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Phil Spencer: "getting [acquiring] Nintendo would be a career moment for me"; Nintendo's future "exists off of their own hardware"
(www.resetera.com)
Archive link: https://archive.ph/NF2r0
At some point, getting Nintendo would be a career moment and I honestly believe a good move for both companies. It's just taking a long time for Nintendo to see that their future exists off of their own hardware. A long time.... :-)
This is exactly my point though. Backwards compatibility is an expectation now, but if you didn't have a Wii U, like most people didn't, it makes the Switch feel like it's got twice as many original games as it actually had, and they won't be able to repeat that.
I've sat just about the most technically unsavvy people I know in front of a Steam Deck and told them to stick to verified games, and it's been as smooth sailing as a Switch is; which is to say that neither is perfect, and the way they're imperfect is a little different between them. But again, PCs have been steadily growing in gaming market share for over a decade. PCs got easier, consoles became more complicated, and maybe some percentage of the market was also willing to learn what they needed to to further close that gap just like how all of our parents eventually learned how to use the internet and cell phones. I'm certainly not capable of measuring the effect of each of those things on that trend, but this is the way we're trending.
The Switch 2 is certainly safe. In particular, the Switch is a device made for children, which helps it reach a demographic that the Steam Deck isn't targeting and may never target. I'm not so sure the next Switch is going to do as well as this one has though. And in each subsequent generation, I think they'll head in the same direction as Microsoft and Sony or do something absolutely insane instead of responding to what the market is actually asking for.
That's the problem. You have to tell people to stick to a currently small selection of possible games on the system to ensure a console-like experience. Or, you can just pick up a Switch 2 and not have to worry about any of that shit.
I'm a Linux gamer, so I know how powerful and impressive Proton is. But a console like experience, it is not. Many of my Steam games need advanced commands just to run acceptably.
Steam Decks hit their real potential in the hands of someone who is not afraid to fuck around.
Verified games are not a small selection anymore. They're not the entire breadth of Steam, but there are about as many verified games as there are Switch games. Double that if you're including the certified playable games. No Switch tax, no compromised version of the game, no subscription to play online. I get a lot more value out of mine than I do a Switch, and the most I've fucked around on it is installing EmuDeck.