It wasn’t .99 but it was 2.50 at one point, and that was Terraria. Poured over a thousand hours into it. The consistent free mega updates they push out breathe life into it and I’ve been floored how much they’ve supported the game well over a decade since it’s launch. The team there could have just walked away after the 1.1 launch which helped fix some bugs and introduced some new things and called it a wrap. I’m very glad they didn’t

The electrical tape approach is what I did and it did wonders. Went from having a myriad of green and blue LEDs on my fans/portable AC/etc to complete wonderful darkness when I retired for the night. Made a distinct difference in my ability to fall asleep faster at night. I hate having lights when going to bed. Darkness or bust.

Yes - went from my 512 LCD to the LE OLED. I already upgraded the nvme to a 2tb in the LCD, so I just swapped it out.

Screen is definitely more impressive, but that wasn’t the main reason I upgraded. It was the better battery life that made it worth it. The other efficiencies, upgrades to the controls, were icing on the cake, but battery life far and above was the thing that made it worth it. But as many have said, the screen is damn impressive.

There wasn’t a single shred of buyer’s remorse. But I also play on it every day and tinker with it non stop. So depending on how much you utilize your deck may effect whether it’s worth it for you or not.

Although I’m not surprised, it is interesting that the same big tech companies like Apple and Microsoft taking stances on being “environmentally conscious” while also ignoring forced obsoletion of old hardware. Your average office environment just needs basic email, document/excel editing software and a browser. Now to continue to do these base functions, they have to buy new PCs to do the same exact thing. And it’s not even faster anymore due to the bloat.

If tech wants to preach about the environment, they best start figuring out ways to keep computers out of the landfills.

My wife and I watched the whole thing, and I’ve frequently watched LTT in the past. We both agreed that the humor wasn’t really well placed, given the situation and came off a bit cringey in my opinion. I know some folks are saying damned if you do, damned if you don’t, which is fair. However I think that if they kept the humor out and it was a “generic apology video” there would be less criticism about it. But again, that’s just my opinion.

I’ve said it before, but what makes the Deck unique is the holistic experience it brings. Like a really good chili, it’s a culmination of all the ingredients, particularly the below;

• SteamOS out of the box
• Steam Input in combination with the extensive inputs on the Deck itself
• The ability to easily change core hardware settings via the options menu to influence performance or battery life
• The extensive third party support via software and peripherals (cases, skins, accessories)
• Price point
• Well documented upgradability (SSD replacement, thumbsticks, etc)

I’m all for better screens and hardware, but they always come at a cost to battery life. Not that the Deck has a huge battery life to begin with, but the reason it is passable is due in large part to the hardware it comes with.

The Ally may be beefier spec wise, but at detriment to battery life. Not to mention the Windows OS and lack of inputs (both trackpads and two extra back buttons).

The Legion Go at least accounts for the input selection and has a unique controller setup, but I’m curious to see the battery life to performance ratio. Again, Windows will still be a detriment overall.

Really what it comes down to in the handheld space is finding something that has no compromises from the Steam Deck and an overall increase to performance without affecting battery life so negatively that it becomes a glorified docked laptop.

If I never got a Deck to start, I may have jumped to the Legion Go on account of not having realized what SteamOS brings to the table, and being enticed the beefier specs and control scheme.

However - after having a dual boot setup on the Deck with both SteamOS and Windows, I find myself more and more trying to get games working on the SteamOS side versus the Windows side. This is due to the overall “streamlined” experience of just booting up Game Mode, selecting a game and going off to the races.

Conversely, when I’m on Windows, I can get games operational and semi streamlined via playnite and Glosi, but it still feels clunkier and more obtuse. I pretty much only use Windows for games that I have a single player server running on for some emulated MMOs and that’s about it. If I could get the servers running properly on SteamOS, I’d make the switch in a heartbeat. It’s just trying to find a way to get them running on it with the associated databases/libraries that won’t get it wiped upon update to newer versions.

Yup. A quick tap of the horn or double tap is fine. Even a 1 second blast. Once we get into 2 seconds blast territory, it transitions to rude, with 3+ seconds going up linearly on the deranged jackass scale

I don’t think I’ll ever willingly purchase a vehicle with built in subscription services to features already existing in the car. But if I didn’t have a choice, I’d be sure to start looking up ways to bypass it.

The thing that’s alarming is we have this subscription car crap now, which would have been absurd back before 2010 (still is, but even more so then), is that I feel we’re another 20 years from subscription AC cooling in cars. They’ll bypass it by giving access to AC cooling to 82 degrees, but if you want that good cool you’ll need to fork up some dineros

It’s a subtle difference, but one has trackpads and analog sticks, while the other has analog sticks and trackpads.

He did. He failed the skill check to bring him out. His question was if there was another way to get him if you fail pulling him out of the portal.

