Ask HN: What is your favourite gaming hardware/device? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your favourite gaming hardware/device?

33 pointsrecvonline50 comments

Title says it all. A bit of an explanation: I used to game a lot as a kid/teenager, and over the years it became less and less. Now with having my own family, time is rare but I sometimes "want the feeling back" I had as a kid and dive into a game.

I basically look for a device I can feel connected to. I had the Nintendo Switch and good experiences with it. I am now looking for a device which would feel good "to have" and can play a few games.

I am curious about your experiences. Do you enjoy gaming on an iPad? Are you a Switch person? Or do you have a dedicated gaming PC at home?

View on HN

I’ve been a keen gamer since a kid. Now a dad, I’m in a similar position where I rarely have time to play. But I adore the Oculus Quest 2! I’ve just completed Resident Evil 4 (it took several weeks, but it’s the first time I’ve completed a AAA game in years). The immersion is amazing, I haven’t been this absorbed in a game in a long time. Fighting your way through a fully realised VR environment (massive castles, underground caverns etc) is something new to me. I found that most console games are too complex for me to get back into after a week or two away - the mental effort needed to remember the controls puts me off after a long day of work followed by looking after the kids - but RE4 VR doesn’t have this problem. It’s very intuitive - you grab weapons from different points on your body, reload with physical motions, and there’s only a few actions that map to button presses, so it’s made it easy to pick it up again after a break. I’m looking forward to seeing this platform develop. Bonus: I tell the kids they can’t use it till they’re teenagers, so whilst they hog the PS4 for Minecraft, the Quest is exclusively for my use. :)

> It’s very intuitive

Yep, this is a thing. Friends who never played a game in their life were shooting and climbing after a few minutes in the Quest. I struggle with modern console controllers (while I am really good still with 80s joysticks; they are not alike in any way), on the Quest 2 I will redo a round after failing 10x because I did not fail due to the frustrating controls, which I have no patience or time to learn anyway, but I failed just because i was not fast enough. That improves gaming so much for me, I started to like modern gaming again after leaving it for some 20 years (I played retro games with joysticks though during that time).

>on the Quest 2 I will redo a round after failing 10x because I did not fail due to the frustrating controls

Not to mention all the extra calories you'll burn from redoing all those failed rounds ;)

>I’ve been a keen gamer since a kid. Now a dad, I’m in a similar position where I rarely have time to play. But I adore the Oculus Quest 2!

Same here. The Quest put the fun back in gaming for me. I tried some of the fancy new AAA PC games and I felt I just was not having as much fun as I did gaming as a kid since everything felt as the same-old rehashed recipes but with way fancier graphics and different stories, so I was just left yawning and bored quickly despite the realistic graphics and major hype.

But gaming in VR really makes me feel immersed and I finally feel like I'm having genuine fun like I'm a kid again. Why control a 1st/3rd person character on a screen, when you can be that characters and live the adventure yourself ?!.

Even though the graphics have a lot less polygons on the Quest, but since the art style of some games is designed from the get-go to be low-poly, it really fits well together. But somehow, some games on the Quest 2 really do look visually stunning, verging on modern console/PC fidelity, which is insane considering the underlying HW.

Mental health wise, it was a real life saver for me during the 2020 lockdowns as it allowed some quick escapism in new territories when everything was closed and my social circles broke up.

Not to mention, gaming in VR with 360 degrees of freedom is a lot healthier for your body and posture than gaming sitting at a desk/couch, especially if your day job also involves sitting at a desk for 8 hours.

As much as I despise Facebook/Meta, the Quest is a game changer which had a genuine positive impact on my life.

Honestly I’m looking forward the most to the SteamDeck. I think it’s going to fulfill a niche that’s never been properly addressed before and I think the same way the iPhone exploded apps, the SteamDeck will drive a Cambrian explosion for games.

When you have a very stable hardware system where the specifications are well-known, it removes some of the friction involved in software development.

Gaming PC’s for the most part are more of a liability than an asset to game development, owing to the constantly need to upgrade, driven by faster and faster CPU’s. It removes the incentive to design better software.

>Gaming PC’s for the most part are more of a liability than an asset to game development, owing to the constantly need to upgrade, driven by faster and faster CPU’s. It removes the incentive to design better software.

I get where you're coming from, but I very much disagree with this. It's like saying modern cars with safety features are a liability to road safety as it removes the incentive to have better trained drivers that pay attention to the road. One does not necessary mean the exclusion of the other.

HW advancements give more creative freedom to game designers and can let the studios focus more resources on the look and feel of the game rather than wrestling with technical limitations like in the old days when even 2D side scrolling games on PCs, like Commander Keen, represented a technical challenge and needed the incredible mind of John Carmack to pull off.

