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submitted 3 months ago by ashinadash@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net

Look right, I can remember retro g*mers making jokes about the Game Gear being 2big and 2heavy back in the day, probably in the 2000s. Classic Game Room watchers remember. Same for the Lynx. The Wii U's tea tray controller was derided for being beeeeg. I can also recall people saying that the PS Vita was kinda large back when it came out, which tbf it is pushing the definition of "pocketable" for the boys and takes up a lot of purse space.

It sort of felt like reality broke down in 2017. The first thing I did when the Switch was announced was make a joke about putting a Game Gear in your pocket, but suddenly nobody else gave a damn that the Switch is like ten inches long. Most dildos are not that long.... makima-huh I get that it's a hybrid, but suddenly the dynamic shifted from "if it can't fit my dude pockets it's no good!" to "aw yeah bruh just get a hardcase and throw it in a backpack!" I do support backpack gang, but you almost may as well get a laptop at that point.

Handheld size has become progressively more comical over the years though, with my favourite example being the Steam Deck which is actually considerably longer than a Wii U Gamepad at an XL 13" panting Tell ya what, I couldn't fit that!!

I'm not really against the existence of larger handhelds on its own, I have long fingers and a DS Lite or PS Vita will give me handcramps sometimes. But it's like a weirder version of when all phones became "phablets" and impossible to use with one hand, suddenly all handhelds are as big as the Wii U pad. (Switch Lite excluded, though it's still larger than a Vita) It also seems like the PS Vita and 3DS primed everyone to accept hilariously short battery life? The PSP 3000/Go and DS Lite/DSi could get anywhere from 8 to 20 hours depending on your settings, that was awesome. The 3DS and Vita won't hold out for more than three hours under duress, though. Most modern portable PCs have worse battery than that, even...

I guess I'm just wondering wha happun??? I know there's a large contingent of people who never take handhelds outside the house anyway (based) and just use them on the couch, but I don't think the Deck would be much more pleasant to handle in an armchair or whatever. That's one thicc-ass boi.

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[-] radiofreeval@hexbear.net 6 points 3 months ago

Games have better graphics these days and better graphics needs a more powerful GPU which needs more cooling which needs more power which needs a bigger battery and so on. Keeping components powered and cool requires a lot of bulk.

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[-] booty@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago

Personally I just care way more about performance than size. Power of a computer part generally correlates to size, and the smaller a form factor you cram those parts into the harder it is to manage the thermals. So I'd much rather have a bigger thing that works better than a smaller thing that sucks

[-] ashinadash@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago

I think this is probably the reason why Deck Beeg, and it makes sense, but I also don't see why we can't have cheaper 7" devices with those 5-watt Athlon Gold APUs...

[-] AndJusticeForAll@hexbear.net 4 points 3 months ago

I'm posting from the intergalactic space arcade, from the year 2085, on my never-ending quest to post everything.

[-] ashinadash@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago
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this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
45 points (100.0% liked)

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