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Comment by bakugo | Hacker News Reader

If the emulator has good compatibility for the game you want to play, it's just a much better experience overall. Why play games at low resolutions and unstable framerates when an emulator can run them better at whatever resolution you want, on the same device you already use for most other things?

And yes, many people just don't want to pay for the game or console, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not like Nintendo cares about the customer either anyway.

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I don't think feeling snubbed by a business entitles you to their wares without paying, and the law would tend to agree with that.

Playing an emulator requires you to grab the keys from your purchased switch, and dump your games. I’m not going to pretend that a lot of people don’t do this, but this is how it’s recommended to use the emulator.

Even of those who don't, some of them may still have paid for the game they are downloading. Dumping the keys/games from your Switch requires hacking it, and some people are hesitant about doing that (you might brick your Switch, or Nintendo might ban it from their online services.) Or, you might only own a recent revision–which are far more difficult to hack than the first revisions were.

I never claimed I was legally entitled to it. They're free to stop me, if they can.

I disagree with the “better experience” overall. The massive advantage of the Switch is its convenience and form factor. I have a bunch of games that I could play with much better graphics on the versions bought from Steam that I also own, and I still vastly prefer to do so on the Switch.

Remember that convenience is subjective here. I don't travel regularly and have no interest in playing games in public, for me it's much more convenient to sit at my desk, wait 5 minutes for my game to download on a gigabit connection, grab my controller, open the emulator and launch the game, than it is to turn on my switch that needs its own dedicated dock plugged into my monitor, slowly navigate the eshop to find a game I want, wait 2 hours for it to download through the switch's exceptionally bad wifi connection, wait for it to load from the slow SD card, and finally play an ugly 720p 30fps game which is painful when I'm used to 1440p 144hz gaming.

I rarely play outside the house, and still I prefer my Switch, docked and undocked. Whether I just want to lie on the couch instead of sit on it, or at the table.

One button press and the Switch is off no matter what it was doing, one other button press and it seamlessly picks up again.

The (Ethernet-connected) dock is attached to my TV. All I need to do to play there is either plop the running Switch in, or press a button on the controller to turn it on. It downloads fast over my Gigabit Fiber Connection, and even if it wouldn’t I don’t buy a new game every day.

1440p 144Hz gaming is not worth the massive loss in convenience for me. Graphics get better all the time, it’s not what keeps me attached to a game. As said, the games that I own on Steam as well I rarely if ever play there.

    1440p 144Hz gaming is not worth the massive 
    loss in convenience for me. Graphics get better 
    all the time, it’s not what keeps me attached 
    to a game

So, game design and gameplay mechanics are the things for you?

Me too. Honestly, I prefer stylized/retro looks to Call of Duty style attempts at "realism" -- I think Wind Waker on Gamecube is a lot better looking quite honestly!

However... while I'm not overly concerned with graphic detail, I think that frame rates and refresh rates do rather directly affect gameplay.

(Of course, that's just my subjective opinion and it's not any more "correct" than yours!)

Yup. Sleep is killer. The Steam Deck got me playing and buying PC games again because it's sleep mode works unlike a normal PC. I COULD hop over to the PC 10 feet away but then I'd have to boot the whole game up, get the controller connected, etc. then if I want to do something else I have to wait for a save point or check point.

That's more of a matter of personal opinion than convenience. I've noticed that people who prefer the Switch tend to see video games as quick time wasters that they play for 10 minutes at a time when their hands are free and don't give much thought to where or why they play them. Personally whenever I play games I prefer to sit down in a quiet room for hours at a time and dedicate all of my attention to them, while playing at a level of visual quality that's actually pleasing to the eyes.

> the switch's exceptionally bad wifi connection

The switch can use usb Ethernet adapters; you might need to look up which chipsets are supported, but it supports an 10/100 adapter I already had, seems like it supports some 1G adapters, but I have < 100M to the internet, so 10/100 is plenty.

I'm aware but honestly I already have way too many cables running under my desk and I don't download games on my switch often enough to justify adding one more.

There are also reports of the network adapters keeping the Switch from going into the lowes power state, thus keeping it somewhat warm. I had the same reasons as above though to not buy an adapter: I buy new games only very infrequently, so wireless is good enough for me.

I have absolutely no interest in the size or portability of the switch and bought mine solely to play exclusives (Mario/Zelda/etc). If those were available on PC outright i'd have never purchased the device

At one point I didn’t have a TV, so it was easier to play switch games on my desktop as it didn’t require plugging in all the cables for the switch. Was a just works experience.

My only issue is Bluetooth controllers seem to have lag but wired is fine.

> And yes, many people just don't want to pay for the game or console, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I suppose that will work out for people until they too become successful, and people start to steal from them.

Piracy is not theft.

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