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Comment by nylonstrung | Hacker News Reader

Consoles just don't make sense in any modern context. It's profoundly wasteful to have an edge device sitting in your living room, unused for 99% of the time that can only do an incredibly small subset of what a gaming computer can

Every PS5 in existence is destined to become e-waste

Not to mention how bad the developer and porting experience is compared to PC/Steam Machine

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People want the convenience. Generally , a console "just works", whereas a PC is more likely to need some messing about to get working optimally. Console devs have one target hardware that they can target, whereas PC games could be run on a huge variety of hardware

Valve has essentially fixed this in most aspects. My Steam Deck is as much of a "just works" experience as the switch. In fact I think it just works even easier because it automatically syncs my saves between my gaming desktop and it so I have the same saves when I travel.

Windows is a clusterfuck, but PC is larger than Windows. Anti cheat is a problem left to solve, but I think this is just a matter of time.

Valve fixed it by making a console that plays PC games, rather than making a PC

But that's not the same. I'm heavy PC user but I only play games on a console. The reason is simple: zero friction.

I play games when I'm tired, so if I have to wait a minute for a Steam update (which happened a month ago on the rare day I wanted to play on my PC), I simply give up and go watch TV.

Console games need to update too. I don't know how the steam machine handles it, but steam downloads updates for my games in the background, so if it goes to sleep instead of doing a full power off, it might be able to keep games updated while you're not playing too

Yeah, but at least the XBOX sits in a low power mode that does updates and keeps the spot you were in your game saved. It's really transparent. I'm not saying Steam can't do that but it's not in the same league yet.

I don’t think anyone has the steam machine to test this stuff yet but I can’t see any reason it can’t do exactly the same thing.

Steam does exactly that for me, thought when I'm casually using my computer, not when my computer has gone to sleep. But since Valve controls the whole steam machine ecosystem, I'd imagine it would be possible for the steam machine to do the same sleep-updates as xbox

Except they don't _need_ to update, it's just a manifestation of the the very PC-ification we're talking about. You used to pop the game in, press the on button, and be playing. At some point someone figured out that if PC gamers were willing ot put up with unfinished games being shipped, so would console gamers, and it was downhill from there.

Well yes, but if we are assuming that console games need to update, pc games would also need to update

It "just works", unless it's time for a patch for that game. Which 98% of the time.

Games update on consoles too. I’ve never been unable to play a game on my steamdeck because of an update. It just manages them automatically in the background.

They do now, because they realised people will put up with that crap when they looked at PC gamers. They didn't used to.

Every time I've been at someone's house with a new (ie post 2005) game console, there's some problem with launching the game. Except for Nintendo, kinda, well even then getting controllers to pair is like herding cats.

And Sony by eliminating physical media, forces a whole set of online inconveniences onto gamers..

That modern consoles find themselves oddly displaced is true to me also, but what is also true is that I have an Apple TV and a cable-co provided android tv box attached to my TV. Neither particularly emphasizes the gaming experience, but it seems like there is an unexplored technical space somewhere between an ARM box and a full PC that every console company but Nintendo seems afraid of.

I think they need to give up on the "best Graphics" feature point and focus on some other set of values. It's one they've lost every generation to PC GPUs, and ARM connected GPU's are perfectly capable of providing a good gaming experience. Most Steam games really don't require anything close to a bleeding edge GPU.

If consoles are lost, at least lost from Sony and XBox, it's because they decided not to compete in the space - there are still plenty of opportunities to explore.

The thing I like about console compared to pc (which I use the most for gaming) is the total absence of cheaters except maybe a super minority.

To make an example try to play a multiplayer famous fps (like battlefield6 or cod) on console and then on pc, it's not even the same experience. On pc it is basically full of aimbotters, wallhackers, nodamagers, etc every single damn game, on console you get the actual safe experience. Sadly this is one of the reasons why I play mostly only pve games on pc

> Every PS5 in existence is destined to become e-waste

Just like every Android device or computer in your household? Are you trying to make a point for cloud computing?

I can accept the waste of having a second much lower power CPU in the phone I use with me every day. But I can't justify having both a gaming pc and a playstation/xbox that's exactly the same thing with a different OS on it. They even play the same games these days.

Something that weighs on me is the fact that every tech device you own is constantly devaluing as it ages, eventually becoming worthless when support ends and the servers are shut down. It makes far more sense to own the least possible and get the most use out of each one. Unlike most things you own that only devalue as they are worn out and damaged.

The servers in clouds get "retired" too.

I always find this argument pretty weak. Most of my household appliances are unused most of the time. And I very much value the fact that they're available for me if I want to use them. Why would I somehow want to give up that autonomy for my game console just because it happens to be connected to the internet?

I have gaming machines from the 80s that still work and that I still love. They're not e-waste.