Interesting to see Valve at 6.5 bn, I would have guessed they were higher given the extent of Steam as a distribution platform. But I guess that makes sense some other companies have a myriad of other digital and physical products, where Valve has only their small slice in both (Half Life, Counter Strike, L4D, Ricochet for digital, and Steam Deck, Index, some merchandise for physical)

It’s an ever increasing sentiment, not having children. It’s also why a lot of folks wait later to get married. My ex-wife and I divorced early on (we were 23 and 21 when we married), but the divorce came only a year and a half later. It’s really hard to gauge what you want in your early 20s and it’s not the early 1900s where children were seen as extra hands to till the fields.

My best advice is, if you decide to re-marry at some point, make sure whoever your future partner is established in their mindset. If they are adamantly “childfree” and in their late 20s, it’s probably a mindset that will continue. If there is even a slight doubt, make sure you drill down to a yes/no. Even then, there are no guarantees. But man - I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly what I wanted in life up until I was 29. It’s a difficult conversation for some, like your ex, and they’ll hold out hope that you’ll change your mind even if they don’t vocalize it or say otherwise. But it’s good that you both amicably split early rather than having it manifest into resentment later on.

Big ticket items like that are pretty binary. If you try to squeeze in a .5 between 1 and 0, it’s going to cause problems.

Holy shit man. I don’t know what it takes for the death penalty in Australia, but this would be a strong contender in my opinion.

I think the biggest single factor they point out is the software side of things, in combination with the other factors such as hardware/price. Although the Deck ain’t beefy, it’s got enough juice to do a lot at a battery rate that isn’t terribly abysmal, especially for lighter indie titles and emulation.

The other factor here is outside support and adoption. There are tons of options for third party customization, such as skins, buttons, pads, cases, etc. Not saying these don’t exist for the competition, just not at the same scale. Kind of like finding support for a niche android phone versus an iPhone.

I’ve been following these guys closely. The exchangeable graphics card is huge. I’m interested to see how “future proof” It is, as I’m sure there are certain limitations as graphics cards get “bigger and better.” I’m sure there will be limitations by the modular design into the amount of power it can process.

You’re spot on. The changes we’re seeing are seen as “radical”, as users had previously utilized them on the cheap. Given the recent changes in the overall market, shareholders are making radical demands. So companies have to think of something to pivot.

When we look at video games, we’ve seen micro transactions creep up, a slow boil if you will, so consumers have adjusted to the increases in these “optional” purchases. Video games overall have been largely stagnant in terms of price per copy. Even accounting for inflation, we’ve really only seen a 20 dollar increase over the years for the raw “license” of a game. Then you add in premium packs and other “optional” nonsense and most have just accepted it.

I think where people get heartburn on these things is when you introduce such a whiplash of a change with such short notice. I think even if Unity changed the pricing to 2 cents an install starting 2024, then upped it to 5 cents in 2025 and kept it at an incremental increase, it would have been a better “slow boil.” By going outright with the 20 cents per install for the entry level, the market reacted just as radically as the proposed changes.

While I don’t personally agree with the changes, I can understand through your point why they’re trying it. Late stage capitalism and all that

It’s interesting because I swear I buzzed by an article the other day with some eye roll complaint about there being too many games, and that’s why it was hard for games to sell.

There are a lot of games, but it means that people want to engage with games that are actually fun and aren’t soulless cash grabs or half baked early access with no real value or fun.

It’s just the basic “quality versus quantity” principle. Instead of shoveling out crap like Rise of Kong, Gollum, The Day Before, etc etc, just focus your efforts on a single good game. The only recent exception to this rule I guess would be Starfield, but that’s for Bethesda to figure out on how to salvage.

While I definitely enjoy mods in all my Bethesda titles, I do like to play through “vanilla” The first time through, as that’s usually the only time I engage the majority of vanilla content/the main quest. As soon as I introduce mods, I seldom re-touch the vanilla stuff more than what’s necessary, and usually results in half-finished play throughs before I add another dozen mods that require a fresh start. Vanilla Bethesda content can be enjoyed, as I’ve done that from Morrowind to Fallout 4 to everything in between.

Yeah I think you need a dock though, or if you don’t have the money to buy a dock, I think you can rent one of those POD containers. Still trying to figure out how to connect to this guy’s computer though, they locked it and I don’t know where to DL the libs for it

Throwing my anecdotal 2 cents in -

Married at 23 (wife just turned 21) straight out of college. We were both very immature, and we divorced two years later after she fooled around with her 55 year old boss. Left me devastated at 25 going on 26 thinking I was used goods. After a lot of maturing, a few more relationships, I remarried at 33.

It takes a lot of self reflection - because even though I could chalk up the previous marriage to “lol she a hoe” - I had piss poor financial skills, was very immature and lacked a lot of self confidence which manifested itself in toxic behavior all around. There are times I just cringe at who I was at that age. Not that I’m a perfect person now, I’m just more aware of what I needed to improve in myself to be a decent person and partner.

Part of it is the age old wisdom of learning to love yourself and figuring out what you like, versus just trying to mold yourself into the person you think your partner wants. And not to say that “oh I’m an asshole, They have to deal with it” but truly understanding what makes you tick and finding someone who loves and accepts that part of you.