They don’t want to compromise battery in favor of performance and I agree. With smaller games like Hades or cult of the lamb my steam deck battery will last and last. On more demanding games like cyberpunk or Armored Core I get a little over an hour out of it best case scenario.
Beefier graphics hardware will only make that issue worse.
I so often use mine plugged in as I’m not walking or in a park, I’m on a bus or train which can often have a plug, so not much of an issue there, however I’m not playing high-end games, it’s so good for stuff like Hades and whatnot.
The thing that made me reconsider buying one is the screen. Make an OLED version and I‘m gonna get one. I‘m not worried about the performance, I‘d get a deck for stuff like Dead Cells and Spelunky, not for stuff like Cyberpunk.
If they made an OLED version and offered replacement screens for burn-in cases in x years, that‘d be absolutely amazing.
Kinda wonder what kind of effect a more powerful nintendo device will have on the whole ecosystem. Nintendo devices are automatically probably going to run smoother watt for watt just because developers will likely prioritize optimisation for that device, so it’s all a bit of an uphill battle for the steam deck there
Nintendo never makes anyhow powerful devices, they juat rely wntirely on developer optimization and only certain dwvelopers are willing to put in the time well and money to publiah for their propriatary and expensive frameworks in the first place.
The WiiU wasn’t more powerful than the competition but the old ones where, they gave up on compeating in terms of specs with the Wii and the Swit h uses a mobile processor that was old and slow even when it came out and can easily be surpassed by most phones if it wasn’t for the insane optimisation. They continue to proof that games matter more than specs and that’s a very profitable and well working strategy so idk where you got those rumors from but I am 99% sure the next switch will have a relatively slow ARM processor again and there is nothing wromg with that if it’s enough fun, it just requires a lot of work from the game developers that not all of them are willing to put in. About the typos, no keyboard in the world can fix my drunken typing and I am fairly happy with mine but thanks for the suggestion I guess…
I can’t really comment on the earlier consoles, but those are some pretty biased comparisons.
The GameCube is more powerful than the PS2, but then the Xbox was more powerful than the GameCube. Then you have the Wii. But then WiiU being more powerful than a console coming out 6 years prior? What kind of argument is that?
The argument for the Switch doesn’t prove anything when there’s very little investment in the handheld console market when the Switch came out. And also, who cares if the Switch’s successor can beat a decade old console? I swear, my phone probably can run a PS4 game based purely on its processing power.
The switch 2 is rumored to be more powerful than the ps4 an old console at this point in time that also had relatively seeker hardware than it could or should of at the time (same with Xbox the and jaguar cores were not that good)
I mean it has a place in the market. Even though facebook sucks, they are the leaders/pushers of VR at the moment. No new person wants to spend 1000+ dollars on something they may end up hating especially with the rumors around the quest 3 lite. Like meta makes up about 60% of the market-share of those who take part in the steam hardware survey.
So does Pixmax, HTC, Valve, or Pico no longer exist? VR is facing issues with adoption. I'm sorry but to the VR snobs even though I love VR having people argue you can't experience it unless you spend close to a grand on something that many people's feelings towards it are take it or leave it is a bit too much for most consumers. Meta is problematic with buying up so many of the vr game makers but at the end of the day these companies chose to sell themselves and lets be honest here the VR market isn't hot right now and prior it was fucking worse.
Yk a monopoly can stilll have competition and be a monopoly right?
And like by definition buying up all the competition is monopolistic, no matter if the companies wanna sell or not, they were influenced by the size of meta (and their financial backing), which gave them an unfair advantage against the competition. Entirely unrelated to hardware or software, both of which are dogshit in comparison - they were able to take a market share cause they can undercut all the competitors, exactly why their headsets are cheap.
Cmon man have like a single thought for yourself that ain’t propaganda
The irony of saying "Cmon man have like a single thought for yourself that ain’t propaganda" while just defaulting to "FaCeBoOk BaD" is peak. I already made mention of how facebook or whatever they are called is shit but you have to be braindead to see before meta entered the scene, VR was dead in the water. So yeah they tried to establish their little stupid metaverse thing and it thankfully failed. You aren't even addressing my point of no consumer wants to pay 1000 fucking bucks on something they likely hate. Most consumers drop off hard on VR. So cheap headsets are a net good thing for VR, even though the cunts who make them are dick heads.
