136

Are PC handhelds like Steam Deck really competitors for Switch 2? (www.polygon.com)

submitted 1 week ago by Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

146 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

I mean most games coming to switch outside of Nintendo themselves is already on or coming to steam deck.

Nowadays consoles don't really matter. Which is good for the users.

[+] MudMan@fedia.io -11 points 1 week ago

This is objectively wrong.

I mean, the PC market has grown, don't get me wrong. Consoles use to be the only thing that mattered and that's no longer the case. You can't afford to ignore PCs anymore.

But consoles still drive a majority of revenue for a majority of games, to my knowledge. And the Switch is a huge market by itself.

More importantly, PC gamers should be extremely invested in console gaming continuing to exist. Console gaming is a big reason PC gaming is viable. They provide a static hardware target that can be used as a default, which then makes it the baseline for PC ports. With no PS5 the only games that make sense to build for PCs are targeting integrated graphics and lowest-common-denominator CPUs. That's why PC games in the 2000s used to look like World of Warcraft even though PCs could do Crysis.

Consoles also standardized a lot of control, networking and other services for games. You don't want a PC-only gaming market.

[-] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 5 points 1 week ago

With no PS5 the only games that make sense to build for PCs are targeting integrated graphics and lowest-common-denominator CPUs.

Are we just ignoring all of the PC-exclusive games PS5 players will never get to play? And the games that were PC-exclusive until their success prompted a console port? The PC catalog dwarfs the PS5 catalog by hundreds of modern titles, and thousands if you count retro games. Steam (just one of the PC software distribution platforms) added over 14,000 games in the last year and there are fewer than 3,500 PS5 games in total. I can tell you that "targeting integrated graphics and lowest-common-denominator CPUs" has never really been a priority in the PC space; you can see this trend even before consoles like the SNES existed.

That's why PC games in the 2000s used to look like World of Warcraft even though PCs could do Crysis.

A lot of PCs couldn't do Crisis. It was a hardware seller because a lot of people significantly upgraded just to play it. Games in the 2000s looked like that because highly-detailed 3D polygonal models used too many resources (mostly CPU at the time). It made more sense, for developer and user, to limit the polygon count for everyone's sake.

Even in the modern day, World of Warcraft is an MMO and the textures and other assets are deliberately less detailed to optimize performance, so this isn't really a fair comparison and doesn't really demonstrate that consoles prop up the PC market (especially since WoW wasn't available for consoles during the peak of its success and was also a hardware seller due to that exclusivity). It's like comparing Plants vs. Zombies and Half-Life 2, or Destiny and Alien: Isolation.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io -2 points 1 week ago

A lot of PCs can't do a lot of games. That is precisely the point.

If you look at the Steam hardware survey at any given point in time, mass market GPUs are typically mid-range parts two to three generations old. And even then, those are still the most popular small fractions of a very fragmented market.

The average PC is an old-ass laptop used by a broke-ass student. Presumably that still is a factor on why CounterStrike, of all things, is Steam's biggest game. It sure was a factor on why WoW or The Sims were persistent PC hits despite looking way below the expectations of contemporary PC hardware.

The beginning of competent console ports in the Xbox 360 era revolutionized that. Suddenly there was a standard PC controller that had parity to mainstream consoles and a close-enough architecture running games on a reliably stable hardware. Suddenly you didn't need to target PC games solely to the minimum common denominator PC, the minimum common denominator was a console that was somewhat above average compared to low-end PCs.

In that scenario you can just let people with high-end hardware crank up resolution, framerate and easily scalable options while allowing for some downward scaling as well. And if that cuts off some integrated graphics on old laptops... well, consoles will more than make up the slack.

Sure, there are PC exclusives because they rely on PC-specific controls or are trying to do some tech-demoy stuff or because they're tiny indies with no money for ports or licensing fees, or because they're made in a region where consoles aren't popular or supported or commercially viable.

But the mainstream segment of gaming we're discussing here? Consoles made the PC as a competitive, platform-agnostic gaming machine.

[-] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 4 points 1 week ago

The average PC is an old-ass laptop used by a broke-ass student. Presumably that still is a factor on why CounterStrike, of all things, is Steam's biggest game.

It's because of the high percentage of players from developing countries, countries where high-end electronics aren't accessible, or countries with weak economies. Russia, Brazil, etc.

It sure was a factor on why WoW or The Sims were persistent PC hits despite looking way below the expectations of contemporary PC hardware.

When Sims 4 came out, people upgraded. They cancelled Sims 5 so Sims 4 remains, with largely the same specs. That's not something consoles can change. WoW is similar, which is why there's no WoW for PS5.

The beginning of competent console ports in the Xbox 360 era revolutionized that. Suddenly there was a standard PC controller that had parity to mainstream consoles and a close-enough architecture running games on a reliably stable hardware.

