I think the steam deck is genuinely the only console worth buying these days.
I REALLY want Sony to release a handheld that can run PS1, PS2 and PS3 games 🥺
That’s the Steam Deck.
Wait can it run ps3 emulators?
Double wait are ps3 emulators working now? I remember pscx2 or whatever being buggy as shit.
TLDR I’m ancient in internet years
RPCS3 can run most PS3 games but Steam Deck may fall short in some of them. Recommended specs include 6 core CPU but Deck has 4.
Going by core count alone is a pretty shitty metric for CPU performance. The 4 core APU in the steam deck will outperform an 8 core bulldozer cpu by any metric
Except for power consumption and heat generation ;-) This is where Bulldozers were hot shit!
I’m gonna blow your mind by telling you there are already working PS4 and Xbox One emulators, although both only support a small number of games so far
PS3 and Xbox 360 can be emulated very well by a modern PC, the majority of games work without glitches
PS4 is actually easier to emulate than PS3, because former has regular x86 architecture, but latter has a very weird CELL/PowerPC architecture CPU.
PS3 is the trickiest. They had that weird Cell architecture which is more difficult to emulate than simply “less-powerful x86” emulation required for more-recent consoles.
I’ve had good experiences emulating PS2 on my Steam Deck. PS3 I haven’t gotten anything to run well enough that I’d call it enjoyable. Some don’t run at all
To be fair, PS2 emulation is still not that great, but I guess it’s due to sheer amount of games for that system. Last summer I decided to check the PS2 emulation after 10 year break and 2 out of 3 games I tested didn’t work properly. Granted, those are kinda niche games (Transformers (2004) and Free Running), but compatibility still needs work. Hardware requirements are decently low for the games that do work, though.
So…steamdeck lol
Vita can Run 99% of PS1 games “natively” and has a bunch of PS2 ports (some through PSP). Not PS3 though.
I wouldn’t trust Sony to not fuck that up somehow like everything they do.
They’d give it a 2 hour battery 😂
To be honest my steam Deck doesn’t go that far beyond 4h either on a single charge when I lower all the settings.
Playing witcher 2 at decent FPS only gives me 2 hours on the original steam deck
That’s the one drag for me about the PS5 contrllers, the battery life before recharging. The PS3 controller did great, but the PS5 ones have so many features built in they die to quick for my liking.
It would be so funny if the EU decided Sony was a gatekeeper on the consoles without disc drives and forced them to allow 3rd party app store on them.
Hey, a guy can dream.
What the EU actually needs to do is to spearhead and help find everyone a way to actually “own” digital things. I think I’d be fine with not having a disk drive if I could buy my game, not be reliant on servers to download it in the future, trade my games with friends, and choose to sell it when I felt like it.
We need to find a way to get back (most of) the benefits of physical media without actually having to go back to it.
“If a game needs a server and the official servers shut down, the protocols have to be released to the public”. I think it would be a good starting point.
The gatekeeper legislation sets minimums for revenue before you’re counted as a gatekeeper, and all the game consoles are too small a market to count.
I hate that that’s even a possibility lol
One big reason people still play on consoles to this day is because they own a physical copy of their games and can play on their consoles even offline.
Sometimes
I couldn’t play Baldur’s Gate 3, a single-player game, when my internet went out. That pissed me right off.
Yeah that’s what I meant by sometimes
Its becoming a trend where game companies are now making single player games require a internet connection just to play. I saw some games on Steam where single player games come with anti-cheat, like wtf.
Becoming a trend? This has been a regular frustration in gaming since the PS3 generation.
If you pirated it you could have played it offline though. Paying customers get a worse experience than pirates
Could you give more details? On which platform did this happen?
Xbox series X. I couldn’t sign in to my profile, so the game wouldn’t load because I bought it electronically and it’s tied to my user. I sent them a little love letter for that.
Generally this works just fine if the console you are using is set to your “home console”. That’s what the home console toggle is for. I could see this being an issue if you have multiple consoles in your house, or you are game sharing with another profile.
I didn’t know this was a thing… I’ll look into that setting, thanks.
That’s weird, I could.
Couch co-op is also a big thing that I want but fewer and fewer games offer it.
for that value just get a pc honestly not a locked down freebsd based console
No joke. A decent gaming pc can be built around that price and be used for so much more. Even cheaper if you hunt for used parts.
People who buy consoles do it for the “press a button to game”.
Not necessarily because they don’t understand pc’s, but because they don’t want the faff.For me, console gaming was for when my desktop rig was doing a video export or 3d render. It was when I wanted to sit on the couch and not be too invested in what I was playing with.
true and if you really want that console experience install smth like bazzite,holoiso,nobara home cinema edition (non immutable),etc and dualboot windows for app compatibility you can use playnite on windows to make it look like a ps5
That sounds like a lot of hassle for someone who doesn’t want hassle.
