The second video game crash…
Im hoping independent developers fill the void. Honestly they already are. Haven’t the last couple of big sellers been FAR from AAA?
Maybe we’re not quite there yet but I got some dice and miniatures that don’t need ram or internet…
We won’t be “there” for a while hopefully (short of a grid-destroying crisis but we’ll have far bigger problems then and no time for gaming anyway) but some off-screen time is good for our health (and less use of electronics makes them last longer).
Flash games should run on a pi zero, not sure about modern browser gaming.
Just gonna throw this out there; If you’ve never had a Nintendo Wii, I’d genuinely recommend picking one up and modding it.
My last console was a PS3, after that I went exclusively PC since every newer console seemed far too expensive for the very few exclusives that interested me, and they began to charge a monthly fee to play games online. The only console I didn’t have from that generation was the Wii, as I’d always written it off as a gimmick. But after taking a closer look at its library, it’s surprisingly packed with good titles, and the motion controls are a pretty unique way to interact with games.
I picked one up a few months ago off ebay, and even for a lot that included a Wii balance board, it was less than $80. Modding it was extremely easy, and after it was done, I was amazed to find that it has access to a surprisingly polished online homebrew store full of emulators and cool little homebrew games that download and install with a single click.
That means the console has access to:
- The entire Wii library (Including unique modern light-gun style games, like Deadspace: Extraction, plus Wii fit with the balance board, which is actually really fun)
- The entire gamecube library with the Nintendont emulator (best paired with either a gamecube controller or the Wii Classic controller)
- Pretty much every retro console such as SNES, Genesis, GB, GBC, GBA, etc with emulators
- The highlights of the N64 and NeoGeo catalog thanks to being ported to the Virtual Console (the Wii shop is dead, so you’ll need to sail to get those).
- You can even still play online in Mario Kart thanks to modders, and it’s still active!
All for less than $100. It’s an absolute gem of a console, especially when paired with sailing the high seas (which is really easy since the Wii has an SD card slot, so you can slam it full of stuff), and has quickly become my favorite of all time. I sold every other console I’ve ever owned, but I suspect I’ll be keeping the Wii for the foreseeable future due to its versatility and ease of use (especially for retro games, no messing around with RetroArch’s horrible interface!)
As somebody who manages a piece of software often used in wii modding: ye, do it! Mod a wii :p
But seriously, the ps3/wii/x360 era were the last gen where the hardware design was rather simple and easy to understand, making it fun to play with and learn. The wiiu ended up with a bootrom making it harder and way more complex to run your own stuff on it ( outside of wii-mode and non-system menu stuff ). Then the switch was a whole new level (and we got lucky there with the bootrom exploit).
Switch added secure bootrom, executable validation, firmware blobs, no-execute memory flags, dedicated crypto hardware in cpu with it’s own firmware, more secure mmu mapping, …
Even if you had raw access you still needed to implement some stuff just get hardware even going.Xbox Series S is also great for modding too. Wii U is nice for modding too IMO.
I am still kinda surprised Xbox is still doing hardware at all
Considering Playstation is likely to have all of Xbox’s exclusives, I’m surprised Xbox is going forward with their console. It feels like another Xbox One disaster.
All this to play PS4 Remasters on one and PC games on the other
I guess the bigger question that comes from this, is do I go with a Steamdeck or with a Legion 2?
A follow up would be, do I wait for the Steamdeck 2
Legion for the mouse integration alone, IMO.
If you’re looking into that, it might be worth considering some of the Android portable like the AYN Thor.
While they are usually focused on console emulation, on the more powerful units you can run older windows titles on them via emulation as well as any native android stuff you feel like running. The battery life of anything ARM beats the hell out of anything x86. There are also form factors available worlds better than the Legion or Steamdeck if you actually want something you can carry around in a pocket.
The aforementioned AYN Thor is about the size and form factor of a 3DS and retails for $250 for the cheapest model. So if you’re looking for something to tide you over until you can get a full gaming PC/Gabecube/Steamdeck 2, it might be better “half measure” than a Legion or Steamdeck.
Well, here I was thinking that Steam Machine had priced itself out of the market, but it sounds like it’s gonna end up having parity with PS6 anyhow
Next-gen consoles are rumored to be around a 5080 in terms of performance. With 32GB of unified ram, $1000 would be a good deal for that level of performance. If Microsoft added the ability to run windows on it, that would be a pretty compelling package.
Hopefully things will get better, but with ram prices where they are the steam machine would probably need to be $900 if it launched today without being subsidized by valve and is around the performance of a base PS5.
