I love my PS5, as I loved all the playstations, although the xbox 360 saw more use from me for that era. I also game on the PC, but generally I find consoles get more gaming use, because I'm in front of a PC screen all day for work, so it's nice to sit on a coach and play games in the evening. The game catalog is huge, and older games these days are well worth playing. I'd say I'm at about 90% console gaming to 10% pc gaming at this point (no mobile gaming), although it can vary a lot over the years.
Also, a console just works (99% of the time), and I don't have to fiddle with drivers and editing config files and the other random crap that can crop up with even the best PC games.
> Also, a console just works (99% of the time), and I don't have to fiddle with drivers and editing config files and the other random crap that can crop up with even the best PC games.
Another anecdata point - I have several hundred games for PC on Steam, and can’t remember the last time I had an issue with drivers or having to do anything to get games to run.
The Nintendo Switch is an easy choice if one wants a mix of at-home and mobile gaming and are able to find games w/in its catalog which suit.
I just wish someone would make a motion-controlled RPG which had:
- the exploration and immersive story of Xenoblade Chronicles
- the amazing imagery and intricate puzzles of Pandora's Tower
- the endless grinding potential of The Last Story
- on-going content like to Diablo 3's Seasons
- the fluid transition between ranged combat and melee of Red Steel 2
- the wonderful archery of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii
and a story/world where constant replays make sense --- say something like to the Gates of C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine books.
(and yes, I should spend more time playing Ring Fit Adventure, but )
The problem with the Switch is, why buy that when you can get a Steam Deck? It’s exclusives aren’t really that exclusive when emulation exists. And all things considered, buying a legal copy of the game and then pirating the game file is equivalent enough to satisfy most moral objections one may have.
The PS5 is really the only console with any amount of exclusives, and even then Sony is opening up to PC more and more.
So to answer OP, none are really worth by themselves. Online games obviously create different considerations though.
> The problem with the Switch is, why buy that when you can get a Steam Deck?
One reason is that the cheapest steam deck is twice the price of the cheapest switch while being much less portable. If you want a Switch-like TV experience you need to spend an extra $150 on the dock and a controller whereas that comes in the box on a Switch OLED with a vastly better screen for $350. The Steam Deck is obviously more capable but it definitely has tradeoffs even for someone willing to go through all of the effort of piracy and emulation.
FWIW, you don't actually have to spend that much on a dock.
Since the docks weren't initially available, I purchased a $20 USB-C hub from Anker on newegg (with passthrough charging, SD card, USB/USB-C/HDMI) although there are even cheaper ones some as low as $10 for HDMI only. It fits pretty easily in the nylon bag with the charger so it's now a portable dock which I can also use for work due to the full linux desktop on the steam deck (I combine it with a collapsing BT keyboard and mini mouse when not at a desk).
Controllers you can get pretty good USB ones for $10 with better form factor than the switch and easier to replace.
The openness of the steam deck really helps with peripherals.
Oh... one thing I forgot to mention. I was concerned about strain on the USB-C connector, esp w/ the hub, so I added a magnetic USB-C connector. It's worked both to protect the port and break away if the hub was mispositioned and adding strain at an angle.
>>The problem with the Switch is, why buy that when you can get a Steam Deck?
Have you used the Steam Deck?
It's a janky experience if you try to use it in the living room. For one thing, the Bluetooth chip is terrible. I realized this when I emulated Donkey Kong, was doing terribly, then unplugged it from my TV and started winning in handheld mode.
The issue isn't the TV introducing lag, I followed instruction online to install the driver for the Xbox controller Dongle and the difference was night and day.
This is just an emblematic example. I had to buy a wifi extender because the Steam Deck literally crash itself (It will actually report "out of battery" when the battery is full) when it has a bad wifi signal, due to some sort of hardware flaw.
Steam Deck is a very janky experience, which perhaps isn't a surprise when you realize Valve has the highest profits per employee in tech, they accomplish a lot with a small staff, but they have huge resource constraints when producing products like the Steam Deck.
I don’t want the hardware, I want the games. The hardware is literally useless to me. A Steam Deck does everything I need it to do but better because it’s a Linux machine.
Yes, why isn't anyone "just" making the perfect game? Look how easy it was to write that list. It's just the best aspect of six games and a series of books. Can't be too hard.
I bought a Switch last month to play BotW (yeah, I'm a bit behind). I kind of regret starting to play BotW on it (85 hours so far; it's a good game, with some flaws like all games, but good). The framerate is just absolutely horrid in parts, even in 720p, and I'm just not getting used to it; even after 85 hours, I wince every time it goes down to 10 fps. If I could move over my progress to CEMU I would.
If they haven't improved performance in TotK (or Switch 2 is out by then), I will play that game emulated on a PC.
Super Mario Odyssey framerate was better. Not great, but not "did Nintendo seriously consider this to be good enough to release?".
That depends on what you value in a console.
I bought an xbone a few years after I quit wow and got rid of my gaming PC. I don't game much any more but when I want to, I have xbone. 8 years of an appliance that plays games for like $300. My fiance doesn't play PC games but will play Xbox. My cat sitter doesn't need an account on my computer to play fortnight.
A gaming PC would be better in most ways but as far as value for dollar, xbone was well worth buying.
I agree they are dirt cheap for the specs. They've just lost the social aspect. I miss the LAN parties with 12-16 guys playing playing together in someone's basement.
I haven’t had a driver issue in windows in ages, have you? I’m sure they still happen here and there, but I feel like this is mostly an obsolete meme at this point.
No idea what you're talking about because I didn't have to do any of that on PC since Vista and earlier.
But there are multiple drivers in the Xbox store and it took some research to see what had to be installed. There are still times I have to disconnect and reconnect the controller for the headset to work.
Not exactly. That is true for Microsoft hardware. Even then sometimes you have to reinstall those using "Update Now" and a few steps. You can also need third party audio drivers - I had to download audio software from the Xbox store to get my headset to work.
It depends. Can you compare a car and a motorcycle? Maybe, but they really don't compete directly in most cases. I play 90% of my games on my PC but when I play Co-op I always pick the console version of the game if possible because every single time there are problems with either Windows, the game, whatever communication software we use, the network, etc. etc. I can count on one hand how many times I've had these problems since the original Xbox. The whole experience also feels very different. I have also been lucky enough to not once have a console die unlike a PC and I own all my old consoles - again unlike all my PCs (try installing a PlayStation 1 era PC game on a modern PC).
"try installing a PlayStation 1 era PC game on a modern PC"
I still occasionally play F22 TAW and Chamanche Gold. No issues.
I've had way more issues like you describe on Xbox with stuff like Halo Infinite than with stuff on PC like Destiny 2. That includes driver issues! (Headset sound on Xbox).
