What does your battlestation look like? PS4/5, XBox, PC or some oddball Chinese retro handheld?
Steamdeck took over most of my gaming. It’s by far the best gaming device ever made imo.
I’m playing on my Steam Deck like I was playing on my Switch 6 years ago. I prefer my indie games on handheld devices, so a good half of my playtime is spent on the Deck.
I have a full gaming rig, but mainly play on my Steamdeck - it’s so much more convenient to just be able to pick it up and play.
What games have you been playing?
Metroidvanias recently - Dead Cells, Blasphemous, Hollow Knight, that kind of thing
I only play on my Steam Deck and/or on my Desktop running Arch(btw)
Desktop Specs: OS: Arch Linux CPU: Intel i7-9700K GPU: Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition RAM: 2x8GB 3600 MHz
Primary is now Steam Deck.
PC is pretty much used for work and installing games to move to the Steam Deck.
Local transfer is a nice feature!
PS5 for me! I’m basic :)
+1 fellow PS5 (& Switch) gamer here. It has to be quick and easy.
I mainly play https://geoguessr.com in a bog standard web browser. Ubuntu. No console or advanced gaming pc rig.
They also have a map quiz game I quite enjoy. It’s mostly about memorizing maps and capitals https://www.geoguessr.com/seterra/en
Yeah, I know. I have the android app on my phone. Currently practicing on african countries. Asia up next.
I don’t play games with much frequency, but I play on some combination of Steam Deck and a desktop running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, a Linux distro.
Edits/Changes: Forgot to specify Tumbleweed.
I have my main PC, plus a retro gaming / emulation machine for the living room, and an anbernic RG 351 MP (handheld) that can emulate just about everything up to the N64. All GNU/Linux.
I mostly play steam games, plus Xonotic, Beyond All Reason, and Veloren. I’ve been playing Animal Crossing with my partner lately, and Windwaker on the living room machine.
I just don’t see much value in mainstream consoles these days when you could instead have a proper computer and all the versatility that brings.
Linux desktop running Manjaro - mostly use Steam Games and Veloren
Ps4, pc and mobile.
Obligatory “Fuck Google” for killing Stadia.
Stadia was great. No monthly fee. Good enough selection of games. If they had put literally any effort into it, they could’ve done amazing.
It was cool of Google to give me my money back for my games.
Sadly I came late to the Stadia party, I originally only bought the controller to use for my PC, but I got far cry 5 as a freebie and I was considering buying some more games, then they announced that it was getting shut down.
PS5 mainly. I do have a gaming pc but at the moment I’m just casual gaming on the sofa when I have time. I love the PS5, I think it’s the best Sony console since the PS2.
Oh wow that’s a bold statement. Personally i think the PS3 is better than the PS2 though. The move to online and HD graphics (for the average consumer) was huge. I know it had been a thing for a while, but that’s when it became mainstream
How come you’re such a big fan of the PS5? Is the game selection as good as the PS2?
Thought that would be a controversial opinion lol.
So purely from a console perspective, taking pc out of the equation completely. The PS3 game selection was severely lacking. It was a good console and the graphical jump was awesome, but the number of games I actually had was hardly any.
PS4 was fantastic in most ways, but a lot of the games I found really pushed the hardware which resulted in the console sounding like it was going to take off, becoming overheated etc.
The pros of the PS5 for me include the SSD, which makes such a huge difference to the speed of the console. Things like switching games is a breeze. The adaptive triggers are really good when implemented into games. The graphics are fantastic. I know many people don’t see a difference, but with a 4K tv games like the newest Ratchett and Clank look phenomenal. So much more can be done with physics and effects that the game actually blew me away with what it pulled off.
People say there aren’t many games but I’ve played and loved so many PS5 games including the two Spiderman games, Demons souls remake, Ratchett and Clank, FF7 remake, Hogwarts, and quite a few more.
The console is fast, simple to use, the games I’ve played have looked gorgeous in every way, and I’m seriously excited to see what else gets released now that companies are stopping PS4 and 5 versions and just purely developing for current gen.
Steam Deck.
I’ve never owned a decent gaming machine, for various reasons. Cost was a big factor. Another was the fact that I was never a big “gamer”. Very little desire to play the big, popular, AAA games in general. The games I did play, I played on a very old PC, and the performance was what you’d expect from low end hardware; but I just never had any desire to build my own gaming rig.
The Steam Deck is perfect for my use case:
- I have no desire to run Windows
- I have no desire to build my own gaming machine
- I have no desire to get locked into a console ecosystem (Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, etc).
- I can play handled, docked to a monitor with keyboard and mouse, docked to a monitor with a controller, docked to a TV, etc etc
- I can play games built for Windows
- I can play games with native Linux builds
- I can play Steam games, Epic games, DRM-free games, emulated games, etc, etc
- I can do whatever the hell else I want to do with it. For example, maybe I might want to run Kodi on it, and connect to my Jellyfin server at home to watch a movie if I’m staying at a hotel. Whatever. It’s just a computer like any other. I can do whatever I want.
I think I’ve probably played more new (to me) games since buying my SD than in all the years (decades) previous, and I love it.
for me it’s one of:
- PS5
- Xbox Series X
- Steam Deck
- Switch
- Analogue Pocket
- Analogue Super Nt
- PS Vita
- PS3
- 3DS
not really by order of preference, but i guess how much i’ve used them recently
I’ve wanted those Analogue consoles for so long, but I just can’t quite justify the price tag on them.
whether i can recommend either would really depend on your use case, but in my case:
- the Super Nt made sense, coming from a 1chip SFC with OSSC, because I wanted to absolutely get rid of jailbars and didn’t mind the high price tag - as well as that I have a small but growing cart collection (mostly NTSC-U/C)
- the Pocket was really more of a splurge, because i found it used on ebay about a year ago and it was roughly what it would cost me to get it brand new (whenever that would have been, who knows). openFPGA has been a godsend since then, but Analogue has been slow on all fronts (distribution, communication, software updates)
I have a small-to-medium collection of games from most consoles (especially the cartridge generation) and being able to play original games over HDMI without any artifacts just really speaks to me. I’ll definitely have to intentionally save up for them to allow myself to splurge, though.
Right now, I have a few plugged into a composite switcher going through a RetroTink2X, which lets me play well enough, and I do kind of enjoy the RCA composite look, I’m more in the camp of “give me the raw pixels clean” than “RCA signal is how it was meant to look”
it is certainly a budget! i was somewhat considering both the Mega Sg and Duo, but seeing as i have no collection to speak of for either of those (and i’d rather not start now, even though i especially love the PC Engine, it’s getting very pricey out there… anyways), it wouldn’t really make sense vs getting a MiSTer (or just the dock for the Pocket i guess).
i’m sure the difference would be night and day for you, coming from composite, but you might already get great results simply with upgraded cables. iirc the 2X doesn’t do SCART, but you could do component (could be pricey, depending on the console) or S-Video (usually a great step-up and in the same ballpark as composite)
Arch Linux (btw)
(on desktop not a laptop or anything)
Only on my Switch. I only have so many hours I can dedicate to gaming with my job, a master’s program, and taking care of my 2.5-year-old.
Wish I could get a PS5 though. There are some PS5 titles I’d really love to try.