I hate to say it but consoles may be the better deal next-gen.
You speak with an awful lot of authority for someone who is just making stuff up.
Everything they said used indefinite qualifiers. What are you talking about?
I thought nobody knows the specs for it yet?
These are the rumored specs according to moore’s law is dead. Of course things could change or he could have gotten misinformation.
MLID has <50% accuracy IIRC, so everything to be taken with a spoonful of salt. Not saying it’s definitely wrong, of course. He’s gotten things right sometimes too.
Maybe the Gabecube will launch with a “console price” after all.
I’m kinda hoping valve waits for component costs to calm down before releasing it - otherwise I could see the price making it DOA.
I want them to at least wait for these next gen consoles to drop because I think a lot of people are still in denial.
I imagine it won’t do console numbers, but I’m sure there will be enough fans and early adopters to justify the added expense of a 2026 launch. However, I’d like to think the popularity will grow organically as the system gets older and prices start dropping again.
Keeping my Xbox X as long as it runs. It took me until 2 years ago to spend the money on this one
There’s literally enough in my PC backlog for the rest of my life probably, don’t need another new console, game or graphics card, ever.
I have literally never in my life bought the next generation console because I had run out of games that I was planning to play on the current generation, and my first console was a NES. Every upgrade has been a matter of convenience because someone was getting rid of their old (new to me) console, or because I was interested enough to give the new one a try at a reasonable price point. Never “Oh my god, I’ve got to have that new console, I don’t give a fuck what it costs!”
I’m not sure how concerned game companies are with the upgrade demographic as opposed to the “I’d like to buy a new console” demographic, but if everyone bought new consoles the way I do, the industry would have crashed back in the 90s.
Been about the same here as well, I mean to me graphics have been good enough since like PS2 since I started with a Commodore 64, so everything else has just been icing on the cake. I never really got into online gaming either so that was never a draw. I suppose I see gaming as something like a momentary escape, so I prefer games with colorful, fantastic graphics and not necessarily photo realistic renders, so the constant push for more polygons has largely been not so important for me.
I pray for immaculate memtests on us all for all eternity.
🙏
take of path of exile, warframe, and/or guild wars and just never buy a ‘new’ game again
Seriously, anything after 2015 has perfect graphics, I don’t need slightly more realistic hair or whatever. Even a lot of 2010 is enjoyable. And this is only about graphics quality. For gameplay, story etc, you know shit actually matters, there already is way more than I can play.
Playing games in the modern era for better graphics is like watching the latest movie because it used a really cool high tech camera.
You should play new games for the artistry and quality of gameplay, story, and other elements, same as ever.
But that doesnt mean new games have no value. You’re just fighting against a straw man to begin with.
You should play new games for the artistry and quality of gameplay, story, and other elements, same as ever.
But they already knew how to make games with artistry, quality gameplay, story and other elements in decades past. Which is why that person’s point was that you don’t need access to the very latest games for enjoyment and now that graphics have peaked, there’s no real reason to buy a game that runs like shit on what might not be a top of the line PC.
Same reason could apply to movies and music to say no one “needs” to watch or listen to newer stuff.
Then you become the old man telling kids to get off the lawn. It’s anyone’s right to be like this.
Huh?
You don’t need brand new hardware for new movies. A movie will provide you with 1.5-3 hours of enjoyment at a time and it’ll get old quickly when you rewatch the same ones over and over again. There’s literally no reason not to watch new ones as they come out.
If it cost me 2 grand (price of a passable gaming rig in 2026) every 5 years to be able to watch the newest movies, damn right I’d be way more into discovering old movies.
Financial concerns are separate from what I was discussing. Every hobby has different gatekeeping elements for involvement or continued involvement, be it camping or gaming. Obviously we need to live our lives within our individual limits.
However that in no way affects my earlier point, which obviously you are free not to follow or heed. It’s just a point that distinguishes the idea that the straw man argument (“there is no need to play the latest games because graphics have peaked in 2015 and old games already contain good things i want from games”) doesn’t address the fact that new games come out with valuable elements that that person themselves demonstrably values.
Financial concerns are separate from what I was discussing.
But they’re really not when we’re discussing the necessity of building a new PC or buying a new console every few years just so you could play the latest games.
If you’ve got the finances to do so, go right ahead and do it. But if you’re broke, like half of Lemmy seems to be, maybe skip on it and play older games that provide just as much entertainment value and look maybe 5% worse… You’ll be able to play the current newest games on mediocre new hardware in 5 years.
