To play retail games you purchased, right? ;)
Honestly, I don't know how Nintendo survives as an independent console maker in the years to come. They ceded the traditional home console, and now everyone is making portables. Valve's portable can play the entire retail Nintendo line for "free".
Valve gets the benefit of piracy to help lift sales of their system, too.
I think the other part of it is we're ~7 years into the console's life and it uses a ~9 year old chip that was weak at release. Their next console seems imminent and how many years of "emulation doesn't even work anyways and if it did you'd need to do it on a beefy computer" will that give again?
1. Lots of games were sitting available and she just picked up and played them. She already owned them but didn't play much because she plays "on the go" more than at home.
2. Lots of games release earlier for PC than Switch (and she ended up buying many games multiple times to start playing when friends were but then again to play on the go).
3. Lots of Switch games lack cross-play so she would switch to PC for playing with friends.
4. For some games she does prefer to play on her desktop so save game syncing is really nice.
5. More games are available for PC than Switch.
6. Having a web browser handy is convenient, even if rarely used.
Then I messed around with desktop mode to make some non-Steam apps and games available which is another nice plus. But even without this she prefers the Steam Deck over the Switch.
I think there are still lots of people who would prefer the Switch, especially for the first-party exclusive titles. But I don't think you should just dismiss the Steam Deck. It may still be a bit niche but people are definitely caring about it. Even those who just want to play games.
There's lots of fun issues like "Yes the Steam Deck supports Switch Pro Controller, but enable gyro controls and it will make a grinding sound when gyro is used" and "gyro controls work fine in handheld mode, but try them in Half Life 2 with a PS5 or Switch Pro Controller and the movement will be choppy and janky even though that game was supposedly updated for Steam Deck."
There's also fun, more serious issues like a documented "Steam Deck crashes and reports low battery, refusing to even boot up for more than a few minutes if you have poor wifi signal" which necessitated getting a wifi booster.
I also just got soft locked in Portal 2 due to a bug, requiring me to restart the chapter, my save was unbeatable as the elevator to go to the next level wouldn't operate, and I googled this error and it's also present in the Switch port of Portal 2. I guess Valve is too poorly staffed to patch a 13 year old game breaking bug.
Valve seems to only finish their products to about 90% to 95%.
you say that like there weren't a ton of problems with the switch when it released. Reports of overheating, joycon random disconnects, joycon drift, and dock scratches were enough to make me skip over the system at launch and hold off for the next (hopefully XL) version. Now that it's been so long without an XL version, and the drift and overheating are still an issue (it's unclear how big a problem the scratches are now) I'm really considering just getting the steam deck instead. In terms of performance it looks like the steam deck has the switch beat.
> But it really is stark to play these two devices and see the Steam Deck handily run all but the most taxing modern games at 60 frames per second (or better), while the Switch can't reliably play Batman: Arkham Knight, a game designed for last-gen consoles that released in 2015. (https://mashable.com/article/nintendo-switch-oled-vs-steam-d...)
I agree that most people don't want to bother with downloading roms and playing with settings, but I don't think you can call the switch a "just works experience" either.
Given that emulators usually take years after a console’s release to be generally reliable, the obvious answer is doing what console makers have always done: releasing a new console every few years.
The PS5 has never had a public exploit. The PS4 was broken, but only on certain firmwares.
The Xbox One has not been cracked in 12 years. And no, the lack of exclusives or the addition of Dev Mode is only a small part of the reason.
The Switch OS (Horizon) is a microkernel, and according to people who have observed it, extremely secure. It's more intrinsically secure than the Xbox and PlayStation OSs. NVIDIA screwed up - not Nintendo. SciresM (an Atmosphere developer) has publicly stated that he believes the Switch 2 will have no useful software exploits, ever. Even on the current Switch, we've not had any kernel or useful software exploits in the last five years.
