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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

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echelon

Huge capital overhead. Exhausting mid-lifecycle crunch that makes or breaks the next gen. Multiple giants.

Meanwhile Steam just casually absorbing everything. It doesn't matter that it's porous.

And now suddenly - hardware costs you can't tip toe schedule around.

The console business is shitty.

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Talk to console gamers and they still think the PC is sweaty and playing on the PC is like putting your hands in the toilet. I mean, I remember the 1990s when kids were playing flight simulators with this huge plastic joysticks that were always falling apart and needed to be calibrated every five minutes. It's not like that anymore, with Steam Big Picture and either an XBOX ONE or PS4/5 controller your PC is a better console.

The main problem is that, ex. the Steam Controller, nobody can make a decent game controller except for console vendors and when the console vendors go down somebody will have to step up.

I just can't believe the PS5 has sold as many units as it has with just 15 exclusive games, many of which are remakes, even remakes of remakes. That reputation that the PC platform is too sweaty has taken a long long time to die and it doesn't help that ACER and such are coming out with handhelds that are maximum sweat (boot into a Windows Desktop with 10x too small fonts) compared to the consumer electronics experience of the Steam Deck.

> The main problem is that, ex. the Steam Controller, nobody can make a decent game controller except for console vendors and when the console vendors go down somebody will have to step up.

I used to only play on DualShock 4s and even skipped the DualSense because I just loved my DualShock that much.

I use an 8bitDo now and it is better in every way I care about. 8bitDo does not make consoles.

>Talk to console gamers and they still think the PC is sweaty and playing on the PC is like putting your hands in the toilet.

Eh, as someone who owns and plays on both pc and console, the simple truth of the matter is that playing on console is, for the most part, better 'bang for the buck'. You can reliably purchase a console and a budget linux laptop and both will reliably fill their respective niches for the next decade. PC gaming, in my experience, requires a much higher budget, and this was even before the modern pricing madness.

Consoles also had much wider support for couch coop than PC did, so it was a more social experience, and to be blunt, PC gaming has a pretty bad problem with cheating that I simply never experienced on console.

Like I said, I play and enjoy both. I can afford to do so now, but I do feel bad for teens today because even consoles are getting crazy expensive.

To me, the Steam Controller feels like holding a rectangle, not nearly as ergonomic as, say, an Xbox controller. It is otherwise decent though.

Meanwhile to play PS5 games like TMNT you can't use PS4 controllers. This is not a customer focused approach.

> ex. the Steam Controller, nobody can make a decent game controller except for console vendors

Reading this feels feels like you are the one that is still in 1990s.

Third party controllers have long surpassed the ones from console vendors. Standard console controllers still continue to use potentiometers for sticks. Even pro versions that cost over a hundred euro still use them.

Xbox’s stock controller since the 360 is hands down the best controller out there. Every other good controller is basically a variation of it lol

Modern controller DNA goes back to the PS1, first to have 4 shoulder buttons and two analog sticks.

Fair but the form factor is completely different. Dreamcast/xbox I’d consider the real base for modern controllers. But my original point is that once the 360 controller came out everyone (except Sony) has basically 90% copied it. Everything before is pretty distinct.

While Switch is 360-esque now, the Wii Classic Controller had symmetrical sticks at the bottom, Wii U Pro Controller and GamePad had symmetrical sticks on top. So Nintendo wasn't totally committed to the 360 design even if the GameCube controller was almost there before. (Not gonna count the Wiimote as it's a little too different) Steam Deck and Steam Controller have symmetrical sticks as well. I don't think it's as clear cut as you say. 8BitDo and GuliKit have controllers in both form factors also (released in the last 2 years even). Also worth noting that XInput has been holding back PC controllers so that anything more ambitious than a 360 controller is hard to get working. Microsoft is also the only controller manufacturer to not put gyro in their controllers.

You’re getting too nitty gritty. The general shape/form factor for all controllers, as well as 90% of the button/stick layout, was basically locked by the 360. Every diversion is either Sony or window dressing.

So you don't mean stick or button layout, just the body shape then?

> Talk to console gamers and they still think the PC is sweaty and playing on the PC is like putting your hands in the toilet.

The kind of ridiculous sweeping generalization that discredits the rest.

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