As a long time PS customer, the Steam Deck has been probably the smartest/luckiest impulse purchase I’ve made. I used to not have a PC backlog, but now I own a PC port of pretty much all my favorite console games PS4 and backwards, among others, and the majority of those purchases have fallen under the “might-as-well-at-that-price” category of expense. I’ve been playing on Deck nearly every day since I got it and have only scratched the surface of library I’ve built since buying it.
“might-as-well-at-that-price”
The reason I have 130 games installed on my Steam Deck. My backlog has gotten absurd to the point of comedy. I’m set for years.
This year I try to stop this. Went 2 months without buying a single game. I have an absurd amount of games and the list of games i actually want to play is so large it would still take years to complete.
Between Humble Bundles and Fanatical I’ve got more games than I can play in a year for less than a single new release. It’s amazing.
Famous last words, now your RAM and GPU are going to fail
I’ve got like 30 years worth of PC parts laying around, I’m sure I can cobble something together 😁 sometimes it pays to be a packrat.
Haha ok buddy, can’t wait to see you puzzling about why millennials hate game consoles or whatever when launch sales numbers are rightly in the shitter
Yeah, feels like the correct move here would be to hold off with the next generation, if you can’t get enough of a performance jump without increasing prices. Otherwise you’re just offering a premium edition.
You…
You think they care?
They want people streaming games to phones/TVs and paying by the hour.
Not subsidizing console sales anymore will make cloud gaming seem more attractive, and that’s where the most money is at
Google couldn’t make cloud gaming work when the entire world was stuck inside with a sudden desire to play more video games. They were given an underhand toss for the best possible scenario to get cloud gaming off the ground, and it didn’t take. The math doesn’t work out.
Looking forward to indie developers who actually want their games to sell optimizing them for older, more reasonably priced hardware.
Conspiracy theories are a trick by big Dumb to make people think less.
This sounds like a conspiracy theory.
Pc parts aren’t cheap either…
But it is possible to pick up a cheap used office PC off ebay and stick a used GPU in it, which would let someone play almost any game on the market for much less than a console.
However your options are much better when you’re building a PC with a $1000 budget.
Half of that will go towards RAM
1000 for a PC? Are you mad? With the prices going up it would be miracle to pay 1000, if you find ram or cheap HDD/SSD.
For now. This bubble will burst.
Nahh $1500 is the entry price at this point.
Hmm let’s see…
- Mobo - some B650 - 100 EUR
- CPU - Ryzen 8700G - 250 EUR
- RAM - 16G - 200 EUR
- PSU + Case + Mouse + Keyboard - 150 EUR
- SSD 1 Tb 150 EUR
Total 850 EUR and you are left with 150-200 for games or hdd or rainbow cables if you are into that stuff.
Needless to say SSD and RAM prices suck.
Note: $1000 + 20% VAT is roughly 1050 EUR
Aren’t you forgetting a GPU there?
Nope, you roll with iGPU.
I actually have the same igpu as is in 8700G in my laptop (ryzen 7840U), probably somewhat nerfed as it’s a mobile cpu. To be honest I did not expect that I will be playing Diablo 4 on it.
But sure, you can squeeze in a GPU if you cheap out on some other stuff or buy used parts. Like the laptop I mentioned above - used HP Elitebook for about €750. Hands down the cheapest a the best laptop I ever bought. And "unfortunately " far more gaming capable than I thought.
200 euro for 16G? Youre sure there chief? :p
They start at 220 and quickly go towards 270 hehe
(God i hate the market atm)DDR4?
With an amd 8000 series? Ye no, thats am5. Ddr5
PSU + case + mouse + keyboard - 150 EUR
That means you’re leaving like 60-70 for a case + mouse + keyboard if you get even a moderately good PSU (which you should, because fuck having a shit PSU kill other components). It’s a bit tight IMO.
Also this leaves you with no dedicated GPU, meaning the gaming experience will be far inferior to a console. It will of course be more useful in everything else.
Good try, but as the other user said, you forgot the GPU.
I don‘t think people who can‘t cough up 1000 bucks for a console will cough them up for a PC. They just don‘t have that kinda money to spend on videogames. It‘ll lead to people stickin with what they have and those who don‘t have anything (especially kids) will play games on their phones or doomscroll all day. So the whole next gen might be crossgen and/or even tank the industry in general. That‘s my prediction.
I don‘t think people who can‘t cough up 1000 bucks for a console will cough them up for a PC. They just don‘t have that kinda money to spend on videogames.