It's also notable that these firmware exploits never drop out of the blue anymore either, since the console manufacturers started doing bug bounty programs (up to $50k in Sony's case) they always get advance warning when someone does find an exploit and it's fixed before anyone knows about it, by which point most people have already updated to a fixed firmware and it's too late for them to jailbreak.
It's super easy to fix then - cook up a new DRM and encryption scheme (or modify the current one) that, without access to the internals, is impossible to figure out. Doesn't take much - probably just a generic encryption key that gets swapped out. Then, roll that out in an OS update. Finally, make new games use that encryption scheme and thus that firmware level.
Sure, games that run on 4.51 or lower are cracked. New ones? Uncrackable, until a new jailbreak is found.
The PS4 scene is full of downgrade patches. Many games targeting 10.x for example didnt make use of newer syscalls and it was discovered how to patch the game for 9.0 (the 9.0 firmware has a jailbreak).
For the curious: the PS4 does have a few emulators available[0], but they appear to be at a very experimental stage.
[0]: emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/PlayStation_4_emulators
This is unrelated to being jailbroken. PS4 was jailbroken in october 2015.
But emulators are hit or miss, specially if you aren't tech-savvy enough to fix specific problems, and depends on the people's preferences:
- they need to install and configure an emulator, which isn't fool proof
- go through the hoops of downloading ROMs from sometimes sketchy sources
- configuring each game to work well
- self troubleshooting any issues they might have with some games
- not wanting to play their games online (which in Nintendo's case the online experience is truly lacking)
- not have any moral issues with piracy for games that are currently selling in both physical and digital format and are widely available
Nintendo's Switch is due for a very necessary upgrade, but the console is still widely available, very convenient with minimal setup and troubleshooting, and very plug and play. With the added benefit that you get to support developers to continue making the games.
I think this criticism is a little misguided.
1. Joy-con drifting doesn't happen much with newer Joy-cons. Nintendo also repairs all Joy-cons for free now - even ones that aren't drifting. Break a button? Damage the rubber top of the Joy-con? They fix those free too, and even pay all shipping costs. We might as well bring up the Xbox Red Ring incident, or the PS5 having melting USB ports.
2. "Their unwillingness to fix their design flaw" - as already stated, it already has been mostly fixed through subtle changes. Sure, there's no big announcement of a specific revision that has no issues, but that would be begging for a class-action lawsuit (the reason why companies can never admit guilt publicly - or they've already lost). Also, if they were to announce that "revision X has no issues," and then it developed issues eventually like all non-Hall sticks do, another lawsuit.
3. "constant efforts to stop video game preservation" - You've surely never seen Sony or Microsoft's efforts then. They are more subtle and skilled, but don't think for a second they don't have the same goals. I actually think Microsoft is the most insidious character; for making consoles that cannot be set up without internet, combined with "backwards compatibility" for "preservation" that also does not work without internet.
Towards game preservation? Microsoft is basically a patron saint. For starters, the concept of an "Xbox exclusive" barely exists. Most console titles Microsoft publishes release day-and-date on PC, where DirectX is entirely reverse-engineered and doesn't rely on Windows. The Xbox itself is the only console among the companies you mentioned where you can install an emulator without hacking the OS or red-teaming the OEM.
> combined with "backwards compatibility" for "preservation" that also does not work without internet.
That's because the Xbox does not contain redundant backwards-compatible hardware. It provides high-level emulation for older titles, which doesn't work unless you can download the mods. It's a bit like complaining that FPS Boost doesn't work without internet to download the update from.
And my kids can operate a switch, easily.
(I do own both a steam deck and a switch—I can’t let my kids use the deck at all because of some of the games I have on it, with no ability to hide them, even if their account can’t play them; overall the Deck is more a toy for the at-least-slightly tech-“literate”, I’d say. I do like it, in fact, but it’s not a switch replacement, at all)
The controllers on the switch are outright terrible, they all get the damn drift. The design of the controllers, while, small, are improperly shaped for small hands. The impossibility to tell which controller button to press due to having no letters on the left stick (the only one that fits small hands). Then, the fact that changing controller order can put the switch in a state where only putting it to sleep allows to go back to the home and fix the order.
