Roblox is what Meta vr aspired to be. It’s kids socializing, creating things, selling them, playing with each other, playing against each other. The user created content can be quite good, my 13 year old always goes back to Roblox like he used to with Minecraft.
I am having a really hard time being supportive of my daughter’s use of Roblox.
We supervise reasonably closely so I’m not overly concerned about it from a child safety point of view even though the platform has a long history of not being a particularly safe online space.
The part that I’m worried about is that 99% of the content seems totally and utterly pointless. Most games have zero objectives and just centre on some stupid novelty game mechanic: oh, your neck gets longer, or you can be a wolf. What do we do now? Oh, we just walk around. We’re a wolf.
There’s nothing to achieve, there’s no skill involved, no mastery of a game mechanic. It just seems completely without value to me. I’m stuck questioning if I’m just out of touch or if I should try and guide her towards taking on something a little more challenging.
The only part I like is that she plays with her school friends on the platform - they use external voice comms and just kind of hang out…I just wish they would do the same thing on a game that would challenge them in some way.
I am completely out of the loop and had not heard of this company’s products, including this one. Looks awesome! I’m surprised it plays GBA games in addition to GB and GBC.
I know I have my Pokemon Silver cartridge around somewhere. I’ve got plenty of GBA ones. Maybe time to look at this device.
Anyone with investing money can make some free money courtesy of capitalism. The stock drop is guaranteed to go back up because AI world gen hype is all hype and no substance. If there’s going to be continued development of this model it’s going to eventually pivot away from gaming.
Hey don’t be so quick to dismiss it! The article says that apparently Elon Musk has promised “Real-time, high-quality shows and video games at scale, customized to the individual, next year.”
Next year man! He promised it!! It’s gonna be like, just any game you dream of will be instantly created, exactly matching what you imagined and with fantastic world-building and beautifully complex interwoven story-lines!!! It’s gonna be amazing bro!!!!
The specs do not impress me for a company that prides itself for being technologically creative. The Steam Deck was a massive success for what they were able to do with that. But this? This is like a glorified Raspberry Pi if it was done by Valve.
Even if you could expand the RAM and storage, everything else is just sitting there waiting to be obsolete in a couple years. I just don't get who they're trying to make this for. You can easily build a PC with a reasonable budget that could easily tackle things this cube probably couldn't.
Individuals who game, are more likely going to look at this wanting all of the latest AAA games to work and I don't see this cube doing the workload for long. And for the projected price point, it definitely won't be worth the price.
It’s supposed to be a console. You connect it to your TV and it more or less just works. Like a PS5 or Series X, except it has more games. The entire thing consumes about half the power of just my low-end graphics card from a few years ago (3060 ti). These CPUs also aren’t available as socketed versions, nor would it be a good idea because then a user might use a chip that generates too much heat compared to the design here.
This ISN’T meant to compete with a PC. If you already have a gaming PC, you don’t want a Steam Machine. If you have a current gen console, you probably don’t want a Steam Machine.
There’s a lot of speculation as to the price. If any of the guesses from various outlets end up being true, it could be less than $500 and potentially less than $400, while there have been hints at the next generation of Xbox costing $1000. But this is all speculation.
Basically, it’s a way to get into gaming with a console-like experience, a low price, and the ability to keep your game library when you evolve into a “real” PC gamer. Honestly, if my kid was old enough to get into gaming, I’d consider one. Genius move from Valve targeting specifically a market previously untapped by them - not us folks who already buy our games on Steam.
everything else is just sitting there waiting to be obsolete in a couple years
a bit out from the cutting edge, sure, but obsolete? This aint the 90s or the Aughts any more.
A machine put together 10 years ago will still run most things fine. Not at the fanciest settings, but fine. This is essentially the same criticism PC gaming has been lobbing at consoles for years, and now we have essentially a PC masquerading it’s way into the console wing of the market – of course the same criticism still apply! It’s not incredibly beefy because it doesn’t need to be. Different audience, different requirements.
everything else is just sitting there waiting to be obsolete in a couple years.
That’s what some people said about the Steam Deck. More than a couple of years later, it is still popular; clearly not obsolete.
I just don’t get who they’re trying to make this for. You can easily build a PC with a reasonable budget that could easily tackle things this cube probably couldn’t.
I think you’re overlooking the fact that most gamers have different skills and priorities than yours. Not everyone would find it easy to build a computer at all, let alone build a quiet and compact one with well-matched components, a tuned and convenient OS, and good support.
This device is probably not a good fit for you. It probably is a good fit for many people outside of gaming PC enthusiast circles. Especially now that Valve has established its hardware as a well-defined platform for game developers to support.
Anyone remember Master X Master? It was a MOBA that had WASD controls as its only option, even had a jump (though it was mostly useless), it felt so much more intuitive than spamming click. I don’t think that’ll get me to try LoL again though.
I might be convinced to care just a small, tiny, minuscule amount if it was an indie game. But a corporation like Sony? They can get fucked hard and often with a chainsaw, for all I care.
That’s true, it took them 10-15 years but they built a huge service business. I was specifically referring to the loss of the desktop market to the “clones” which has a rough equivalence.
It was more of a cheap shot than a serious prediction ☺️ As long as MS controls the licensing and software this is a completely logical move.
Microsoft may as well just cancel their whole Xbox hardware business. Xbox Series is a secondary market for Microsoft games after PlayStation and any console successor they release is going to limp to the starting line. At least the XSX had hype from the Bethesda acquisition and previous Obsidian/Inxile/etc acquisitions
Really we all need a Steam Deck 2 and a stronger Valve produced Strix Halo mini-PC
It’s looking like the Xbox will stick around as a cheap entry point into Game Pass and the games that Microsoft publishes themselves. Yes, I know, it’s not as cheap as it used to be, but still fairly capable for a game machine at that price. The Steam mini PC is likely on its way. A couple of months back, there were leaks of the new Steam controller that leaked on their way to be mass produced after finalizing the design, so they’d probably accompany the living room machine. In the meantime, I have a mini PC running Bazzite that’s been awesome, but with tariffs in the US, you won’t be able to get the same performance per dollar that I got.
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