At $700 you could build a pretty decent PC that would last a lot longer (3060 12gb, Ryzen 5 5600, 16gb of DDR4), and build a steam library that you’ll have 20 years from now. I’ve had the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for an easy 10; controllers don’t last that long. They’re reaching a point where there’s less and less of an actual argument for owning one.
It’s kinda rich to plug Steam, where you also don’t own your games.
Well for Steam at least the library is independent of the hardware
It comes pretty close to feature parity in terms of ownership. My kids can play my steam library on their own computers, I can play it on any machine I own, I don’t have to pay them any kind of rental fee, and they maintain my software for me.
Only thing I can’t do is what…sell my games to someone else? I don’t do that anyways.
I’m not betting on Steam disappearing in the next ten years. I probably wouldn’t even bet that they’ll disappear in my lifetime. But, they could, anything could happen, and then you don’t have that library anymore. Physical is the only way to truly own.
But, they could, anything could happen, and then you don’t have that library anymore. Physical is the only way to truly own.
That’s exactly my point. Steam has allowed me to OWN Half Life longer than I would have been able to with physical media. Those CDs don’t last that long. I’m not that careful.
So the balance is “own my own stuff and all the problems that come with keeping it pristine so that it continues to work, taking up space in my house” - or the infinitesimally small chance that STEAM goes belly up. Steam has allowed me to own my games for a lot longer than I could have kept them myself. So the argument of “oh they could go away!” doesn’t really hold any water for me. Especially for games with an online component (which is all of them now) – What’s the use of physical media when the game requires some servers that vanished long ago anyways?
That’s a strange point, imho. We disagree on what own means. You being bad with your physical media doesn’t mean you didn’t more truthfully own it. We will have to agree to disagree, have a nice day.
Well then you don’t own your home. With that argument, nobody does. Because the government has the ability to take your home from you, then you don’t own it.
Ownership has granularity to it. You’re failing to see the grey spaces in between, and only seeing black or white.
Replace the 3060 with an equally-priced AMD card and you’ll actually get something decent for your money. Nvidia is horrible at these “lower” price points.
I mean, if you like horrible driver stability; sure. There’s a reason NVidia has like 75% of the market share, and it’s simply because they have a better product. Drivers are more stable, everyone develops for CUDA processing, lots of games only support DLSS for frame-gen, all of the GPU accelerated AI stuff is all NVidia centered, etc.
And something that can run PS3, PS2 and PS1 games!
I’m sorely disappointed that none of that fancy AI-powered Sony upscaling can be put to use to any of those old games.
I’ve had the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for an easy 10;
I guess it depends on frequency of use, but I’ve never had a mouse last ten years. I wear through the switch on the mouse button in less than that, starts to act unreliably.
Unfortunately, physical media for gaming died when always-online DRM was normalized. It doesn’t matter if you have a game on a disc when you have to phone home every time to use it. The corporation may still block your access.
One more step in ensuring no one owns anything. Lease or rent are your options.
That’s fine, I’ll just get better at sailing.
That’s why your favorite letter is R.
Lease and rent, or piracy.
Reminder that you can put in whatever you want in a PC. And that you can get a decent gaming machine for 1k (700+PS plus).
CD Drive? No problem. DVD? Of course. Another SSD? Get some random 50$ thing and throw it in there. Floppy? Harvest some old PC and voila.The real point is that you can upgrade it incrementally, you don’t have to throw it away, and upgrading will allow you to play all your old games from generation to generation without having to rebuy them for the latest Gen.
Depends how old you get. After 30 years some games just don’t work like they used to!
Thankfully we do have modern solutions for old fashioned problems now.
Even if you give a shit about upgrading, binding yourself to sony or whatever company.
Within limits though. E.g. If your mainboard only supports old CPUs that is a huge limiting factor and we saw MS messing with older CPUs just not being supported at all by Win 11.
Now i made the switch to Linux myself too and i am very happy, but for people who want to start somewhere, maybe starting with their own linux gaming PC is a bit much for the start.
I think that’s overkill, but a Steam Deck is on par with a PS5, but portable, and for a cheap dock and a ps5 controller you can play it like a console.
Linux has made such leaps though, have a container with lutris and vulkan and it can handle most basic gaming that doesn’t deal with modern AAA titles.
I got a Steam Deck because it’s a little computer. I can put my own OS on it, that’s awesome. The marketing page was talking about DIY repairs and offering spare parts, too.
I mean i am fully in support of PC gaming and in particular Linux gaming. It is just not as easy to keep upgrading PCs component by component. Eventually there is limits, mostly from the mainboards limits.
Meh, gaming pc of theseus, you replace the mobo less often than a console Gen, more if you want.
