The difference is that Xbox and PlayStation still allow you to access your digital games or completely reset the console and delete your accounts off the console.
Its different with Switch 2, because now you cannot acces the digital games you legally bought. You cannot even delete your account off of the console. If you bought physical cpoies of games that don’t have the data on the cart, you can’t play those either on Nintendo Switch 2.
I mean, realistically its still Nintendo so I still won’t buy it. I disagree with their business practices ever since Iwata died. Nintendo has gone way downhill, and I don’t want to give them any of my money anymore. It sucks since I really like the old Zelda and Metroid games, but theyre only games. Its not the end of the world. Plus, emulation fixes Nintendos problems anyway.
Honestly, I don’t mind if Nintendo didn’t innovate. I have just wanted a “normal” console from them in a while like a return to their SNES/N64/GameCube days. When they still actually tried to remain competitive, and in the case of the SNES and N64, were technologically ahead of the competition. Sure there were some innovations, but in comparison to the Wii, Wii U, and Switch, their older consoles were more “normal” for their time.
Nowadays they just make underpowered hardware that only truly sells because its usually the cheapest console available and has the Nintendo logo on it. Except Switch 2, which started charging cutting edge tech prices for tech that was cutting edge like 10 years ago. All of the pricing of a better Switch without any of the real improvements except a newer processing unit and slightly bigger screen.
Give me a Switch without a screen. No battery. No detachable controllers. Just a brick that plugs into the wall and the TV, compatible with a Pro controller. Probably could even sell that at a reduced price too. Maybe even overclock it and give it a bigger cooling solution to get better performance. Maybe Nintendo’s newer games can actually run at a stable 60 fps on their own hardware finally.
As an Elite Dangerous Enjoyer (I enjoy Star Citizen too, but SC is more “rule of cool” than “rule of real” than Elite) I appreciate the more or less “grounded in reality” setting that Bethesda created with Starfield. Most planets are giant, empty, desolate rocks or iceballs, which is exactly what one would expect from real life planets. And I suppose this may be a big reason why many people were disappointed. It seems that many expected the game to be “Star Wars Skyrim,” but Star Wars is very unrealistic with regards its planetary depcitions. Planets are varied and generally not shown to be mostly empty, desolate space rocks. Full world cities, jungles, magma, gas storms, etc. Likewise I more or less find the gameplay enjoyable, even with its annoyances (most of which are fixable with mods that are available right now).
However, I actually found myself very disappointed with the visual aesthetics of the game. When Bethesda marketed the game, they described it as “NASA-Punk.” But I suppose my disappointment comes from them failing to communicate what that meant to them, since it obviously meant something different to me.
When I first heard the term “NASA-Punk,” I became excited to see an abundant use of white and black, with copius amounts of shiny gold foil. I expected to see exposed mechanics and rocket piping. Basically, a mood board of NASA created technology from the beginning of NASA up until now. Ships inspired by the Lunar Landers, Lunar Rovers, etc. Bethesda on the other hand, seems to have created an aesthetic of “what would NASA look like 1000 years from now?” Since the two are so drastically different, you likely can imagine my disappointment at what I see as a weird, ugly aesthetic for many of the ship designer parts and space suits.
If I don’t want to play the tutorial and I get absolutely blasted, then I gotta walk my sorry self back to the tutorial like the idiot I chose to be. I like to press all the buttons and figure stuff out on my own, its part of the exploration process.
I don’t hate when certain gameplay elements are forced, but when I am given that impression I expect the whole game to be like that. The tutorial in Dark Souls promised me the game wasn’t going to hold my hand the whole time by letting me completely skip the tutorial, and then it kept that promise. It didn’t hold my hand. And I think that was great. Meanwhile Call of Duty tutorials hold your hand the whole time, and then your hand keeps getting held for the whole game. Also good.
The tutorials I think are bad are ones that fail to properly communicate important features of the game. If I choose to skip that part it is no fault of the game.
For example, Helldivers 2, which I enjoy greatly, has a tutorial that fails to teach the player what the Galactic War means, anything about the various mission types, or especially how to deal with supply lines and reinforcement routes. What happens in the players spend a lot of time and effort doing the wrong thing expecting the right result, a result they can never achieve because the game never actually told them how to do it. There isn’t a bestiary where players can read about various enemies and their weak spots, you just have to trial and error figure it out, or have someone else that did that already tell you.
You cannot take a full unmodified Windows program and directly run it on the Xbox, even in Developer Mode. You have to make changes to the software for the Xbox to run it. Xbox runs a modified version of Windows, but it cannot run software built for the full unmodified version of Windows. I have no experience with developing for PlayStation, but I imagine it is the same, it probably does not run unmodified BSD software. Likewise, Nintendo software needs to be modified in order to run on Nintendo console operating systems. The Switch cannot run unmodified Android software, unless you hack it to install unmodified Android onto the console.
But you CAN take a full unmodified Linux program and directly run it on the Steam Deck, without needing to modify the software at all. Same with the Atari VCS.
Goalposts were not moved. The Steam Deck is a Linux laptop with a controller attached to it, its not a game console.
But the Steam Deck isn’t a console? And a game running through a compatibility layer isn’t a port.
A Linux laptop with a controller instead of a keyboard isn’t a console. Thats similar to the Atari VCS, which isnt a console either, just a Linux PC that comes with controllers. Both can run unmodified or barely modified Linux software, which a game console would require ports of.
Not sure about adaptation, but all of their games have atrocious performance problems. Bloober is like, the King of Stuttering. Definitely doesn’t help that they use Unreal now, but even when they released Layers of Fear and _observer, the performance of their games have always been bad.