The vast, open, complex, high fidelity worlds we enjoy in famous titles today only exist because consumer HW has advanced enough at a palpable price point (barring the post-2020 scalpocalipse) to support the vision of the designers. Games with such details would have not been economically feasible on consumer HW in the distant pass even if you had to code them in raw assembly from scratch.

So IMHO it was good thing when every now and then a new game like Far Cry or Crysys would come along and break the mold by exceeding what the current gen mainstream HW was capable of, showing what the near future could look like when HW gets a bit faster and more affordable. But those days of the rebel engine designers that would leave everyone drooling in awe with visuals that only delivered on $3000+ PC HW are pretty much behind us now, as every studio is designing games to work on the lowest common denominator (consoles and phones) as that's where the majority of users and $$$ is.

And one can say, "Well, what was the point of making games that looked amazing on HW nobody could afford at the time?" but the same could be said "Well, what was the point of going to the moon when nobody can afford to go there?". Innovation needs disruptors to break the mold and push boundaries for the benefit of the knowledge gained in the process, as it will trickle down later with time.

There's also the fact that midrange GPUs are now the price of a full console, if you can even find one for sale, and there's no immediate end in sight to the shortage.

I, too, have little time for gaming. I love my Xbox Series X - together with Game Pass I have more games than I will ever be able to play. Things Just Work and load times are basically nonexistent, can jump straight in when I do have a short moment for some gaming. Game Pass Ultimate even lets me play on Chrome on my Mac and on my Android phone, although I rarely actually use it, it works pretty well.

I really like Stadia for this. It's not perfect, Google does a horrible job running it, and there aren't a ton of 'big' games.

But not having to download games or updates really changes the way you treat it. You just dive in for a few minutes at a time if you want, or hours for the times you have them. Play from your tablet or phone if you want, or pick up a controller and play on the big screen.

+1 for Stadia. The catalogue is getting better, with indie and AAA games alike ( probably thanks to Google's generous subsidies, but it's a chicken and egg problem - without games there won't be customers, but without customers there won't be games, so good on Google for actually trying). A hardware refresh to keep up with the competition might be a good idea soon, and of course more games, but it's generally a good platform.

The Nintendo Switch.

For all the reasons you mention. I have a career, I have a family, and I have side projects. I just don’t have time to dedicate to games. But sometimes you just need to blow off steam for 15 minutes before bed and the Switch is perfect for this.

Every game can be paused/stopped by hitting one button. The controls are great, software is great, and I’ve been using the the dock to play games together with family like Mario Kart. I have a bunch of maxed out characters in Diablo 3 just by playing 15 minutes here and there. :)

> Every game can be paused/stopped by hitting one button

Being able to play anytime/anywhere for any length of time and the feeling of coziness that you get from being in your own gaming pod make handheld gaming particularly appealing.

As you note with Diablo 3, grindy RPGs are particularly great on handhelds.

Advantages of the Switch over smartphones include physical buttons and joysticks (though regular and Switch-style attached controllers are also available for phones), games that are largely untainted by intrusive "free to play" monetization schemes, and Nintendo's outstanding first-party game library.

Disadvantages are carrying and managing an extra (and somewhat bulky) device, more expensive games, and the lack of plausible deniability.

My son started gaming on an iPad, then a Wii, then an XBox. A couple of years ago we built a custom PC rig for him, then one for my nephew, and finally one for myself.

I don't game a huge amount, but we have weekly CS:GO games with friends and family, and I occasionally fire up a few favourites on my PC from Steam.

However, TBH, if I didn't also use my machine for work, it would be a colossal waste of money. Prior to building it, I was playing RDR2 and AC Valhalla on a cheap laptop using Stadia, and really enjoyed them.

Starting with your questions:

> Do you enjoy gaming on an iPad?

Generally no, unless I'm playing a game for which a touch screen provides a good interface. Board/card games are great. "God view" games can be done well. Most first or third person games of any variety suck.

> Are you a Switch person?

Not really. The Switch is too large and fragile to be pocketed so it's only really portable in the sense that it's not tied to a TV, which means mine just lives in its dock 95% of the time. As a docked console it wasn't even competitive against last-gen hardware, and as a result it exists solely because enough Nintendo first-party games came out that I wanted to play.

I was a huge DS person in its era, because I could have it in my pocket anywhere. Pull it out, open it up for even half a level of New Super Mario, then slap it shut and it's immediately suspended for later. Switch has the same function but without the pocketability it's just not as useful.

> Or do you have a dedicated gaming PC at home?

Always have, always will. The PC is the longest lasting gaming platform on its own, rarely has it ever lost the performance crown, and thanks to both inherent compatibility and emulation it can play the majority of games ever made for any platform.

I have consoles for convenience and exclusives, but a good PC is a long term investment that pays off if you really like gaming.