The good thing about a PC is that it can be used for more things than video games. A lot more, in fact. I constantly use my PC for work because I’m too cheap to buy a proper work laptop yet (before anyone gets up in arms, I’m self employed, there’s no boss to ask for things). I use the same PC to pirate media because fuck paying 5 different subscriptions and still not seeing the movies you want to see. And I also use it to browse the Internet on a screen of actual size.
I’m self employed
So you’re saying you are failing to provide your most crucial employee with appropriate work equipment? /j
Well the lazy bastard has been working like 40 hours a month for the last half a year saying something about season affective disorder and ADHD!
Oof.
PS5 was too much day one at £400 and it’s only gone up since. What happened to the days of sub-£200 consoles later in their lifespan?
AI datacenters and greed.
We’re also losing the ability to shrink our transistors at this point, so the things that made old tech cheaper before don’t really apply anymore.
Hopefully at least competition can catch up. It would be great to have competitive manufacturing capacity here in the EU rather than depend on global trade (Looks at Unprecedented Event Of The Month)
From what I’ve learned on Economics Explained, I don’t think it’s something that necessarily leads to better outcomes than global trade, beyond just redundancy. Competitive manufacturing relies on low costs, which relies on low wages, which favors countries where there aren’t thriving sectors of the economy that pay better than manufacturing. And even once that country is favored, it brings in more money, which leads to higher salaries, raising the quality of living, and eventually making the factory jobs non-viable in that country either. If I didn’t get anything in the above incorrect, I believe that’s called the middle income trap.
Current gen (TSMC 2nm) is like 50% more dense than the last one and I do believe the next generation will still be a huge leap forward, but we unfortunately don’t know what’s going to happen beyond that one. A few more generations and silicon’s atomic size might become an issue, which is WILD.
I think the problem might sort itself out once the data centers are actually built. The impact from maintaining a data center is probably less than from actually building one.
If they allowed to build all the data centers around me, hardware be less of our issues. We want have any water left in our homes. They literally trying to build 26 of these fucking water draining things in our area.
No it’s gonna suck. Those data centers will consume fresh water and power driving up costs of both over the long term.
The chips will also become obsolete or will degrade over time. After 7 years they will require replacement. Same is true with memory and ram.
It’s never going to end.
After 7 years they will require replacement
Oracle depreciates them over 7 years to cook the books for better financial reports. They’re apparently generally replaced after 3-4 because individual GPUs start failing and the next generation’s improved performance and power consumption will make them obsolete anyway.
They’re essentially throwaway hardware as they can’t really be resold and repurposed for gaming either despite all that glorious VRAM. They only do compute.
Increased demand translates to increased memory and ram production capacity?
Didn’t one of the 3 memory manufacturers specifically say they’re not going to be raising production as they’d rather have everyone pay the premiums while the shortage lasts?
When the Chinese DRAM industry really kicks off, we’ll have competition again. But right now they’re not producing high enough volumes and the Chinese RAM sticks on Aliexpress (yes, the ones with actually Chinese DRAM chips) aren’t much cheaper than non-Chinese RAM.
In a world where inputs to the process of chip creation can scale you would be correct.
However it takes at least a decade to bring a power plant online restrict power generation. Access to natural gas and oil can be distrupted further restricting access to power. There is a finite supply of water in most areas that can not be expanded . Disruption to trade routes due to war and tariffs make expanding the inputs to production difficult. Reduces access to capital due to a lack of faith in the US government and rising interest rates will restrict that access.
The world of plenty we lived in was dying even before Covid killed it off. We live in a world of scarcity and disrupted supply and resources now.
Yes and no. Production capacity takes a long time to build up in manufacturing. Plus these are specialized parts so the build up will take longer. Don’t expect a significant production capacity increase in the US for 5-10 years.
Capitalism
$999 “is not impossible”
At that price, just buy or build a fucking computer already.
Not anymore. Same thing’s driving prices on both sides.
Ram is short Storage is short Video ram is shorter
The newest consoles outside the switch are just pc’s with different opperating systems.
I bet the next big thing to be released is a ps6-lite for $399 that’s just a terminal with a $50 a month rental fee to a cloud gaming provider, game licenses not included.
They know that by the time they release, a gaming pc will cost twice as much.
I’d rather find an android device than buy a next gen console. These things are DOA if they are over $1k. Going to be wild if Linux paves the way for modern gaming.
Can’t slowly upgrade a PS5 into a PS6 though.
You can on PC.
Let alone the massive backlog of previous generation games and emulators that you don’t need a top line PC for.