The thing the Switch has are extremely easy games, which is indeed good for young children. And some couch coop, which is great for brothers.
But the whole "change cartridge" is not helpful, children lose them (as they did with one of mine) and I had to withdraw access to those, since it's 50$ each. They now have to ask.
For the steam deck, set family view, parental controls and you CAN hide any games you want now. If you connect the wireless controllers once to the steam deck (which can be connected to a tv), you are good to go, but you won't have games for them to play until they can properly read (6 or 7).
We are in a limbo where the gaming universe (not the tablet crap) is not properly developed for children yet. lucky the accessibility options are moving things forward, but the reading requirement is really a big blocker.
I don't know why some games are tagged 3+ when the reading age for school is 6 (yes you can read earlier, but 6 is when you should be able to read)
Or just a description of my experience with both. Incidentally, the switch pro controllers are excellent, among the best I’ve used, period.
> For the steam deck, set family view, parental controls and you CAN hide any games you want now. If you connect the wireless controllers once to the steam deck (which can be connected to a tv), you are good to go, but you won't have games for them to play until they can properly read (6 or 7).
Oh, that’s great. Last I checked was like November and it was still crickets. All I want to do is hide all the games for one account on it that’s not even any part of our family sharing. Which I’d have thought would be default? It’s a weird choice they made, there. [edit] like, setting aside the hiding-games use case, having games show up in your library, as if they were yours, but that you can’t play without buying them be the default thing that happens is a strange choice.
Can I share with local-only accounts (does the steam deck have such a thing?) or will I need to go through an email address confirmation flow to sign up Stream accounts for each kid? I haven’t done much with this since there was no way to hide games, before, so there was no reason to.
You do need one account per child, or you let them play on your account. You will need to hide the games on your own account in that case.
I like the Switch Pro too, those are a bit better than xbox one for the small hands. Still enormous, my 3 years old started being able to use it only recently, while the basic switch controller was usable earlier (2 years old).
And yeah, sorry for the tone, I'm frustrated with the switch controller configuration handling. If it wasn't for that I would get less meltdown when mario party messes up the whole configuration
I think you overestimate the willing of most people to play on emulators.
The Switch is on its last legs anyway, and the successor will reset jailbreaking/emulation progress back to zero.
I think part of it is that Steam offers more than just games; it's a platform for mods, you have friends, there's the Steam community, early access Steam games, Steam cloud, etc.
I think you're right that most people just don't even bother with the effort to pirate stuff in general, though. When I've been asked to, I've shown family members multiple times how to pirate media using a torrent client, but they end up forgetting and don't bother to do it by themselves.
Jailbreaking yes, but emulation? I wouldn't be so certain, it's still the fundamentally same, mainstream CPU/GPU family just with more beef.
The most pressing challenge is getting game cartridges to a point where they can be decrypted.
It is possible, but in the past Nintendo didn't reset.
Wii-U, 3DS and Switch share some parts in common still.
I expect the next Switch to be powerful enough to make emulation difficult, but we'll see.
Its's just less work has been put into 3DS emulation atm, nothing else.
Some of the 3DS citra emu devs went off to focus on Yuzu iirc, but lately citra is more active again.
When I'm able to significantly speed the game up, then I'll consider emulating it.
The problem is that I often play games like RPG's that like to make you sit and wait on load screens and animations, speeding it up allows me to experience the game in far less time.
Not good enough to make me buy their hardware (I very much like PC gaming and hardware that isn't locked down) but I definitely consider it.
Although now that the Steam Deck and it's competitors are out I wouldn't be surprised if that changes. There are still some benefits of the Switch but having fairly direct competitors will surely hurt. Even though I am not a mobile gamer I am really happy to see more competition in this market. (My partner is in the market. She liked her Switch a lot but when it was time to upgrade she decided to go for the Steam Deck and really loves it. Especially since she ended up buying many games on PC and Switch and was frustrated by lack of ability to sync saves and often lack of cross-play.)
