• jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 months ago

    Worse. All games used to let you create your own servers to play with friends. That’s basically gone.

    • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Not just that. People wonder why online games are so toxic, overly competitive and filled with cheaters. Matchmaking is the reason.

      You don’t have to be nice because chances are you’re never going to play with those people again. All other matchmade players are just glorified bots, they’re completely dehumanized. That means shitheads can act like shitheads without any repercussions. Compare that to community servers where the admin will ban you if you’re an asshole. You even end up making friends because the same people will visit the same server.

      And what’s your purpose for playing when everyone you’re playing with are glorified bots? Well your focus turns on you which in turn means your main metric of fun becomes your own skill. Since you can directly measure your own skill you look a things like wins/losses and kdr. You start to focus on things that correlate to competitive play and if the matchmaking is skill-based the game actually pushes you into sweats as the goal is to get you to a statistical 50% winrate. Now compare that to community servers where you’re not pushed into sweats, the overall skill of players stays largely the same and because you’ll be playing with people you know there no need to focus on being the best you can be, you can just mess around with others.

      And of course cheating is a huge issue, but again it’s one of those things where having an admin to vet sus players make a huge difference. The admin isn’t infallible but cheating is less of an issue if you’re playing with people you know.

      But people would much rather give it all up and deal with toxicity, sweats and cheating because the server admin could be a badmin. But maybe I’m just old and am remembering the good old days when you could make friends playing on the same server.

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Jesus. I hadn’t thought about it.

        I never make friends in games these days. I just drone around and quit when I get tired of it. I don’t even like multiplayer anymore. This is why.

        Back in Counter-Strike/CS: Source days I made a ton of real friends. I knew what was going on in their lives. I congratulated them when they got married and had kids.

        My clan server was always full of regulars just laughing and telling jokes and making changes to the server to see what worked for us. We had it perfect. Vote for knife fights, fun sounds like “gotchya bitch” for a knife kill. We built it together and we all stumbled into the server by accident and it just fit who were so we stayed. We had a rotation of maps that we all agreed on.

        They’re still on my friends list. Last online 11 years ago, 7 years ago, 13 years ago, 12 years ago.

        Damn, looking at that hurt a little bit.

        It’s sad just how fast time goes. I have no idea where they are now or what they’re doing. That sucks.

        The last time I talked to the one dude he had overdosed on heroin and was trying to get his life together. He might not even be alive anymore.

        For nearly 5 years I hung out with those dudes every night.

        I meet people now that I could see myself being friends with, but there’s no incentive to talk to them again. Random lobby, play game, the end.

        I was hoping GO (now 2) would have an active user base in the servers. Nope. No gungame, no endless custom maps, no fun sounds, just base shit.

        As sad as it was, I’m glad you made me think about this tonight.

      • pc486@reddthat.com
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        11 months ago

        Spot on!

        Sometimes even cheaters could be dealt with without an admin in those days. Servers would have fun game settings and odd maps that would break cheating gameplay.

        My brother and I often played CS in the same room, on opposing teams because we didn’t like being cheated and didn’t want to be cheaters. We found an empty server with a sniping-only map. Made for great fun and someone joined in about 15 minutes later. They seemed really good, so we joined together to see if we could make it challenging. The new guy was just too good, so we decided to swap back and forth with the new guy to see if one of us could make a 1v2 miracle happen. That’s when we figured out he was impossibly aim hacking. Bummer, our fun game was toasted.

        Then we realized the map settings had friendly fire on and a 5 second start delay. Aim hacks don’t target your own teammates. A perfect trap was available: we’d headshot TK the cheater at game start and then 1v1 each other. The cheater tried swapping to the other team only to find my brother using the same TK tactic. Our cheating friend found himself without a chance to grift. Needless to say, he didn’t hang around for long.

    • SpaghettiYeti@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I miss the days of opening Steam and being able to search a million servers to find the specific niche type of game I wanted in CS. Warcraft, custom maps, zombie… So fun

      • CluelessDude@lemmy.zipOP
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        11 months ago

        There’s people actively working on bringing those to cs2, but you wouldn’t know by the massive shitshow that the server browser is with thousands of redirects currently, which is why the community also built a server browser if you search CS2Browser you’ll find it, you can go back to enjoying it ^^

    • MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      I don’t doubt this this is generally the case, but most of the games I enjoy playing with friends offer their own servers. Which got me thinking about it, and they tend to be indie games.

