That said, if I didn’t have to re-buy a bunch of content I already own and if I could avoid playing against MnK players while I’m on controller, I’d have already switched over entirely to using my workstation to play all my games. New purchases for myself and my kids are 100% on Steam.
However, in writing this I’ve realized that this is really only a problem for me when playing Destiny and only when I’m playing PvP. As the player population continues to die and I move on to other games or mostly PvE content in Destiny, then I’m not going to care anymore and I can switch entirely over to PC.
On the one hand, that’s going to be pretty convenient. On the other, it’s kind of a sad realization as it marks the end of a very long era of console gaming for me stretching all the way back to the NES.
My son has a Switch, but other than that my kids have only ever known using a PC as a “console”. Their play room has a relatively compact PC (13th Gen. Intel CPU & ARC A770 dGPU) connected to a TV that just runs Steam and Batocera with 4x USB 8BitDo controllers attached.
By all appearances, until about the last year or so, I would look like an ideal customer demographic for Microsoft. I’ve purchased every single gaming platform they’ve ever produced, but I’m thiiiiiiiiis close to having migrated entirely away, and it wasn’t really a conscious decision. It just sort of happened a little bit at a time. :-/
If you can stand to move away from an Xbox controller (they're the only ones without gyro still) and learn gyro/flick stick, it levels the playing field a lot more. Flick stick's instant turns even give it some advantages over KB+M.
8BitDo's controllers are the best-supported on Steam at the moment, with gyro, analog triggers, and back buttons all fully working at the same time now in DInput mode. I use the Pro 2, but if you prefer Xbox layout, you may want one of their Ultimate controllers. Don't buy the ones that are licensed Xbox controllers as I believe they then don't have gyro. Many have the Nintendo button labels, but Steam has a toggle to use the Xbox layout.
The will to manifest the meme into reality came from a convergence of trends. Neophyte linux enthusiasts in gaming drove a lot of it, I suspect.
In the current market for electronics I can't imagine a quantum leap in consoles at a sub-$1000 price point, it is not like NVIDIA or AMD gives a damn about gaming in this environment where it is all about selling as many GPU for AI as they can while they can.
Steam Deck is long in the tooth. I think PS and XBOX portables could muscle into that space, XBOX is already licensing their name, but balancing size-cost-performance-power does not look easy but the PS Vita was my favorite dedicated game system I ever owned. I like my Deck but it is too big and I have to think long and hard if I want to pack it in my t̴a̴i̴l̴ backpack on any given day or pack something else.
A realistic plan is shut down most of Activision and sell the rest to Tencent, take an $80 billion goodwill loss so they won't pay tax for half a decade, Wall St won't care so long as they keep making noises about AI, do right by Azure, Windows, Office and the enterprise stuff. Keep Windows great for gaming and keep the brand alive as part of that and if they want to sell XBOX branded body wash or something, bully for them. Set free from Activision those developers will be able to make good games again.
If we want to play the sorts of games XBOX and PlayStation offer, we’ll just load up the Steam Deck, or if it’s a super graphically intensive game we’ll use my RTX 5090 I use for local LLMs anyway. With a few console commands and config hacking, I was able to get Portal 2 to run split screen across 2 full screens for each player, which was super fun!
All three (four counting Steam) consoles update every several years. A quick Wikipedia skim tells you almost everything you need to know about that. They're all packaging the AMD and Nvidia hardware available along some price-performance point (they all have access to the same tradeoffs) and releasing developer SDKs. Each one has a store, some deals and a slightly different take on how they integrate streaming and retro games.
I have trouble seeing how attitude affects executing any of this. The attitude only comes into play because Xbox has to respond to this meme in a way that placates gamers.
I think the larger problem is just that Xbox doesn't really know what itself is. Sony has the same problem to a lesser extent. None of the current gen consoles have any exclusives of note. Sony have a few, while Microsoft have basically none. That alone gives Sony a big advantage. Meanwhile, in the PS4 days, people would buy one just for Bloodborne, while in the 360 days, they'd buy one just for Halo. Now Halo is on PC, so no longer an exclusive, and while the same goes for Sony, they still retain a bit of a default console status, which helps draw in the couch console crown who aren't interested in the PC. If you want a traditional console experience, you buy a PS5, since there's no real reason to buy the Xbox even if you did care to compare them side by side.
it's not like sony never gave it a shot (ref. KDL22PX300)
They did try it once before.
I ended up getting a steam deck which is just amazing and the kids ended up on on tablets (minecraft/roblox) and on PCs (arma and such).
For split screen we ended up occasionally connecting the steam deck to the tv and re-pairing Xbox controllers to it.
Though one vertical shooter “sky force reloaded” is super fun in the old style.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150704163602/http://www.euroga...
Someone with no real technological vision takes the helm, and they end up listening to MBAs instead of techies, visionaries or even customers. They spend their efforts focusing solely on maximizing profits, and then trying to take a shortcut on invention through acquisitions or by chasing fads.
I mean, Microsoft makes like $20B in profit every quarter, so it's not like the MBAs are useless. They're just useless at creating the future.
What is Microsoft's BHAG for XBox?
(To be fair, game consoles outgrew kids by the Xbox 360 generation if not earlier, they'd have to ruin mobile games to change childhood)
With this year's price hikes though that's not the case anymore, you are better off just buying a good $20 game every month or buying a good $50 game every other month.
But I agree. I (foolishly) spent money on an Xbox last year only to find bugs that would make the Windows operating system weep. My kids have to ask me CONSTANTLY to update things, re-install game, or even just troubleshoot a damn controller not working.
Compare that to Steam, where I can just add them to my family and give them access to a huge number of split-screen compatible games across my entire catalog. It just doesn’t make financial sense to keep supporting Microsoft’s enshittification of everything.
They went off the deep end after that. Xbox One was a stupid name, as is the current alphabet soup. They should have gone from Xbox 360 to Xbox 4. Yes, it would be a little embarrassing to copy your competitor's versioning, but that's a small price for consumer clarity.
The solution though was obviously not the brainworm reasoning that got us the Xbox One (nobody was going to call their console 'The One', cf. 'X-bone'). Your alternative of going straight to the Xbox 4 would probably have been considered a loss by the executives, but I imagine it at least wouldn't have been made fun of beyond the release period, since it would have been clear why they did the change.
(a) they wanted to make it hard to know what console was the newest or oldest to promote users to just throw up their arms and buy the newest XBox?
(b) they wanted each one to be very unique and different sounding so they would never get confused with one another, but their sequence is difficult to understand
The people in charge of such decisions were too stupid or self-assured to realize or worry about such obvious problems.
There is no meritocracy. These billion dollar brands and endeavors, that have thousands of livelihoods tied up in them, are managed by absolutely brain dead bozos.
I stopped following mainstream gaming not too long ago, to me, I just couldn't care less at this point. The Series X doesn't appeal to me at all as I've gotten older.
It would be interesting if Microsoft went the way of Sega and stopped producing home consoles. I still think they have the superior controller.
kaladin-jasnah•2h ago
> That platform is a Linux distribution optimized for emulating Windows titles
WINE stands for "WINE is not an emulator."
amitav1•2h ago
> The Steam Machine is basically a tiny gaming desktop for your TV, running the Steam Deck's SteamOS. That platform is a Linux distribution optimized for emulating Windows titles.
hamdingers•2h ago
amitav1•2h ago
neilv•2h ago
jama211•2h ago