>a good PC is a long term investment that pays off if you really like gaming

Yeah, that used to be true, but then 2020 happened and GPUs became unobtanium. Not to mention they've been seeing a steady price increase in MSRP since a few years before covid. I fondly remeber the days when ~$400 was enough to buy you a wicked high end GPU, like a GTX 1070, that would play all games at high settings and would last you a few years. Those days are gone now and even when the supply chain gets fixed, it looks like the hiked prices will be the new norm and are here to stay for a while, as the nvidia-amd duopoly realized there is enough demand even at these price points. Or at least until the next crypto bust (which, IMHO, can't come soon enough).

The "major advantage" of consoles running super locked down walled gardened SW is that miners can't use them ... yet. So at least in the EU you can still buy the lastest gen consoles for MSRP if you're willing to look around hard enough.

GPUs for MSRP? Hell is more likely to freeze over before that happens.

While you're not wrong, the GPU situation makes maintaining a gaming PC harder, starting from scratch is actually easier than not these days because you can get better deals on prebuilts with modern GPUs.

My PC. I think that may change when I get my Steam Deck. I refuse to use a locked-down ecosystem.

Something like Steam Deck for PC games would be very convenient due to the form factor.

But it remains to be seen if it can replace the mouse/keyboard combination.

Steam Deck is for PC games. It runs Arch with a compatibility layer for Windows games.

But does the trackpad work well with PC games, that's the question.

If the game is controller-compatible, it should work exactly the same. The touchpad is for RTS games and other typically KBM games.

Isn't Steam a locked down ecosystem?

steam deck allows you to install whatever you want and ships with an arch-based distro (steamos 3.0)

I'm aware. It's functionally a mobile PC. I mean isn't Steam a closed ecosystem? Not the Steam Deck, but Steam specifically?

Yeah, but you could also install GOG games on a deck. Steam is closed, but the deck ain't.

For just AAA gaming (no time like the rest here but I try to do it a few hours per month and often I lose discipline and play too long and feel guilty) the gpd win 3. But hold on; I actually bought that for my current actual favorite gaming device which I spend way too much time on; the Quest 2. I connect them together (as I can stick the win3 in my bag while it has a lot of power) and use Immersive VR to have 5 monitors to code on taking up a fraction of the space. And when I take a break, I shoot zombies or climb mountains. It is not perfect yet, but with more battery life and higher res, it would be perfect for me.

Strictly speaking, I have never been a gamer, although I enjoyed in the past playing games, either alone or with friends; back then the hardware was the C64 and later the Amiga. I still have memories of epic tournaments, one of which brought me and a friend to an actual physical fight:^) After growing up a bit, and as a formerly avid SF reader, I started enjoying immersive games with actual plots. I liked a lot Half Life 2, although it didn't really have a fully developed plot, and later fell in love with the Mass Effect series, which to me is a kick ass TV series waiting to happen. I have considered multiple times getting a console, but always chose the PC. Actually I still have my old Wii which I use from time to time to do some exercising at home, but for serious gaming, today I'd get a PC. My current machine is too old for anything serious, so I'm planning to get soon an upgrade with a Ryzen G series CPU which would work for light games. The choice IMO depends on what the user might do (or plan to do in the future) with the device. A console is a much simpler device one can turn on and start playing in seconds, while a PC is more time consuming (installs, load times, fiddling with drivers or other issues, etc.) but is also on a whole different league wrt features and use cases. I left out small devices like tablets and portable consoles because to me they're too limited, and also I can't feel immersed in a game if it occupies just a small screen, but since you mention them, I would suggest a look at the Steam Deck: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/

The Gamecube was and is by far my favorite console, still; which is easy to say because mine's still humming along as smoothly as it did in 2005. Built like a brick, great ergonomics in the controller, no "loading" between levels or startups, and the games are free from the various monetization schemes that I find plague games these days. I find the graphics a lot easier to parse than the overly "noisy" graphics that consumed the next generations.

I don't spend much time gaming but the few hours I do spend here and there are on the Quest 2 which could also be categorized experiences than games though I play those too. I also play an RTS (starcraft2) on PC--it's not meant as a dedicated machine but being Windows is the only use it gets.

I play stuff on Linux, it's alright. It's not as mindless a setup as gaming on Windows, but tech like Steam Proton and WINE have come such a long ways that I can comfortably play the vast majority of Windows releases with near-native performance on the same device I write code with. It's pretty comfy once you get the hang of it, I'd recommend checking out library compatibility[0] and some benchmarks[1] to get an idea of how far things have come. It's not too far-fetched to just build your own Linux console as a weekend project.