      So it’s not gone. Niche, perhaps.

    • AsterixTheGoth@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      AKA dedicated servers. They exist now for games now, but are… well not rare, but very specific. Factorio has a dedicated server. Ark has a dedicated server. Valheim, Space Engineers (windows only), Satisfactory, to name a few that I’ve dealt with myself. Demand them. Punish devs who don’t accommodate them with your wallets. No user dedicated servers, no purchase. Fuck you and the distributed info-scraping service you rode in on.

      I have a list of games I will never buy because they have succumbed to the lure of hosted services with no user control, no dedicated server support. Those devs want control; they want to control you, how you play and how you interact with those you play with.

  • LuckingFurker (Any/All)
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    11 months ago

    Are we really going to convince ourselves now that Sony wouldn’t have introduced a subscription at some point? Realistically the only reason Microsoft where the ones to popularise it is because Sony didn’t get there first

    • Tier 1 Build-A-Bear 🧸@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Meanwhile Nintendo was just waiting in the corner so they didn’t have to be the first to try and start charging for their incredibly shitty p2p serverless online service while changing literally nothing

      • LuckingFurker (Any/All)
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        11 months ago

        We can at least be relatively sure Nintendo wouldn’t have been first because they were so fucking terrified of online consoles that they almost had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it at all

  • vaseltarp@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Just don’t buy that expensive crap. If people where better at math they would buy PCs instead and we wouldn’t have any exclusives.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I’m finding it hard to believe that you can get PS5-tier graphics and performance from a $450 PC…do you have a build you can recommend?

      • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You get cheaper games, no subscription for online play, mods, replaceable parts, and an actual computer that can do literally anything you program it to though. Also a PS5 is at the very least $550 where I live

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          A PC being able to do literally anything doesn’t factor in at all imo. Most people buying consoles don’t want it to do anything but play games

      • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Psst… The ps5 has a monthly/annual cost you’re conveniently forgetting about, while unfortunately proving right the OC you replied to

        • wazzupdog@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          to add on to what you said: At least 80$ per year currently for PS+ essentials(online only basically). if you calculate that out 5 years (i’m gonna give the ps5 the benefit of the doubt here and assume you want to upgrade after that time) thats another 400$ on top of the 450$ you paid for the console. i could build a very well kitted out PC that blows the PS5 out of the water for 850$ and it would last longer and have an upgrade path that could extend its life an additional couple years. this doesn’t even factor in the overall cost savings of games being generally less expensive on PC.

          • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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            11 months ago

            My PC was about $800 altogether when I built it back a month before the COVID lockdowns. It uses a 1660 Super which doesn’t support DLSS or ray tracing; every game that’s on both PC and PS5 looks exactly the same. Even with ray tracing on the PS5 and I am literally comparing them side by side on identical displays.

          • Gutek8134@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            On the other hand, PC is much easier to break and harder to diagnose than a console (says a guy who never had a console)

            • wazzupdog@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              If all you do on the pc is play games(as you would on a console) it won’t break (usually) but that’s what debug lights are for diagnosis made easy and then you rma the broken part or buy a new part if the ps5 breaks its basically landfill and you’re out another 450 (if your console is not still under warranty). Forgive my bad grammar, one the alcohol starts the grammar stops

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I’m guessing a PS5-tier PC is about 800-900 and the PlayStation subscription is $80/year so you’d break even at 5 years or so.

          I have a more powerful PC and I haven’t owned any consoles since the Wii. I just wanted to see if you could build a comparable one for $450 nowadays

          • Fonderthud@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            I picked up a 2080 super, ryzen 3600, motherboard, and 32 gigabytes of RAM 1.5 years ago for under $400 used. I already case, PSU, and SSDs so close to your premise.

          • ayaya@lemdro.id
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            11 months ago

            You’re overestimating the power of a PS5. Its GPU is roughly around an RX 6600XT which can be found for ~$200. You could build a full system with it for around $600 and you’d break even in just over 2 years.

          • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            All good. I was just making fun since it’s a typical gotcha question that gets asked. I’d say it’s totally fair to get a console if that’s what you want.

            That said, the math’s possibly worse when you realize some people bought the pro version of the PS4 just 3-4 yrs after buying the original.

      • notquitetitan@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        You have to factor in the cost of the online subscription over the life of the console when pricing out a comparable PC. That is what he meant by “better at math”.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          $80/year for 5 years is $400 but how much more is the comparable PC than a PS5?

        • theonyltruemupf@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          You can use a PC for other things, I’d need a full desktop PC anyways. Also games are generally cheaper and you don’t have to pay for online play. Once you bought a game, you can very likely still play it in 10 years on a totally different machine.

          That being said, there are plenty of situations where a console is the better choice: they’re cheap to buy, easy to use, generally have less software problems, they have cool suspension features etc.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I’m a PC-only player but for reasons 95% of console players don’t care about. Playing on console just makes a lot more sense for some people

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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            11 months ago

            last i checked a SNES can’t play youtube videos? The whole point of PC is that you can run anything, you’re not limited to only one platform’s media.

            • glimse@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              That’s the goalposts moving. We’re discussing gaming devices and I asked for a PC that performs as well as a PS5 for the price and you implied graphics don’t matter…so…why are you talking about YouTube

      • randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 months ago

        This is another case of YMMV because you have to be thrifty. You can walk away from a microcenter with everything but the GPU for that price. (The 5600x3D bundle is a really good option but I understand most people can’t get to a microcenter in person).

        If you’re thrifty, you can get your hands on something like a Radeon 5700xt for between 80-120$ (check Ali Express).

        On the AliExpress note, even though I recommend a GPU, I can tell you that I do not recommend any of these Chinese motherboards from AliExpress unless you’re prepared to burn money. You can get them to work for very cheap but they are made out of ewaste and there is always something wrong with them (I’ve bought a few).

        This will get you into the sub 800$ tier Gaming PC. At that point I would recommend installing a Linux OS like ChimeraOS. This will give you the total functionality of a steam Deck and that console-like experience.

        If you’re looking for some more pre-assembled, morefine and minisforum make small PCs that come with a discrete radeon 6600m. This will get you into a PC that will be the size of a console but will definitely put you above 800$.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Gates had a point. Everyone was spending thousands on hardware but wouldn’t spend a little more for Basic. There were free options, they weren’t poor ( computer hardware was very expensive in the 70’s), but everyone was using Basic without buying it.

      It’s like today where people will spend thousands for a gaming PC, then complain about Windows when they should be using Linux.

      • Knusper@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        But it’s literally reversed now? Windows is the only consumer-grade paid OS and it’s also the worst consumer-grade OS.

        Bill Gates promised higher software quality and then delivered an OS, which has pretty much as its only quality that other software targets it.

    • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I enjoy PC gaming as much as anyone but the simple fact is you can’t do what a Series S does for $250 with a $250 PC. Plus with gamepass the math doesn’t even need a napkin. It’s simply the best deal in gaming right now, whether you’re paying for online play or not.

      • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        you can’t do what a Series S does for $250 with a $250 PC. Plus with gamepass the math doesn’t even need a napkin. It’s simply the best deal in gaming right now, whether you’re paying for online play or not.

        The consoles themselves are often sold at a loss because they know they will make that money back on games. Which is a better value proposition is arguable, especially once you factor in how much more you’ll be paying per game relative to steam sales, the ability of PCs to do things other than gaming, and the inevitable obsolescence of consoles. I can still play games on a modern PC from when steam was new.
        Microsoft also offers a game pass for PC, but I’d rather own my games.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Online gaming requires servers to run, and servers require money. Either the game is more expensive, the online is a subscription, or you have to run the server yourself. There are games that do each of these.

    Edit: or microtransactions. Fuck microtransactions.

    • Shake747@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      Normalizing needless online servers is part of the issue here (only with AAA titles). These companies set up servers and say shit like “well it has to be paid for somehow!”

      Games like Diablo 4 where you need internet to play single player. Diablo 2 resurrection removed all the LAN/Self hosting features of original D2.