Game devs aren't just going to be developing games if there is no fucking audience to play/buy them. So yeah many of those devs got bought out since Meta was the only one handing money out for VR related tech/games. It was a devil's bargin as shown with Echo VR and many others but I can't fault the devs since getting food on the table pretty fucking important than sticking with the values of some idiot VR snobs who think the only way VR should work is via pc connection on a pc that is valued in the 1k to 2k range on top of the previously mentioned VR headset that can set you back another 1k to 2k. Like I have the opportunity to have a pc in that range and I see how the quest 2 is very inferior to many other headsets but you have to be a fucking moron to invest thousands on something you will play with for a fucking week. So I'm thankful Meta (who is likely spying on its users) gave me an opportunity to try out VR at a "decent" price so now I know I'm into it and can invest further into the industry but nah. You stick with your idiotic groupthink of "MeTa BaD" when I will say I'm glad exist since people can take advantage of this deal and see if they want to further invest in the medium. I can't wait for they to die out but I ain't looking a gift horse in the mouth when they are ones who are the only pushers of VR right now. Apple doesn't give a shit about gaming and while Sony pushes out a pretty damn good headset, they don't let you use them on PC where most of the enthusiasts are. Console players don't want to spend the price of the console they are playing on to possibly play a handful of games with little support afterwards.
Sucks they bought up most things but those devs chose that option and I can't fault them since lets be honest here, VR market is utter garbage, there is very little money in it. I don't like meta, they fucking suck but the quest series has basically provided the option of the common person to actually try vr. Not many people want to spend close to 1k to 2k on a thing they will maybe fucking hate. I wouldn't say they are the sole reason its dogshit but the reality is people need an entry point headset. The market wasn't providing that and now that it does, people can finally get into VR even though it may lead to technical downgrades since the market is targeting those users.
Hell even though the PSVR 2 is a fantastic headset, most console gamers aren't going to spend more money on a peripheral than they actually spend on the console they are playing it on. Hell I would love Sony to give the drivers to PSVR 2 to pc players since shit a bang for your buck for specs but that ain't happening.
I don’t like Meta for a lot of reasons but without them VR would probably be fucking dead by now. Yes, Zucks Metaverse is absolute garbage but the stuff Reality Labs is doing thanks to Metas funding is absolutely amazing.
I gave up on VR for years after buying a Rift in 2017 because it was a janky, horrible to set up, tethered, nausea inducing mess that i paid what, 700 bucks for?
Recently got a used Quest 2 for 200 bucks and it’s fucking amazing. Completely wireless, hand tracking, much better clarity and i can stay in VR for hours without feeling sick.
I wish they would push high quality content a bit more like they used to instead of their shitty Horizon stuff but if it wasn’t for the millions of headsets they sold, no one would be able to develop shit right now for VR.
To say they ruined VR is absolutely delusional imo, sorry.
You got it for $200 because you're paying with your privacy. It's an absolute dumpster fire of a deal that's not remotely worth it. They could pay you $100/hour to play it and requiring an account with them, in and of itself, makes it the worst possible theoretical version of VR.
Facebook is absolutely the reason VR is fucking terrible. Their involvement, in and of itself, completely destroyed the community, many of whom abandoned the space entirely when they took away viable options to replace with privacy invading crimes against humanity. Turning enthusiasts from advocates into activists against their product is the reason there's no money left.
I’m not paying anything, my Quest runs completely offline. I use a separate router for streaming and the Quest is mac address blocked in my main router (just to be sure). ALVR is side loaded onto the Quest so i can play Steam VR games without the need for the Oculus app on my PC at all. It’s not that hard to do if you care about your privacy.
I’m not exactly sure which community they “completely destroyed” but your whole reasoning for that sounds extremely subjective to me. Facebook controls 90% of the VR market, followed by Pico with 4.5%, which is basically a Chinese reverse engineered Quest with ports of Quest games.
Without FB there is no VR market and there is no scenario where Oculus could have managed to sell a similar amount of headsets if Facebook hadn’t bought them.
That being said, i sincerely hope Facebook loses this race and I am pretty terrified of the future when it comes to VR.
Probably for the best. The Deck certification process on games would probably be annoying if they had a whole bunch of revisions with only like 10% difference in performance.
Wait a few years and make the next one a meaningful jump.
Exactly. I’d like to see a few significant improvements for the next gen - namely in screen and performance to match, but my dream would be to see Valve license Framework’s module system (or build something similar of their own) and integrate one of those somewhere on the deck.
