Comment on 'It Has Plateaued': Should We Be Worried About Console Gaming's Future?
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 month agoThe vast majority of Switch games are not made by Nintendo, and the vast majority of those are available on PC and Steam Deck, and typically better versions of those games at that.
Carighan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yeah, sorry, you’re not going to try have a neutral perspective about this, are you?
But humor me, why are so many Switch still being sold if other stuff is so superior? After all, like you said, they’re quite comparable and hey, Deck seems strictly superior. Right?
Delphia@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Because Nintendo games on Nintendo handhelds almost never go wrong and you know what parents love? Their kids shit always just working. You dont have to check the system specs, you buy the game at the store and it WORKS. You wrap the game under a tree at Xmas, you can tell grandma “Nintendo Switch” and while she might pick something shit, its going to work.
Lemmings love to act like they are enlightened for figuring out the Steam deck is better… its not for you. Its for 5 to 10 year olds.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I mean, I just said they were comparable. To say that they’re not remotely comparable is laughable. But here are a quick few reasons: one of them is in Walmart and the other is not; one appeals to children (not the least of which is the presence of a brand “moat” in Pokemon) in a way that most other electronics do not, which also translates to multiple children in a family each having their own, which drives up sales numbers; one of them already had an international distribution chain to handle territories like Australia rather than having to build one up; one came out 5 years earlier than the other, including existing in a time period where handheld gaming PCs were typically not driving comparable 3D graphics, but that changed a mere few years later with advancements from AMD in the x64 space.
This is a paradigm shift that has occurred since the Switch’s launch. Here’s an interesting thought: do you think there will still be the “port everything to the Switch” crowd for the next Switch when the game already has a PC version ready to go on the Steam Deck? Because I’ll bet they just buy that device, or a competing handheld PC, instead without having to hope that the game they want to play gets a Switch version, and that’s exactly the weakness of the console model in the modern era.
Carighan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Uh, yes of course? The customers for a console and a handheld PC aren’t the same so naturally the former wants a game posted to the console?
🤷♀️
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The differences between those two things have begun to dissolve very quickly in the past 5 or so years, and that’s why they’re very comparable.