It makes sense as long as building hardware optimized for games is either significantly cheaper, or yields a better customer experience, than the available alternatives.

To most people, a separate gaming appliance is seen as convenience, not waste.

They make sense to many people, even if not to you.

I'll take a one-function device over a general device any day. You switch it on, it does the thing, you switch it off. General purpose computers are the exception that proves the rule, in that "the thing" in their case _is_ everything.

I couldn't care less about playing with randos on the internet, but am very interested in playing with people I know in the same room.

> Every PS5 in existence is destined to become e-waste

So is your pc hardware, unless you expect to stay on that 9800x3d and 4090 for the next 30 years...

4090 probably won't survive, but I could see 9800x3d still being usable.

Modern chips rarely last that long.

Especially some overclocked Intel ones?... maybe it's time to start undervolting/underclocking from the start... (personally I buy 65W limit CPUs by default).

"Game consoles" are a niche lifestyle item for gen-X and millennials with money to waste. (Like vinyl records.)

Nobody under 20 knows what a "console" is even for, they play games on their iPhone almost exclusively.

This is hilariously incorrect and out-of-touch. Obviously phones are #1 by a huge margin, but the console market is as large as it's ever been as gaming as a whole became genuinely mainstream, and kids absolutely still play on them. Switch at 155 million sales, PS5 at 93 million, and under-20s have plenty of experience with hand-me-downs.

> the console market is as large as it's ever been as gaming as a whole became genuinely mainstream

Yes, like I said - lifestyle item for gen-X and millennials who have money now.

> ...and kids absolutely still play on them

The vast majority is kids playing their parents' console.

If the market wasn't being driven by parents' demand then no modern kid would be asking to buy a console. (They can play Roblox and Brawl Stars on their iPhone/iPad.)

> Nobody under 20 knows what a "console" is even for, they play games on their iPhone almost exclusively.

so which one is it - nobody under 20 knows what console is for or these kids are playing their parents console? you are contradicting yourself, something something moving the goalpost...

This comment is peak HN.

> Nobody under 20 knows what a "console" is even for, they play games on their iPhone almost exclusively.

Imagine saying this before GTA 6 which will release only on consoles this year.

That will be the game to get the entire world on their games consoles.

> That will be the game to get the entire world on their games consoles.

Console gaming is like 15% of all gaming world-wide, and GTA 6 is like a single-digit slice of that 15% slice.

What you're missing is that gaming as a whole >10x'd since the genX/millennial heyday, so consoles are actually more popular than they were 20~30 years ago even if they are a smaller portion of the overall pie (PS2-as-a-DVD-player notwithstanding).

Yes, consoles are an expensive lifestyle item for millennials who have money now.

You've repeated this baseless assertion three times now verbatim without adding any justification whatsoever for your beliefs that I think would self-evidently not survive contact with reality if you had any interaction with teenagers. From the statistics I can find, around 30% of console players are GenZ/GenA.

> From the statistics I can find, around 30% of console players are GenZ/GenA.

This is a theoretical maximum in a specific USA-centric bubble.

Consoles (and gaming in general) is just not a thing for teenagers anymore.

Gaming is gonna go the way of the electric guitar. Remember when guitar was actually cool and not just a midlife crisis marker for tired middle aged men?

I live in Japan. Gaming, including console gaming, is extremely popular for teenagers. You have literally zero idea what you're talking about. It sounds like you've just come up with some contrarian bait to sound edgy that I have regrettably taken the hook for.

The breakdown here doesn’t tell the whole story I feel. Mobile gaming is largely Asian countries hooked on gambling apps. The traditional “gaming” on consoles and PC still exists more than it ever has.

It feels like saying game consoles are dead because slot machines at the casino are more profitable “gaming” machines.

If only mobile devices had better external monitor support. It’s funny that iOS / macOS has by far the best controller experience from all devices pairing wise (even getting an Xbox controller to work properly on windows requires a dongle). iPad + controller just lacks games (and with emulators not even that, just good configuration).

> If only mobile devices had better external monitor support.

What I don’t get is modern phones are impressive. My iPhone from several years back was capable of running full blown Civ6 and certain older Total War titles. So clearly the raw compute power and control limitations aren’t an issue (I doubt game companies care much about the latter at all now that RTS games made it consoles)

Yet I don’t see many interesting games available for mobile. It’s all copy/paste puzzle/gambling/idle/gacha crap.

Indeed. The platform is severely underused due to the economics. From more recent games I played Alien Isolation (works great, but I didn’t finish it), Monkey Island (iPad is perfect for point and clicks), X-Com was also perfect. The power is there.

Article author is an example

apparently my two primary school kids are nobodies for enjoying their PS3 or RetroArch

and they don't have smartphone yet, if they do it will be heavily restricted, they can play games on PS3 or portable like SF2000, phone ain't gaming device

Every single person under 20 knows what a Nintendo Switch is

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