It’d be great for the obvious, like adding high-speed storage, but just imagine the possibilities for a handheld gaming console of attachments people could build with a module system that locks in place like that.
Obviously the module thing is a pipe dream and unlikely to happen, but I just feel like there’s a ton of additional potential for that form factor that’s unexplored, and I’d like to see longer generations not only for support, but also so that larger iterative work like designing a module system or whatever can be prioritized over rushing out regular performance upgrades.
I would upgrade for a slightly smaller, more battery efficient Steamdeck with an OLED screen. I know that's a lot to ask for, but definitely performance is the least of my concerns.
I’m holding off until a new version. Doesn’t necessarily need to be faster, but I’m sure they’ve learned a ton with this release. Interested to see their 2.0 release.
Only thing I would ever want more is battery, but I’ve never even drained it and I carry my power brick with me everywhere for my phone/ laptop anyway so. I’d just get this version on the next discount (if I did not have a similar device).
Fair enough, it seems like we’re starting to see smaller performance gains per generation especially in battery devices. Makes sense to not force an update until real iterative performance is available. Asus’s ROG Ally was 1.5-2 years after Steamdeck and seems mostly on par.
Most resources have been diverted to the single player campaign for a while. (Squadron 42)
They communicate what is being done for the persistent universe (Star Citizen) but it’s a slower trickle of features due to the resource allocation.
Generally, they made some really great gameplay engagements over the years but features are being prioritized based on the S42 needs. They only update on S42 once a month, but the updates have been looking like they are nearing feature completion (community speculation, not announcement) just due to them moving more toward bug fix/QA type stuff in recent months.
The next big information dump is scheduled for October at the convention that’s coming up.
They’ve given up on giving dates because the community is very unforgiving if the dates are missed. And in software, dates are almost always missed.
They have a progress tracker on the website that shows the various components that are left to be worked on and which game is for. robertsspaceindustries.com/…/deliverables
Always take the dates with a grain of salt because they usually only list about 1-2 quarters only. But until recently, most of the bars were in S42 rows. I’m hoping for big news around it in October.
The other big indicator for their focus on it was last year when they relocated a bunch of senior leadership in the org to the UK with the stated reasoning of focus on S42 with the trans that were already working on it.
It’s still moving towards completion. At a snail’s pace but it’s moving. To their defense they’ve done some really cool tech with the game engine and stuff but idk if that justifies the timeline imo.
My money is spent regardless though, so I’ll zoom around in my leather interior ship whenever it does release.
Lol arguably, you can actually walk around the interior of your ship in SC. The FPS portions are pretty good. But last time I played (like two years ago) I fell through a staircase.
They have decided to adjust all development focus on being able to stimulate the perfect realistic animation of a poop crowning out of an in-game dog's ass.
The previous world record holder before BG&E2 was Duke Nukem Forever which took 14 years to develop and 9 years from the initial announcement in 2001 to the release in 2010.
Half life 2 episode 3 is supposedly still in the works and supposed to have been out in 2007. You might argue it was cancelled in 2011 when they announced half-life 3 was in development. Half life 3 has yet to be officially cancelled and leaks came out a few years ago of it being an active project.
Counterpoint: Consolidation in such a fast paced industry with a low barrier to entry isn’t as bad as physical goods consolidation. If Microsoft acts in bad faith, people just won’t buy games from that studio anymore, developers will just leave the company and start a new studio, free lance, or work for another party. It’s not like ABK was lighting the market on fire either. Microsoft is buying a trash heap and hoping to turn the internal culture around to bring back neglected IPs
Counter-counterpoint: When Activision bought and consolidated Blizzard an Blizzard North, they made it worse and people still slave away for them, and enough people buy their objectively inferior products to keep them going on life support to be sold again.
They became a poster child of what’s wrong with the industry (Diablo Immortal) and nobody learned anything. Baulder’s Gate 3 did more to further a healthy ecosystem than any merger has.
And how many dozens of indie games came out that same week whose studios folded afterwards? Or how many devs didn’t even release their first games because they ran out of money during development? Or how many smaller studios who were making fun games got irresistible offers from big studios to buy them out? What about the engines that are becoming increasingly more hostile towards devs?
There is currently a handful of devs doing the occational balance patch for SC2 otherwise the game is complelty dead from the developer side. On the MS side, AoE2 and other even older games are doing so much better.