[0] https://www.protondb.com/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voXc1nCD4IA

The PSP has tons of emulators/homebrew + native PS1 support, and you can use Android or PC to emulate the DS/GBA pretty well (same instruction set or JIT-ted emulators). Good thing about Nintendo systems is ROM size, so you can have tons of games and not get bored.

Plus, if you have an old android phone with buttons or close volume keys, you can use it as a complete portable GB/A or DS. I remember to have played the heck out of SFA3/Pokemon in an old phone on long trips.

So I would stick to portable handleds and check out ports or exclusives. If you have a modded home console its more of the same but with better graphics and power or more space for ROMS.

PC. I've always enjoyed strategy games, both RTS and turn-based. Mouse + keyboard is still by far the best interface for it. I also don't game enough to have a dedicated setup.

One can't really go wrong with any of the current gen consoles (PS5, Xbox Series X/S). They are incredibly powerful, and there's a good choice of games.

It feels harder to recommend PCs for gaming nowadays since a lot of games are designed for console-first, and the prices for average graphics card are now at 2x the price of the consoles. But also depends on the preferred genre. For indie games or some of the competitive online games PCs might be better options.

I've been in a retro game mood with GBA games, so I bought a RG351P. Emulates up to n64 and comfy to play in bed. They released a newer version, the RG351MP, with slightly different screen size. But interestingly there should be a chip upgrade in the next year that will allow smooth emulation up to ps2 (so they say, the current chips are old to say the least).

Retrododo has good reviews of these types of devices. Not affiliated, just think their content is good

How good is the N64 emulation?

Been waiting for handhelds to get powerful enough to do that

Can it do Ocarina of Time/Majora’s Mask/Goldeneye reasonably well?

I just got the RG351V which I've been enjoying playing with, I think it uses the same chip as the MP one you mentioned.

F-Zero X for N64 recommended ;)

My Kodi box, which runs on a cheap 2011 entry level nuc. Kodi has supported emulators really nicely for a while. Definitely has some quirks which are inherent to emulators, but switching from watching series and live tv, to your favorite games of the past in one interface gives a pretty satisfying feeling. It's a pretty open software stack as well, which is important to me.

I have a PS4, and it's been great so far. It's low power (Solar panels are my main source of electricity) and the performance is great. I don't really enjoy gaming on small devices, and I prefer reading when I'm outside (Kindle). I also don't enjoy gaming on laptop (too expensive) and most desktop PC are too power consuming.

I would like to get back into retro gaming. As a kid had a NES and SNES. Of course sold the devices later on. Now with a kid in my own i would like to share the experience.

Buying original equipment is very expensive. But emulators are abound. A middle ground would be for me to play those with original controllers.

But how could that be done?

> Buying original equipment is very expensive. But emulators are abound. A middle ground would be for me to play those with original controllers.

For NES/SNES? Absolutely trivial. Those controllers are literally just one (NES) or two (SNES) 4021 shift registers connected to the various buttons. Console sends a latch signal every now and then and then reads out the button state one by one.

There are adapters to convert those to USB HID available through a variety of sources and they're also trivial to DIY if you like to play with microcontrollers.

Most other 8/16 bit era controllers are either doing something similar or just directly wire the buttons to pins on the connector like the old "game port" on PC sound cards did.

If you want the ultimate in realistic play though, you can build a MiSTer.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

Take one not-super-expensive FPGA dev board, add some open source firmware and optionally a few open hardware addon boards, and you have a near universal hardware emulator for 8/16 bit era consoles and computers that has perfect hardware timing. With either of the addon I/O boards you can connect native controllers directly at which point the accuracy is so high that you can actually use original light guns if you're connected to a CRT.

Anyone who is nostalgic for the 8/16 bit eras should really take a look at this project. Recently there has even been progress in to the 32 bit era, with both PSX and Saturn cores in development.

I love the PlayStation Vita. It's just such a small, delightful device. And the buttons feel great and the size feels great for the hands. I do have a Switch as well, but I don't really love it the same way.

Too bad there were not many of us.

If yo don't have enough time, then go with PS5. It's powerful, has good quality exclusive games, and is just plug and play.

PC gaming can give you more, but it also requires more care and time to maintain, upgrade, run, install, and optimize.

The one I’m most impressed by is the Quest 2. The one I spend the most time gaming on and ultimately have the most fun with is still the PC, as it has been for the past 20 years. I absolutely cannot stand touchscreen gaming.

proper gaming PC with high refresh rate monitor

the difference in ability to aim is night and day

Commodore 64. Gameplay is second to none.

How about the PiBoy DMG? It's sold out / discontinued but maybe you find a source for used devices.

Super Nintendo. I like the unforgiving nature of older games, but 8bit is a little too retro for me.

The personal computer, probably. It has the most freedom of all devices, with games, mods etc.

logitech marble mouse

Reply on news.ycombinator.com