current (at the time) Windows OS.
Most modern game consoles don’t use much specialty hardware anymore. The OG Switch uses the nvidea shield CPU just downclocked, and can run android easily. Some emulators literally run better on the Switch through Android than as homebrew “native” apps.
Yes, but games were always “xbox” games. I straight up mean open for pretty much all PC games to run on. If a game dev makes their game work with an x box control scheme, you can play it.
Saving this site. I was still using 1337x through a proxy.
Edit: Actually just clicked the link and noticed that I used it before I think for 2 trails games, maybe. I had already bought it on PlayStation and wanted to play it on PC as the whole trails series is on PC and not PlayStation and I owned most of the games at the time on PC so wanted the last of the 2 cold steel games to finish the collection and that way they were in one place.
You press the server list and the first thing you see is just a massive list of Nazi Germany RP going by as many names as you can think of. You keep scrolling down looking for a normal sever and learn every possible way to code “you play as the Nazis in this server” as you go.
I heard if you go into your bathroom and turn off the lights. Then close your eyes and spin around three times well saying “Nintendo, Nintendo, Nintendo!”
It will summon their lawyers and they will drag you to court through your bathroom mirror for violating copyright.
How efficient is it to antagonize people that are actively promoting your own content for free on other platforms? Does this actually work for Nintendo?
I guess they antagonize anyone that has moderate exposure using their IP
In some countries copyright law says that if you let people use your copyrighted material with little to no impediment then you cannot suddenly request whoever is using your material to stop
Let’s say that Nintendo allows fans to make fan made Mario games for 5 years. Then they suddenly sue everyone and say “hey you have to pay for copyright or shutdown”. A judge can decide that since they didn’t enforce their copyright for some time they cannot sue people that are using their IP.
From a legal perspective the act of policing your own copyrighted material is the company’s responsibility. This law prevents companies from relaxing their copyright claims for years (essentially allowing people to use it) and then suing everyone for using their IP. In other words Just let everyone use it, then sue them. The law is there to prevent that
Nintendo is likely super strict because “let people use your copyrighted material with little to no impediment” has room for interpretation in a court room. So they go to the conservative side and shut down everyone. Also consider that they’re right next to China. The piracy capital of the world. It’s not a surprise they’re scared about their copyright.
I’m not saying that what they’re doing is right. It’s not. But I see where it comes from.
People that don’t know of this (or don’t care) will indiscriminately buy their products. To unseat them it would require a handheld that targets the same market and a killer game for that handheld.
Nintendo is a “family friendly” brand before all else and really only cares about the experience of children playing their games and adults buying their games for children to play. They count on their core IPs to draw in those kids as adults, but don’t put much effort in catering to an adult audience. They put more effort in with the Switch (game store with more adult oriented games), but still minimal effort - their original properties are family friendly.
They see other people using their IP as diluting their brand value rather than promoting it. They think their characters are what makes people nostalgic for their games and drives brand value. So they want you to only be able to see your “favorite Nintendo characters” from Nintendo official sources and have complete control over that experience.
I think they’re wrong about most of that. The characters are, for the most part, pretty generic and simple. What people like about Nintendo is that the games are accessible, they played when they were kids, and they were often introduced to those games by parents or older siblings. There’s a social context to Nintendo games that is unique and nostalgic. They’re often some of the first games you play as a kid, and they’re the first games you think of when you want to introduce your own kids/nieces & nephews, etc. to gaming. I don’t think that unofficial Super Smash Bros tournaments or Gary’s Mod having fan-made Mario models in it dilutes that in the slightest but Nintendo does drive away adults who are the primary drivers of the Nintendo brand’s popularity (as they are the purchasers). Once it’s these young adults’ turn to share Nintendo games with the next generation, I think Nintendo’s litigiousness will hurt them because it will have driven many of these people away.
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