      Blizzard isn’t the only company doing this either.

      Fuck that noise.

    • kakes@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      That said, with the prices being where they are, a single subscriber basically funds the entire cost of running the server.

      • 520@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Not exactly. Electricity aside, servers also require maintenance. That requires server admins. Those don’t come cheap.

        Edit: also network costs. With the requirement of handling high user numbers at stupidly low latency levels, they’ll need a seperate internet connection from corp and the data service will also not be cheap.

        • You999@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          Then solve the problem the same way the PC industry did by allowing anyone to host the server.

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            11 months ago

            Which has its own drawbacks. Community servers are great for something like Battlefield/Battlebit where a single server covers 30-128 players. Less so for smaller groups and as games “die”. Time has no meaning, but I want to say it was mid 00s Unreal Tournament (so after 2k3/2k4 came out, but while UT was still alive) where it increasingly became nigh impossible to find servers not running instagib or “pro” mods. Which made sense since it was mostly the various clans making their servers public when they weren’t practicing.

            But also? Look at a live game like Destiny or Warframe. For the purely PVE content, you can get away with users running listen servers. And just ask any Warframe player about how much we just LOVE host migration. But once you add any form of competitive aspect, that is no longer viable. And community hosted servers for eight players in a matchmaking queue are just not going to be a thing.

            On the console side of things? That monthly fee covers (some) game servers but also the content servers to download all the patches and games.

            On the PC side? Generally you are either dependent on a major publisher/studio that can afford to leave a few racks running in a closet while they make new games. And you are fucked when they realize that and shut down the game. Or you hope that it is subsidized by DLC and microtransactions.

            And, if it is your primary platform, I think the multiplayer fees on consoles (other than switch) are handled pretty well these days. You aren’t paying for halo matchmaking. You are paying for an instant game collection every month and gamepass. Which is more or less exactly what sony did after clowning on MS for charging money.

          • NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            Online gaming requires servers to run, and servers require money. Either the game is more expensive, the online is a subscription, or you have to run the server yourself. There are games that do each of these.

          • 520@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            If I had it my way this is exactly how it would work.

            Alas, even non-Valve PC games are moving away from that model unfortunately.

          • Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            “There’s no servers”

            What exactly do you think those “host machines” are?!?

          • huginn@feddit.it
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            11 months ago

            You got some hella rose tinted glasses on my guy.

            GameSpy was a bloated piece of garbage that is only fondly remembered because the other options were worse. It crashed constantly which ripped you out of your game and it performed this trick especially often right when the game launched.

            Ping was always wrong, lobbies displayed as full when they weren’t, server filtering was non-existent, required login every time you disconnected…

            I was thrilled to move off of it to basically anything else

            • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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              11 months ago

              GameSpy was a bloated piece of garbage

              Bloated? It literally did 1 thing, and that was give you a list of servers that you could filter, despite your attestation it had no filtering.

              The other options were worse

              All Seeing Eye was often considered better; though I remember it being exactly the same program just with a different name.

              It crashed constantly, ripping you out of the game

              All it did with the game was connect you to the server you selected using the game’s own commands. If GameSpy itself crashed after you’ve connected to the server, the game wouldn’t be affected.

              You sure you’re thinking about GameSpy?

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’m not sure what you mean. PC games usually run on your PC, unless you’re streaming. It’s the multiplayer server software that run on servers. And the servers are paid for by the company that makes the game, usually. Or the publisher. The actual server hardware is rented from cloud providers, if that’s what you mean. Servers aren’t free, that’s my point. If you want multiplayer online functionality, someone has to pay for the server. And ultimately that cost gets passed on to you, the end user.

    • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I wish more games would let us run the servers ourselves these days. Too many of them won’t even let you if you want to.

    • Franzia
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      11 months ago

      Dont grt it twisted the main thing a subscription is funding is shareholder value.

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Most companies aren’t in the business of giving away free services, and it’s wild to expect them to be. You wouldn’t expect a landscaping business to do all your landscaping for free after you pay for the first time.

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Alright, then play games where you can host your own server. There are plenty. That doesn’t work for all games though (particularly ranked games where the server software has to be verified or people could easily cheat), so you’ll be limited in what you can play.