I was using the same board and CPU I started with back in 2016 up until last year. My bottleneck wasnt even the CPU it was the fucken RAM.
While this is true, consoles still manage to have a way more convenient experience. Its the only reason why they exist (today)
I think that’s mainly a relic from the past. I didn’t have compability or driver issues for a long time.
Once the PC is set up, it’s as comfortable as a console. Setting the PC up to console standards is reduced to installing steam.
Looks like you never played on a computer on a TV screen. The experience is plaged by pad connection problems (Bluetooth), windows popups, random no full screen issues, sound suddenly on the wrong channel, microphone not working, mouse cursor in the middle of the screen (often reset to the middle after launching the game, even when you are playing with a pad) and so on. You still need a keyboard and a mouse near your couch and there is always something. For sure iam still not paying the markup for a console, but i get why there is a big market.
What are you on about? I use my PC on my TV all the times and I don’t have a single issue you describe. I just have it connected with Hdmi. The TV even turns on and off automatic if function activate.
I’ve definitely had some of those issues. I won’t count an old issue where my GPU needed a special connection to attach audio to its DVI output (rare oddity). Some others:
- Most computers would need to swap default audio device between whatever you use at a desk, and the TV registered as an HDMI audio device.
- Bluetooth connections to arbitrary controllers have gotten better, but they had often needed manual enablement each time through mouse-based menus or a number of firmware updates to work with Windows/SteamOS.
- My Steam Deck, even in its current iteration, takes some time to recognize the connected TV and swap resolution.
- The mouse cursor issue can come up if you had to do any mouse-based option swapping, like that thing with audio devices.
I’ve definitely gotten it working and had a blast, but the number of button presses to get to starting the game can sometimes be hard to predict. Even when I had a computer dedicated to the TV (a long time ago when SteamOS was fledgling) it was pretty unreliable about having all the right updates and not needing a mouse.
You’re doing something wrong. I’ve been playing PC games on my couch for a decade and haven’t had any of those issues.
The only problem with optical drives for PC is that most modern case no longer support them.
A surprising amount of Fractal Design’s cases do.
I’ve checked it, and yes. Also some of the lower-end of Be Quiet!.
They make pull out cup holders to put in the CD rom rive slot. There are so many goofy fun things a computer can have in it.
Having a pull out cup holder seems insane to me, my personal rule is no drinks near my pc at all.
That said, I have a drawer in place of my cd drive that holds all my small peripherals (thumb drives, usb to sd card adapter, stuff like that) and it’s great.
I was just trying to say something absurd that I’ve seen being sold for PCs lol
I work in IT, the rule for me, closed lid drinks around PCs, no food or drinks in the server room. Unless you are me…the system/network engineer
LGR did a great video on crazy expansion slot PC accessories. One of them was a pull out ashtray with a push plug lighter like cars used to have. https://youtu.be/_ErL39wqO-c?si=zWyVR6m_LqE6SBE0
In what universe do you live? Ps plus is $80, not $300
So you use your PC or console for only a year?
I can use it as long as I like. Ps plus just gives you 3 “free” games a month and let’s you play online with games that require ps plus. Imo the three games a month for six bucks and change is already worth it. And you keep those games for as long as you have your account, even if you don’t renew your subscription. You can also just get games that don’t require an online component, though those are becoming harder to find.
Eh, on PC you can keep your games forever as long as you don’t lose the drive they’re stored on. And you don’t need to pay extra to access online features.
And you can play any generation of games going back to pong.
You definitely lose access to your “free” games if you don’t have PS+ anymore.
Floppy drives connect to the PC via ATA. I don’t have that connector in my computer
Do you mean IDE? I’m confident your PC has S-ATA.
There’s IDE to SATA cards available for eight bucks.
It was standardized as ATA, some people calling it PATA or IDE to distinguish it from the newer SATA standard
But I remembered wrong, it was a similar IDC connector for the floppies with a different amount of pins
There’s always some a usb-converter for 10$ around.
Physical media or full rejection. Fuck you business school zombies squeezing blood from rocks
Pointless if the discs still need to talk to the server before you can use them.
Fuck that noise too.
But it’s only 39.99 a month (conditions apply)!?!!
I understand if you don’t have the CD they can remove your access to it arbritarily like when they lose the license but
Nobody ever complains about Steam and they have a similar policy of no physical media going back decades. I have hundreds of gamed accumulated on Steam and no game of mine has ever been removed.
I bought the cheaper Xbox last year to play Overcooked with my girlfriend and it has no physical media. I just download and play games no problem. I actually find it more convenient not to have any physical games.
So I guess the question is- what is the reason for the strong rejection of the digital version? It is the natural evolution of these things.