I've been reading variations of this line for 25 years.
First Sega was gonna kill them.
Then Sony was gonna eat them alive.
Then Microsoft was gonna make them look like cavemen.
Then Apple was gonna eat their whole blue ocean lunch.
Survival bias doesn't mean Nintendo won't inevitably collapse -- I fear them getting hostily taken over by a foreign company (Microsoft admitted they considered it as recently as 2017 but decided not to pursue it, mostly for PR reasons[1]).
From every outside indication (interviews, Iwata Asks, etc.) it seems Nintendo's corporate culture is rock solid and they're handling the generational changeovers extremely gracefully compared to most companies (especially gaming companies).
As long as Nintendo's insides don't change too much, they'll likely keep creating first-party entertainment that is compelling enough to support millions of hardware sales.
And they have Pokemon, man.
1. https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/19/23880146/phil-spencer-mic...
EDIT: To add, piracy is a service problem, not a price problem. Free doesn't mean ubiquitous.
I just don't care for it anymore. I have enough money and don't play that many games anymore that i care.
Steam just works, syncs my saves, has mod support.
Switch you buy at the beginning because the price doesn't change. Than i have the console for years. The games i buy physically and either sell it on ebay (when i sell stuff in bulk) or give it to family.
And my extended family knows more or less that i could 'provide' them with every game they want, no one asks me about it. No one cares apparently as a normal consumer either.
By doing the same thing they've been doing for the last 40 years. Keep innovating on cheaper, older tech rather than relying on pushing out the most FLOPS to sell the next generation of hardware, and keep producing a consistent supply of solid first party games.
One other thing that I think really helps the Switch is mobile gaming. Gaming on your phone / iPad is basically horrible due to predatory monetization schemes. As a parent, I would much prefer my kids play games on a Switch than a phone or tablet. Apple sort of addressed this with "Arcade", but the library doesn't even compare to the Switch.
SNES was more powerful than Genesis, N64 arguably more powerful than PS1/Saturn but lacking CDs (and thus unable to rely on prerendered FMVs that defined that generation), and Gamecube more powerful than Dreamcast/PS2 (Xbox wins, but was unexpected new entrant)
Nintendo definelty pushed graphics advancements as key selling points back then.
The Wii is when they stopped competing on graphics, and switched to innovating in other areas (motion controls, 3D, connected tablet, hybrid gaming, etc).
I know past performance doesn't guarantee future results, but I've been reading comments like this since the GameCube was announced, and Nintendo has not gone anywhere. They seem pretty good at understanding that there's a segment of the gaming market which cares about more than speeds and feeds.
Cause they never lower the price on their first part games lol
I mean the switch has outsold the PS5. Your entire conjecture is wrong that they ceded the home console market.
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/456387/ps5-vs-switch-sales-...
Switch games have also outsold PS5 and XBox games 4 out of the last 5 years.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276768/global-unit-sales...
Nintendo is also profitable in a way the other 2 console manufacturers can only dream of.
On the handheld question, Valve hasn't released numbers, but a Nov 2023 quote put Steam Deck sales at "multiple millions", so probably at the lower end of between 1 and 10. By contrast the Switch has sold 132 million units. That's somewhere between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude difference. It doesn't make much sense to make comparisons between them. I'm sure piracy of Nintendo games is far more common on PCs and laptops.
Nintendo has been "dying" for decades -- just like Apple.
Steam Deck: 419 euros, directly needs storage expansion and bad availability
Nintendo Switch: about 280 euros, readily available, plug and play Mario ;)
Also, messing with emulators is something I and lots of people don't want to do when making use of sparse game time. There's always something not quite working right, so experiencing a game on the intended console and not being a freeloader has value to me.
Huh? The 419€ Deck model comes with 4x more internal storage than the highest end (~330€) Switch model.