            • Ech@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              I’m not super familiar with current console allowances, but are you suggesting that people can just “host their own server” and not pay the psn or Xbox live fees that are forced onto them? I just don’t think that’s true. You have to pay the fee to connect to any server, even your own.

              • hperrin@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                This was more about general gaming, but you can connect to some games online without a subscription on Xbox. Not all.

            • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              The problem is that there aren’t plenty. Every year number of online games that allow you to host your own server decreases.

        • linuxdweeb@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Most companies aren’t in the business of giving away free services,

          First of all, this is wrong. Free to play is an insanely profitable business model.

          But also it’s wrong because non-F2P multiplayer games aren’t a free service. You paid $60/$70 for the game, and whatever the cost of the servers is would have been factored into the sale price. The per-unit cost of hosting an online game is nowhere near the cost of the game, especially back in the day when most “servers” were just a matchmaking service for P2P game clients.

          Nowadays, the cost of running a multiplayer game is lower than ever. Cloud hosting gives a ton of flexibility to design an online service that is affordable to run, not to mention the money printing machine that are microtransactions (often sold in non-F2P games that also require a subscription to play).

          Online subscriptions are not meant to cover server/hosting costs. They’re a monopoly tax from the platform holder, who can charge you money to connect to the internet simply because they can, and they know you have no other option.

        • _number8_@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          tell me more about how landscaping with physical labor and materials is just like having a server turned on

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        All three happened because servers actually cost money. Do you give away things for free to strangers on the internet?

        There’s no profit in letting users run their own servers, btw.

        • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          How much money do you pay to login to Mozilla/Chrome/Edge to make this post?

          Various PC games before and after Xbox do not charge anything just to be online. it’s not an outright requirement. To add consoles usually restrict internet entirely, which is a completely different thing from hosting rounds.

          Your second sentence is closer to what the actual reason is, and goes more in line with rockslayer’s post.

          edit: I will concede that browsers aren’t locked anymore behind the payment models it seems. But I will still stand by that everyone is arguing as if individual games don’t have to do this, but i’m fairly certain still that no P2P or just outright free online games exist on consoles, which makes the argument moot.

          • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            but i’m fairly certain still that no P2P or just outright free online games exist on consoles

            Fortnite, Rocket League, Apex Legends, COD Warzone, Halo: Infinite. Plenty more those are just top of my head.

        • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          There’s no profit in letting users run their own servers

          Yes, there is. They make the game more expensive, charge a subscription, and then cut all the cost of hosting. That is where the industry is heading.

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Ok yes, if they’re charging you a subscription to run your own server, there’s profit in that. I don’t know of any companies that do that, but I would not be in favor of them doing that. Considering that is not a common practice in the industry, I think we can move on.

            • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              remember Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War? The game that didn’t have dedi servers for Zombies for several months after launch, cost $70, and had a battle pass?

        • x4740N@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Hperrin your getting continuously downvoted here, perhaps that should be a good wakeup call to step back and look at why you are being downvoted

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Because people disagree with me? That doesn’t change the fact that that’s how the industry works. Multiplayer is always paid for by something. If nobody bought Shark Cards, GTA Online wouldn’t be free.

            Also, consoles are subsidized. Microsoft makes money on your subscription, not your Xbox.

    • x4740N@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Peer To Peer

      Look it up

      Your comment is exactly the same type I’d see from toxic users on reddit arguing that people should pay because Microsoft hosts servers for multiplayer and that the commenter gladly pays for it whenever I’d go to look at reddit posts calling out bullshit on pay walled multiplayer on consoles

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Oh I don’t pay. I don’t play on PlayStation or Xbox, and I honestly don’t think people should, but I understand why people do. It’s easy, and playing on PC is harder.

        The more middlemen you put between the developer of the game and the end user the more money you’re going to pay. You might get a better/easier experience, but it will cost more. That’s just economics. So minimizing that is good for the end user if they’re cool with having a harder time setting things up and playing.

    • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      This is basically an argument for itemizing any and all things that can be articulated tbh. I don’t pay a “kitchen” fee or an “electrical” fee or a “dishwasher” fee when I go to a restaurant. They calculate what things cost on the whole then price accordingly. That’s how 95% of non-single-item transactions occur.

