This means you can't pass the game around to your friends or sell it afterwards, which completely ruins the purpose of physical media imo. I mostly play PC these days so this doesn't affect me, but it's a disappointing direction for console games. At least they could've used an empty disc that has proof of ownership.
What's the point of even having a console at this point? I understood when they were easier to set up then computers and cheaper than computers, but now they are just as hard and just as pricy. They had the benefit of being able to share and resell games, but even that's gone away. What's left other than exclusives and momentum?
You can’t build an equivalent PC for the price of a PS5. That’s the benefit of consoles. They’re a singular spec that developers can optimize for. So they’re always going to run better than a PC that costs hundreds more.
Now that I have a Steam Deck I just don't see me ever owning another console or even gaming PC. It has one of the main advantages of consoles (a single hardware profile to support) and it's light years ahead. I have yet to find anything I want to play that I can't play.
Does it have a docker so you can play it on the tv like the Switch? Or is it strictly handheld? Sorry, I'm way out of the loop on PC gaming
It does. But any decent USB C hub will work too. It's a PC! The main downside compared to the Switch, is that the transition between handheld and TV isn't as smooth, due to the different screen aspect ratio (Steam Deck is 16:10, most TVs are 16:9). From my own experience, I usually have to restart the game for it to fill the screen properly.
Neat! Thanks for the info!
Gamepass on my Series X plus easier couch gaming are reasons that I’ll play some games on it over my PC. Plugging a computer into a TV isn’t great because something tends to come up that requires mouse and keyboard. There are ways around it but it’s not as seamless as just plugging in a console. A Series X is still cheaper than a comparable PC now that they’re starting to stay on shelves. It’s less free as in freedom but you’ll play 4K games unlike a $500 PC (especially if you have to budget for a monitor mouse and keyboard). Discord on Xbox also slaps right now and cross play is in a significant amount of games, so you aren’t trapped to only playing games with people who own your console.
Not a defense of the starfield physical stuff, just showing that owning a console isn’t just some dumb thing normies do. I love both my computer and my console and both serve different purposes for different games.
I'm a PC gamer predominately, but I can absolutely share and resell my physical discs from console -- that hasn't actually gone away. I would say for sure that the amount of fiddling that I have to do on my PC and Steamdeck sometimes, and the number of bad PC ports in the last year, are dealbreakers for people who aren't quite as enthusiastic. Maybe a bigger part of is just the "living room" aspect -- no matter how many times I've tried using an NVIDIA Shield or Steam Link or whatever, streaming from my PC to the living room is janky, at least for my purposes. (I also do a significant amount of work on my PC, which I don't want to have streamed into my living room, and I multitask like a fiend so even full-sizing a game window is a non-starter for me.) And of course, the second "living room PC" is not a concept that has caught on yet, so people with one PC will probably prioritize that for work.
Which sort of brings me to what I think is the bigger "thing," which is just mental separation. Some people don't want to play games at the same desk they work at, or even the same room they work at, and they want to be in the "relaxing" space. They don't want whatever drama is on their computer (social media, work e-mails, e-mails in general, whatever Windows bullshit is going on that day) to interact with their videogaming.
Also something Steam enthusiasts hate to hear, but it's true: Steam sales aren't what they used to be, and even though I don't buy console games, when I'm trying to price out something I would like to play, 9/10 times I can find a $20 disk on Amazon or Wal-Mart while it's full priced on Steam, because excess physical disks get their prices cut for warehouse space.
I prefer my PS5 and Switch over my PC because I work as a helpdesk tech for a living. I am so sick of looking at computers by the time the work day is done. Like, firing up a game on my PC feels like a goddamn chore after working on PCs for 8 hours at work.