Huge "I like shorts. They're comfy and easy to wear." energy.

Kojima games are famously cutscene heavy. They may not be for everyone, but lazy is the last word I'd use to describe anything about them. I think it's perfectly fine for a story to lean on its medium or outside context to feel special, interactive movies included.

In fact, I'll even say it's perfectly fine for a game's presentation to force tons of people out of its audience in general, whether that's via extreme difficulty, reliance on senses not everyone has, not being pausable, or not being enjoyable in anything less than 3 hour chunks.

Wow, I'm really glad this topic came up. As a recent convert from Windows, it's still muscle memory for me to yank out a flash drive as soon as the copy dialog completes. (Yes, I know ejecting a drive first is still the proper thing to do on Windows, but skipping that has not been an issue once in hundreds of cases.)

I think the size is a selling point for a lot of people actually, especially outside PC enthusiast circles where we've come to expect big cases and whatnot. I've got a visual for a 6" cube on my desk right now, and it's crazy how small it feels. All the "equivalent" small form factor builds I've seen proposed are still legitimately several times bigger at best when comparing volume.

Paired with the Frame's virtual screen and controls, it might be a great travel gaming PC solution with better ergonomics than a laptop.

It's worth remembering that most discussions like this are dominated by enthusiasts (including both of us) whereas most people in general are not enthusiasts.

In my experience, most people don't actively play more than 512GB worth of games at once, and you can add to this with spare microSD cards or other PCs on the network. Steam makes transferring game installs to the main SSD from elsewhere rather painless.

Even as a bit of a data hoarder myself, I only really go beyond 512GB to: 1) keep pace with multiple friend groups that like entirely different game genres I need to all keep available at a moment's notice, and 2) maintain games modded outside the Steam workshop that I may not play that often but still want to not have to set up more than necessary.

I doubt $700-$800 was going to happen even before prices went crazy. Some time ago, someone at Valve stated they were trying to beat the Index's $1000 launch price in a way that implied that if the Frame had beaten that price, it wouldn't have done so by much. The Frame probably won't see the 40% price jump of the Steam Machine, but it won't be 0% either. I'm guessing it'll be somewhere around $1200, but that's just a hunch.

I said it somewhere else, but I think Valve actually did factor in wishlist counts. The problem is in the percentage of those that convert to sales. For games, the median conversion rate is 10% to 20% of wishlists converting to sales within the first week. I expect the Steam Controller's conversion rate was much higher.

Valve may have even tried anticipating this from Deck sales and still failed to account for the Deck conversion rate still being lower due to the greater price.

It also means you can perfectly shape accessories for the controller like skins, docks, cases, attachment brackets, etc.

Plus the lower waterline from the weight of the bottle.

I watch my mouth in general, but I wish we would stop normalizing the idea that people have a right to not be offended. Also, if someone uses a slur, any judgement on them should be based on the intent behind the usage, not the usage itself. Cue the Michael Scott R-word clip here.

Lol. I use hedging terms constantly, because I'm autistic and precision in language matters to me. 99% certainty is still enough uncertainty to justify a "likely." I'm not planning to change that even if more and more people think my writing is AI.

Everyone loves Technology Connections. Also, watching Alec rant about Christmas lights every year is tradition now.

Even having high-end enthusiast hardware, I want those devices as the baseline too. Whatever optimizations they do still apply over the whole hardware spectrum.

Also, you can technically say 2030 is less than 4 years away if you want to traumatize old people. Lol.

Yeah, I definitely think how much you value this controller is directly proportional to how much of the full Steam Deck control scheme you use. As a heavy user of the Deck's touchpads to the point I'll never consider another handheld without them, this is still a day one purchase for me even at $99, but I'm not going to recommend it to anyone without huge caveats.

Not always. Most photos I take are really just intended for future me. A few of them have famous things I care about.

Are you trolling or do you genuinely believe that? I remember the original too. YouTube is applying AI filters on many old videos and reuploads, and the end result is distrust of many videos we used to trust.

Thanks for the new fear.

In case you're not being hyperbolic (or for anyone else legitimately thinking this because I've heard it multiple times), I think Valve really did the best thing they could. I know Valve feels huge, but MasterCard and Visa together are over a hundred times bigger, and any payment processing system Valve could make would definitely be a pushover.

Also, never underestimate the casual normie population. If Valve lost Visa and MasterCard support, I'm pretty sure that would mean losing two-thirds of their playerbase if not more. Those people would either prop up alternative stores like Epic or Microslop's or just pull away from PC gaming altogether.

Anyway, it's a bit like the people saying Valve should make their own DRAM to combat the shortage. It doesn't acknowledge how entrenched the existing manufacturers are and how far away Valve actually is from that level of manufacturing.

In case you haven't already, preload your Steam Wallet and make sure to account for any tax. As someone who got my Steam Deck order in the first 15 minutes it dropped, payment processing was the biggest barrier then. They might have fixed it since, but they also might not have. Good luck!

Would you pay the same price for a Microsoft controller if it had little pads?

If it had all the other little things like TMR sticks, repair-friendly construction, really deep configuration, and other hardware in the family having a track record of good software support, unironically yes. As much as I hate Microsoft, their accessibility controller was a big win.

Also, it's not simping to genuinely like a company's products after using a lot of them.