      I’m not even necessarily against the concept of paying for the service on consoles (I kind of go back and forth on it personally) but this argument simply doesn’t hold water.

  • WldFyre@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    I thought WoW, RuneScape and the like pioneered online subscriptions?

    • Buck@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      They were not the first, either. But definitely the biggest in their day.

    • Franzia
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      11 months ago

      Everquest had a subscription. I think subscription models were common back then for being a member of a forum or getting a magazine or news letter.

        • linuxdweeb@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          “PC” historically refers to devices that are “IBM PC” compatible, although nowadays that mostly means machines with x86 chips… except that powerful ARM desktops, laptops, and servers are becoming a thing too so that’s not accurate either. Plus there’s that whole “Mac vs PC” ad which also makes the term more confusing.

          But even going by the recent historical usage, I’d say the Steam Deck qualifies since it has an x86 chip, whereas the PS3 has a weird custom PowerPC cpu (which, ironically, was made by IBM).

          • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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            11 months ago

            really at this point PC just means it’s not locked down to a highly specific software source and lets you change the OS

        • kick_out_the_jams@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          All consoles are computers, in the sense that their chips are turing-complete
          Nobody has really come up with a computer that can only run things you like and none of the things you don’t.
          They’re just computers locked down by digital rights management, opaque operating systems, or other protection measures.

    • OrnateLuna
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      11 months ago

      For the purposes of this conversation I would say yes

      Then again I would count the steam deck more as a console than a PC in most scenarios

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        I count it as a portable mini-PC because the games I’m playing on it are the same I own on PC, using the same account…

    • 9point6@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Yes. It’s a mass manufactured consumer product with gaming as it’s intended purpose

      That’s a console.

      • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Consoles typically lock the player into their ecosystem, though. You don’t have to use steam to play games on the deck.

            • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              very difficult to jailbreak

              Getting an Xbox into developer mode, booting retro arch, really whatever you want then doing literally whatever you want with it has never been easier. The 360 was far more difficult and continues to be difficult to hack and mod in meaningful ways. The series consoles you can crack open in like 30 minutes with an article and a YouTube video.

    • 520@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Depends at what level you define ‘console’.

      Is it a device purpose built for playing games? Yes.

      Does it have its own bespoke gaming platform? No. It plays games and applications made for the x86 PC platform.

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        does it have its own bespoke gaming platform?

        Sure steam doesn’t fit that definition exactly but I mean…it kind of serves the same purpose.

      • gornius@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Steamdeck is more console than x86 PC is a platform. I get what you mean, but PS4 and PS5 are too technically x86 PCs. Most modern games’ tightly coupled target are actually APIs they are using.

        It can be one click in a compiler to compile the game to ARM PC, but it’s a different story when you port your game engine to console, where you have to implement the same features using different APIs. (E.g. Raytracing, storing game data, connecting to profile, implementing multiplayer etc.).

        In the example of SteamDeck, the platform is Win32 or Linux ABI compatible OS.

  • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    I don’t think folks remember how truly shitty Nintendo‘s online service was when it was free. The fact is these companies will not put meaningful resources into them unless they are directly generating revenue. I hate it, but that’s reality.

    • ALostInquirer@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      …It’s improved? Doesn’t it still handle communication weirdly (needing a separate app for voice chat), or is that on a game-by-game basis?

        • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          I really don’t see how this is any better, they are using the same peer to peer netcode they always have. Maybe the general quality of Internet has gone up, but there is nothing I can point to that Nintendo has fundamentally changed between previous free MP and NSO, except giving some ROMS and DLC occasionally. Smash bros is still a lag fest with wireless players, splatoon still delays collision detection, Mario kart still has weird rubber banding and desync… they just slapped a price tag on it.

        • averyminya@beehaw.org
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          11 months ago

          I played online on the Wii quite a lot, it was fine. Smash bros a ton, 007 Golden Eye and The Conduit, and good old MH Tri.

          Literally a thousand hours in that last one alone most of which was spend online. Did you not use Ethernet? Wi-Fi was shitty for sure, because everybody had shitty wi-fi back then. (I’m also not saying it was amazing, but it was free and serviceable)