So what if it's two men? Or two women?

If this is the fall, I am ready for the fall.

They are, in almost every way, taking the console model approach. Updates when there is a significant generational leap and not just yearly updates because AMD made a slightly faster APU (though they did the switch to switch OLED thing but no one complained about that because they kept the LCD models for sale and the OLED really is nicer), selling at a loss (and making up for it in game sales) and of course, the ease of use that a console interface offers over a traditional PC interface.

Then they step it up beyond that by making it as open as possible (software/emulation, games from any source, it's really a PC) and making the hardware repairable (making parts available and easy to fix in the first place,) and of course, cheap games and practically every game you'd ever want.

What the other handheld PC companies are lacking is (with some exceptions) repairability, that console experience, and price. Us nerds that can do whatever with technology will do it, so a legion or an ally or a gpd will sell just fine to that demographic, especially for the frame rate chasers. But for most of the rest of people, they would just get a switch or a PS5 or Xbox because it's just plug in and game, and at least in the case of a Switch or Xbox S, the cost of entry is way lower than a PC, be it a gaming desktop/laptop, or even many of the handheld PC competitors. Yes you can build comparable cheap PCs to an Xbox or PS5, but that means building a PC, and most people don't want to do that (I'm not talking to you, I know you have a sweet rig.) Yes I know games on PC are usually cheaper especially Steam sales or key seller/bundle sites, but console gamers often don't consider that, and initial cost of entry is very important to non-enthusiast type people in any given hobby.

There's a reason why Nintendo consoles sell so well despite being behind the competition in raw horsepower. It's the console model (and in their case aggressive exclusivity of their famous IPs)

The things keeping Sony and Microsoft in the competition are basically the console ease of use, and their all you can eat subscriptions. Even they both realized that they can get more sales putting their games on PC, but that still means forking over MSRP for a single game, so those ps+ and gamepass subs are keeping them afloat at this point.

I'm a huge tech nerd and have been deep in related industries for over 20 years. I know how to do whatever I want with any pc hardware or software, I own a steam deck, and a rog ally, a proper beefy gaming desktop, a gaming laptop, a Switch, and a PS4. Despite all that, in the past 2 years, easily 90% of my gaming has been on the Steam Deck. It does everything I need it to and more, and it does it anywhere, anyhow. If I want to tweak and tinker with it I can, but more importantly, I can just PLAY GAMES with almost no friction. At home, on a break at work, at the airport waiting for my flight, cozy in bed, wherever, whenever, and fast, and easy.

The Steam Deck is the swiss army knife game device that childhood me always dreamed of, and now it exists. That is why it's outselling it's competition, and genuinely making PC gaming a viable thing for the masses. No it won't beat Nintendo anytime soon, but it's gaining steam on them and other consoles faster than any other attempt ever has before, and it will only get better.

It's basically a documentary about himself

Pink all the way. Rude to some service worker? Poopy pants. Didn't return the cart? Poop. Drive like an asshole? Poop. Politician spewing hateful garbage on national television? Oh you bet you're getting the poopy pants.

I would be The Punisher, only with poop instead of guns.

Hey man don't help the cops with more coverage of this guy's face

(It's a joke I know it's already absolutely everywhere)

Thanks for the free key sucker 😎

Tolerance paradox

Propaganda. Mostly funded by the rich, in order to, of course, stay on the top of the class hierarchy. Easier to be a filthy evil oligarch when the "rabble" just fight each other and don't pay any attention to you, or worse, kiss your boots.

Turns out he was 100% right

I sure am glad I got a Kobo for myself for Xmas and ripped all my books to it. Guess I'll be recycling my Kindle for good.

Just in case you weren't aware, that Futurama episode was loosely based on a real life dog that waited for his master at the train station every day for years after the humans death

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D?wprov=sfla1

They are too good for us and we don't deserve them, but I'm glad we have them in our lives.

Drow tourism

As someone that has both (and I did install Bazzite on the Ally) I have found myself still using the Steam Deck. Like many in my (admittedly fortunate) situation, I had a deck first then got an Ally later out of curiosity if the "more power" aspect would make an impactful difference in gaming on more demanding titles. And while yes you can get more frames/use higher graphics settings on demanding titles, I keep going back to the Deck because it's just a better overall experience. Even with Bazzite on the Ally, there's just this level of Jank that prevents me from using it as my main "console."

A recent example: I finally beat Horizon Zero Dawn (original version ran great on the Deck and I played through the whole game on it) so naturally I fired up the sequel, Forbidden West. Since it's a newer game it's a bit more demanding and not officially a verified Deck game, but I've been able to get it to run at a mostly steady 30fps anyway. I was curious how much better the Ally would run it so I tried it for a day or two, and while I get more fps, the frame pacing and controller response and screen and speakers just soured the experience so I went right back to the Deck and I'll be playing the rest of the game on that. I had similar experiences with other demanding games like Cyberpunk, BG3, Dragon Age, etc.

And yes I know that there is "tweaking" I can probably do to make things "perfect" on the Ally but I just want something that works when I want to just play a game, but allows me to go down the tweaking rabbit hole when I want to. The Steam Deck does that in all regards. And no, my issue with the Ally aren't from a lack of knowledge (I've worked in IT for over 20yrs, I know what I'm doing when it comes to making a PC work) because I do often mess around with the Deck to "perfect" a respective experience with a game.

Maybe when Valve finally releases SteamOS for other hardware will I give it another go (though they can't change the hardware itself), but until then, I'll stick with the Steam Deck (and my big rig for the few games that are just too demanding)

Edit: and for the curious, I only got around 40fps on Forbidden West in the most demanding areas compared to 30fps on the Deck, and I put the two on identical settings, including graphics preset, resolution (720p on Ally, 800p on Deck because aspect ratio) and everything else. So the added power didn't do enough to justify the rest of the experience.

Edible Blahaj

100% This.

So steam has the little update ribbon for games in your library, and recently one popped up for The Outer Worlds in my feed. I thought it was odd since it's not a new game anymore so I checked it out and it was for some reason just the announcement for Outer Worlds 2. Thought that was odd too since that also happened awhile ago so I went to the discussion thread to see if there was an update to the announcement or something and I got to reading the comments. It was just the most toxic and vile cesspool of comments. Literal mud brained comments like "no woke game, no DEI this time, this game bad because I can't fuck the asexual brown girl and she should be white anyway because that doesn't make sense in outer space" and other vile bigoted shit. Like seriously guys? You hated the game so much that you have to spew your ignorant garbage brained thoughts on an announcement thread for the sequel? Fuck me these people are just the absolute sludge at the bottom of the barrel.

I'm all for protesting a game because the company is evil (you know which ones are) but holy hell people, the vast majority of the comments were not that at all. Just fucking go play something else. There are a hundred thousand other choices for any respective genre of game. Please just all of you fuck off.

OUYA

The lusty argonian maid