And SS1 came out 29 years ago and just got a remaster. This isn’t a years-pissing context. Starcraft II was supported way long, and extensively. And like all good games, eventually the vast vast majority of players have moved on, and then the devs might move on, too.
The issue is not not players of devs, but the management that probably doesn’t think it’s profitable enough anymore. Yet, Microsoft manages to keep AoE2 going with an even smaller playerbase than SC2.
So MS taking over an abandon francise I care about sounds pretty sweet to me.
yes it does matter. These are businesses. They make money by selling things. You cannot compare one rereleasing the same game with minimal changes for new money to keep supporting an existing game without charging new money.
Isn't the expansion content between SCII's expansions and AoE2's expansions significantly different?
EDIT: the last one was 3 races (note: races are significantly less diverse in AoE2 vs in SC2) and 3 campaigns, each with 6 maps each
I feel like the Co-OP commanders they added fairly frequently would constitute roughly the same amount of race content. Campaign content not so much but the main campaign of each SC2 expansion is 26 stages, not including branching paths.
Not that much. Yes, AoE2 usually adds new factions, that won’t happen in StarCraft II. But introducing new units or reworking existing one is possible.
Adding singleplayer mission is pretty mich the same.
Also the Co-op mode of SC2 is quite popular and there is room to add a “new factions” there.
But do they need the games to be good? Activions sucks balls, but why would microsoft make the games good again and remove all the shit with microtransactions etc.?
I haven’t played it but I have read that Diablo 4 has been mostly well received. I guess there’s been a fiasco about one of the updates to it, but that’s not something unique to Blizzard and theoretically could be fixed in another update, no?
Me too, I know it’s not a popular opinion on here (for good reason) but this should put more pressure on PlayStation and drive competition there, make gsmepass more attractive and hopefully shake things up at Activision blizzard which could go either way, but worth the risk given how shitnthey currently are.
Let’s hope they can chew what they’ve attempted to eat. They can barely manage their first party studios, and now they’re going to attempt to manage one of the biggest publisher/studio.
I mean yeah, that’s how acquisitions and exclusivity works. It’s not like PlayStation bought Bungie to lose money or make exclusivity deals with third parties to bring games to Xbox. That’s just how this industry works.
By manage I mean, they’re gonna handle so many companies without a good track record of being able to do it. To make the money from King they will need to be able to retain talent and steward its properties properly.
they’re gonna handle so many companies without a good track record of being able to do it. To make the money from King they will need to be able to retain talent and steward its properties properly.
No they don't. As we've already seen, MS doesn't have to do anything in regards to development. Promotion, marketing will get a boost but they can be hands off most of the technical details and still make bank. Bethesda, King and Activision are all quite profitable on their own. Now they simply can't develop for Sony and they get distributed on Game Pass day 1.
Also, exclusionary buy-outs are bad for the market and should not have been allowed. MS buying up huge game competitors and then restricting their choice on which platforms to develop for is clearly anti-competitive behavior.
You’re right, they’ve been hands off and basically done bare minimum for marketing and promotion. And it hasn’t been working well for them at all, exhibit A: Halo Infinite, exhibit B: Redfall. Clearly they can’t sustain this anymore.
Starfield has been probably the first example where they actually got invested in the production, delayed a game by a year, got their entire QA team test it. Layoffs from top to bottom at 343 is probably another example of them intervening.
Regarding exclusionary buyouts, I don’t know if you aren’t aware of it. But it has been a thing in this industry for decades. This is how Sony got where it is today, by being highly competitive by making exclusionary deals and buying studios with whom they had exclusionary deals with for years. Sony entered this industry out of nowhere and bought their way into success, and everyone agrees that only made the market more competitive. Xbox had no games and was not bringing competition in market, and now that it has more games, it’s anti competitive?
The difference with MSFT is that they bring their games to PC (an open platform) via Steam, and to Xbox, along with a price accessible service of GamePass, so it doesn’t force a gamer into first buying a $400 console and then a $70 game to play on it.
We can agree to disagree, my original point is primarily around lack of confidence in MSFT’s ability to manage these studios and do justice to their legacy. Sure making workspaces less toxic and inclusive for everyone is a massive win, but will employees stick around under a new management that seems pretty incompetent to eff up their own flagship series (Halo).
No way Microsoft let’s that happen. He’ll be forced out. The only reason Microsoft looked into this consolidation is because he was running the company value into the core of the earth.
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