That's because Microsoft owns Windows and Xbox, not because Xbox revolutionized gaming. They had the ownership of 2 platforms with significant lock-in. It's like if Nintendo owned both the Switch and PlayStation (which they almost did lol).

Sure, there are PC exclusives because they rely on PC-specific controls or are trying to do some tech-demoy stuff or because they're tiny indies with no money for ports or licensing fees, or because they're made in a region where consoles aren't popular or supported or commercially viable.

So there are 14,000 titles new to Steam in the last year and your conclusion is that they are all either keyboard-only, tech demos, indies, or from a poor nation? Wild. You just said that the Xbox controller opened up a new world over 10 years ago and yet you also believe that these new games just aren't usable with a controller?

[+] MudMan@fedia.io -6 points 1 week ago

You are all over the place here. I'm not doing quotes, either, it's an obnoxious way to argue online.

In no particular order: No, it's not just developing countries on older hardware (although there ARE significant markets where high end hardware is less popular, and they matter). Microsoft doesn't own Windows, Valve owns Windows, at least on gaming, as evidenced by the long string of failed attempts from Microsoft to establish their own store on Windows PCs. The standard controller was part of that, but it wasn't all of it. And yes, most of the 14000 titles on PC are tiny indies that sold next to zero (or actually zero) copies.

Valve runs steam as a gig economy app, there are very few guardrails and instead very strong algorithmic discoverability management tools. Steam has shovelware for the same reason Google Play has shovelware, Steam is just WAY better at surfacing things specifically to gamers.

Incidentally, most of these new games support controllers because the newly standardized Xinput just works. Valve has a whole extra controller translation layer because everything else kinda doesn't and they wanted full compatibility, not just Xbox compatibility because the blood feud between Gaben and Microsoft will never end, I suppose. None of that changes that it was the advent of XInput and Xbox 360 controller compatibility that unlocked direct ports, along with consoles gradually becoming standardized PCs.

[-] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 3 points 1 week ago

No, it's not just developing countries on older hardware

I was talking about Counter Strike specifically, because you used it as an example.

Microsoft doesn't own Windows

They literally do. Look it up. Windows is developed and maintained by Microsoft. They own all trademarks and intellectual property related to Windows.

Valve runs steam as a gig economy app, there are very few guardrails and instead very strong algorithmic discoverability management tools. Steam has shovelware for the same reason Google Play has shovelware, Steam is just WAY better at surfacing things specifically to gamers.

I never disputed this, but you are arguing that PC games are all shit for some reason or another unless they're ported either from or to PS5.

Incidentally, most of these new games support controllers because the newly standardized Xinput just works.

Newly standardized? Xinput was created in 2005. It has "just worked" for ages, because it is officially supported by Microsoft through Windows. Because they own Xbox, Xinput, and Windows.

Valve has a whole extra controller translation layer because everything else kinda doesn't and they wanted full compatibility

So that they can support other controllers that aren't Xbox...

You're talking out of your ass here and not even paying attention to context which you yourself brought up. Not to mention you aren't even aware of why Xbox had such stellar support (Microsoft is one of the largest tech companies in the world and own the PC OS with the largest market share by a longshot) and how that support translated to the modern rise of PC gaming.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io -1 points 1 week ago

I never disputed this, but you are arguing that PC games are all shit for some reason or another unless they're ported either from or to PS5.

Wait, that's what you think you're arguing against?

No wonder this conversation is so loopy, then.

The fact that consoles are a huge asset for PC gaming doesn't mean, and is nowhere near the same as, saying that "PC games are shit unless ported directly from the PS5". Your straw man is not just subtly misrepresenting my point, it's having some entirely unrelated conversation in a different room with a different person.

Consoles get to be a massive asset for PC games without... well, whatever that statement is supposed to imply. PC games benefit a LOT from having a set target for mainstream hardware be a fixed point for five to ten years. They benefitted strongly from access to a large volume of affordable, standardized, compatible controllers (these days things have been that way long enough that the standards aren't going anywhere, but it was a massive deal in 2005, which is the period we're talking about, despite your surprise that we're talking about it). And yes, the target for PC-only gaming today would be both different and significantly less pleasant without those things. The shift to a more PC-centric market already made it so that ten-year-old games dominate the landscape.

It's not just CounterStrike. It's Fortnite, Overwatch, GTA 5, Minecraft, Roblox. PC gaming's characteristics encourage those types of forever games targeting widely accessible hardware. Consoles existing in parallel open the door to additional viability for AAA releases targeting higher end specs. Not that you wouldn't get any of those without consoles, but for the past 20 years consoles have been a big reason that's a whole genre instead a one-in-a-generation thing you'd get when an engine company wanted to flex its tech muscle for potential engine licensors and accidentally made a game in the process.