'It Has Plateaued': Should We Be Worried About Console Gaming's Future? (flip.it)

submitted 3 hours ago by Jezebelley@sh.itjust.works to c/games@lemmy.world

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Honestly the Switch 2 is the only future console I have any excitement for.

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[-] EvilBit@lemmy.world 1 points 36 minutes ago

Yes. The writing is on the wall, I think. Between Valve and Microsoft, I think the line between console and PC is about to blur, hard.

Valve starts selling a new generation of Steam Machines, Microsoft develops a handheld and pivots the Xbox brand to be a PC gaming label standardized to a handheld and set-top form factor, and suddenly Sony and Nintendo are swimming in a much smaller ocean. The PlayStation 6 not being PC-compatible suddenly makes it “a weird non-PC” instead of a category leader, and the Switch 2 by all accounts just becomes an echo of the previous generation, treading water on Nintendo franchises.

[-] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 2 hours ago

Honestly the Switch 2 is the only future console I have any excitement for.

Steam Deck or literally any other portable PC over whatever the hell Nintendo regurgitates next.

[-] chknbwl@lemmy.world 15 points 2 hours ago

They're keeping the layout and "adding more storage", even though you can easily buy a 1TB SD card for your current Switch. So, in all honesty, it's just a Switch with a bigger screen. At least on a Steam Deck you can play an order of magnitude more games on it, with -much- better variety.

[-] pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 24 points 2 hours ago

And the games actually go on sale

[-] bradbeattie@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 minutes ago

And I can refund the game if I don't like it. And I can see reviews of the game by those who have been vetted as having bought it.

[-] Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 2 hours ago

And you're not supporting a godawful abusive company such as Nintendo.

[-] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 7 points 2 hours ago

And it'll play nearly every video game made since the invention of video games, which is a huge win.

Want to play Diablo? Sure, no problem. Destiny 2? Yep, that's fine. Italian Plumber and Friends Kart Racing? Why yes, that works great.

And yeah, don't have to support a company that hates you only slightly more than it hates people playing their older games.

[-] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Teach me how to get d2 running on steamdeck

[-] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 4 points 1 hour ago

Fair, I brainfarted on that one.

I have an Ally, which is running Windows, which does run Destiny 2 and Fortnite and League and whatever else the steamdeck doesn't because of rootkit anticheat.

So I'll restate: you can run almost anything that doesn't need malware to allow you to connect to their servers.

[-] ieatpwns@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Ahh damn I got my hopes up I thought there was a legit workaround without windows

[-] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 2 points 1 hour ago

D2 and Fortnite are keeping me on windows instead of something like Bazzite, so I'm right there with you.

The annoying thing is that battleeye does exist for Linux, but the devs would have to implement it and they're just.... not.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

You install Windows on it.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Several things in your list come with an asterisk, to be fair.

[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago

Not remotely comparable, but sure, if you are like many here already a hobbyist PC gamer, you probably rather want a Steam Deck.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Handheld game systems of a similar size that play mostly the same games seem pretty comparable to me.

[-] almar_quigley@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

“Mostly the same games” except for all the Nintendo IP. Most folks aren’t pirating games I’d imagine so they’re aren’t really the same libraries for the vast majority of consumers.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

The 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.

[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 10 points 1 hour ago

The economics of consoles made more sense when computer power was expensive, and the choice was an underpowered home computer with so-so graphics and sound or a dedicated game machine optimised for drawing sprites and scrolling the screen responsively, with the extra costs subsidised by the price of (uncopyable) software. When PCs caught up, the consoles started looking internally like x86 PCs with souped-up GPUs (and, of course, draconian amounts of DRM baked in). Now with devices like the Steam Deck (and similar form-factor devices running Windows in game-console mode), there’s no real reason to buy a dedicated game-playing machine.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago

There's no need to worry about it, because long-term, this is a good thing for everyone. The market didn't tolerate multiple home video or audio formats for very long, so it's kind of a strange anomaly that we tolerated it for video games as long as we did. Now the concept is coming up on the end of its usefulness, especially since the platform holders won't let up on certification/patch fees, online subscriptions, external digital storefronts, and all sorts of other concessions that have historically made them more money but maybe don't make sense in the modern era.