It’s all good until they pull the content you thought you bought. I also prefer the convenience of downloaded games, but if it’s a game I really like, I buy the physical version.
They could still remove it if they wanted to.
For example push an update so your console can’t read certain games when they lose license. Or simply break backwards compatibility in specific ways.
I guess the games I really like are all digital. Games like Slay the Spire, Rimworld, Balatro, etc. I know that the data is sitting there in my hard drive. I can copy it, move it, delete it, etc whenever I want.
I honestly haven’t included a disc reader in my PC builds for over a decade. I guess on Xbox it’s different because Microsoft has more control. But again, if they wanted to take away the games they could do it either way.
If that’s main reason, I don’t see the point of continuing disc use
Steam didn’t start with physical hardware and then try to remove it. And stream doesn’t design, own and operate the hardware for the most part.
On steam people know they have an option to sail the high seas. But the same concern is there.
Valve has the reputation to back it up. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo’s reputations make all digital game libraries a guessing game for when they give up and shut it down.
Sony’s problems are twofold:
- They are charging an absurd amount of money for a game console
- They are selling a game console that has practically no first party games for it.
If they had plenty of the latter, they could weather this. But there are still games releasing for the PS4, and they have had 1, maybe 2 PS5 releases that would qualify as first party this year (that don’t bubble down to PC).
Jesus christ, Nintendo is gonna win it all aren’t they?
Is it better to buy a ps4?
PS4 is superior in every way but power. Small, cheap and high availability, huge game library. PS4 will stay relevant this entire. gen
Or a PS5. The comparisons between PS5 and PS5 Pro are nearly impossible to notice.
I stopped buying consoles after they wanted to charge me to use the internet. That’s not how this works.
So, 24 years ago? If so, I’m right there with you in the “getting old” camp.
To be fair, you could play free on PS2. Although you had to buy a weird adapter.
Paystation
They don’t want you to own* physical media anymore.
Yar har
Hoist the jolly roger!
I mean, I don’t want to either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I love physical media. That way they can’t take it away!
Not a console user, but can you actually still play games from a disc without an sony account and internet connection?
I honestly am not sure. My most recent console is a switch from 6 years ago, before that is a ps3. I may be running on out of date info.
I’ll scratch it or lose it, and if I don’t, I’ll have a pile of plastic crap I don’t want. I’m not really worried about digital media being taken away, and I could find it again if need be.
Wow, just buy or build a comparable PC at that price point
remember when everyone was saying consoles where cheaper then pc and has more features
I think this piece of hardware is cheaper than a comparable PC, but longer term you’ll pay quite a bit more for games.
true tho
All good points in the comments, but something I haven’t seen a anyone talk about yet:
WHY is a DISK DRIVE $80??? All it does is read a disk. Any encryption on the disk would be decrypted on the console. External disk drives are like $20. If you specially brand them maybe you could go up to $40.
But $80? That’s like a Gameboy Advance. That’s a miyoo mini plus. That’s an entire console in itself.
That’s actually below market value for an external 4K UHD drive.
You’re right! My point no longer stands. Removing the disk drive would then save about $100 from the console, which makes sense to remove if you’re cutting costs and most players play digital anyways.
~also if you’re pushing digital games.
Props for accepting a counterargument on the internet graciously. Not something we see often.
Digital doesn’t have a secondary market which is the real reason. No money is made when you give away, sell, or share your physical games.
Blu-Ray never really took off as a mass-market format so the drives are relatively obscure and expensive without the benefits of manufacturing at scale.
But $80? That’s like a Gameboy Advance. That’s a miyoo mini plus. That’s an entire console in itself.
Bruh, you can even get 2 or 3 DS lites for that price
Ah, I should have been more specific. Back in the day I got my GBA new for $75 retail. (With inflation that’s probably a lot more now.)
Used DS lites are great, especially if you can fix the broken hinges and screens.
DS Lites imo have always been the best on the retro console value curve
Nah I’m good with my 2017 jailbroken switch with free games lol
What games are even worth it? Sony has like 5 'must play" exclusive games on their console
Putting the 5 in PS5
Sony has exactly one must play game you can’t play on a computer and I still own a ps4 for that one game, and believe me when emulation gets slightly better I will have a new Linux computer shaped suspiciously like a ps4
I have one of the ones that can be jailbroken. One day I’ll do it
For me it’s literally just EA Sports College Football 25. I’ll be playing it for years (my brothers and dad have a family tradition of playing a college football dynasty mode together every year) so that makes a console worth it for me…probably not the PS5 Pro though.
It’s EA. You’ll be playing it until they randomly decide to turn off the servers.
Well…most EA games you quite even before the support ends. But not this one lol
I’d have lobbied for us to do an offline dynasty if I wasn’t going to be moving out in a year or two.