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 hours ago

The fact that "plateaued" is a cause for concern is everything wrong with our global economic system. Infinite growth shouldn't be a necessary component of stability. A plateau should be a goal to aspire to.

[-] rubikcuber@feddit.uk 5 points 2 hours ago

Lol. 90 hours games. Fuck that shit. I've never been on board with that nonsense. Give me a decent 8 hour game and stop destroying the lives of your employees with never ending crunch.

[-] shani66@ani.social 6 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Consoles have gone almost nowhere since the xbox, of course they aren't going to be generating infinite growth. The ps5 controller is the first change in consoles I've seen in years that was genuinely interestingv outside of graphical quality. Nintendo is, of course, an exception to that. Every console they release is either genuinely different to the last or meaningfully upgraded, other business practices aside.

[-] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago

Everything is in a tough spot. Wait for the global economy to not be literal garbage and you'll see stuff like gaming consoles pick back up.

[-] ieightpi@lemmy.world 10 points 2 hours ago

I got a different take from this article. The economy doesn't really play into the fact that games are so big today because you have to make it bigger than the previous one. Same with the console stats. Gotta make it more powerful. But we are at a point where most people can't see the difference between PS5 and PS4. It's going to be even less obvious when PS6 arrives.

I agree that it's time for a hard reset.

[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 9 points 2 hours ago

Focusing too much on image detail improvements over game play is definitely a problem that most AAA games have.

[-] MurrayL@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

Because improving visuals is an easily quantifiable task, but improving gameplay requires creativity and risk-taking, neither of which are compatible with the AAA business model.

[-] PunchingWood@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Depends on which games though. Like a CoD or FIFA will continue as usual, small visual upgrades but still yearly releases with minimal changes. Going from a PS4 to a PS5 with those games will hardly be a difference. I think current generation consoles focused more on higher resolution and higher framerates anyway, which was a welcome change to me, since a lot of games on PS4 ran like sub-par 30 FPS.

But if you take games like Horizon Forbidden West, it's a pretty significant visual upgrade from Zero Dawn. Same goes for Spider-Man on PS4 and then Miles Morales on PS5, visually looks like a pretty significant upgrade.

Perhaps not everyone notices the visual fidelity moving up in consoles, but honestly that's never been all that different with previous console generations. Unless you compare games from early in the life-cycle of a console, and then another game from the end of a new generation console. It still mostly gradually happens over the lifetime of a console generation.

I do think graphical progress has been slower than before, mostly because they seem to have shifted focus on higher framerates and resolutions. But in 5 or 10 years we'll look back at these visuals as laughable. I remember feeling like this every few years, like thinking something looks like the most realistic game ever, and 5 years later you look back at it is being pretty mediocre compared to new standards.

[-] Grangle1@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago

Within console generations, change has indeed always tended to be gradual, but I think the point here is that we're talking about the step up to the next console generation, for which the visual difference in graphical power used to be very large, you could do a lot more on the newer console than the older one, but has become more gradual over time. Many already didn't see the need to upgrade to the new Playstation or Xbox from the PS4 or Xbox One, and a lot of their libraries were backported to the older consoles (granted, the consoles dropped during Covid so scarcity played a part in that but even after production picked back up they're not doing as well overall). The only console that could still likely make a big visual leap to a new generation any time soon is the Switch to the Switch 2, and we still don't have confirmation on whether Nintendo is even planning on such an upgrade. Just like the Wii, it sold like crazy while still being the least powerful in the generation because it had a knockout combination of utility and quality games. On the other hand, it is showing its age now, so if Nintendo doesn't make that upgrade who knows if the fans will continue to support it.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Nintendo has acknowledged that a new Switch is coming, and we've seen leaks come out of Chinese manufacturing that appear to be legitimate to those in the know.