Ask

The last console I had was an Xbox 360. Not planning to get anymore because I don’t want to rent games. I want to BUY games. Fuck Sony. Fuck microslop.

I was thinking about getting a retroid though. Possibly.

The last system I got was a used switch, and before that, it was DS light. I had a flashcart for the DS lite, I was backing up my saves, downloading first run games, built in AR support, plus it could run emulators and other apps. The QoL was kind of insane. The switch wasn't anywhere close to that; every game was hideously expensive, way worse than I remembered for what I would be paying for DS games (obv if I had been).

I had 8 gb to store DS games, which meant I never had to worry about storage. I had 30 hanging out on there, along with emulators and whatever else. I got a second hand mobile switch, which meant that I couldn;t swap out the HDD. I got something like six or seven games for it, which meant very fast I had delete games and send them to the store or whatever. The whole HD, which was something like 200 gb which was only enough for 3 or so games, which is insanity to me, especially since they want to do away with physical media.

None of the switch games captured my interest, but that may not up to objective quality. I will say though that 4th gen pokemon was one of the games I sank myself into, unlike any game before or since. I really sank into the competitive and I was maybe in the 100 players in the world. literal thousands of hours, across Diamond and SS (the internal clock on the save screen stops counting at 1000). Shield was maybe the worst pokemon game I have ever played and BP was just really boring. I might just be too old for it.

Anyways, I got an anbernic and it hits me where I live. I can keep all of my games on one system, I can download all the games I want, I can play pokemon rom hacks with an interface that makes it feel like pokemon.

No.

I have no idea what anyone is on about here. Games are cheap and consoles are cheap, crazy cheap when you calculate for inflation.

If you go back in time w/ inflation, they were vastly more expensive. In the 90s and 2000s I ways paying 40-80 dollars a game, in today's money that's 100-200 bucks. Today when I buy a game I'm paying like 10-30 dollars in 2026 money. I bought a PS1 in 1996 for $250, in today's money that... $500. Same price as a PS5... which is what I paid for a PS5 two years ago.

I just think the lot of you are whiny and entitled, you all seem to think you should have a brand new console for $100 and AAA games should be $20 on new release. If you wait a year after release they usually go on sale for 20-30 bucks anyway. But why pay for anything when you can just pirate everything?

Then you rant about how PC gaming is so cheap, but yesterday people were talking about how the gaming PCs they wanted were now 3000-4000 dollars.... that's 6-8x what a PS5 costs. I have never seen this magical $1000 or less gaming PCs people talk about on here. I work in IT and a base level office PC is $1200-1500, and the last gaming PC I helped someone build was over $2000 for a very low/mid spec build. I gave up PC gaming 15 years ago because graphics cards were more than price of an whole gaming console, and my budget for a PC was always under $1000, so graphic cards were not even an option.

I have a ps5 and a switch 2 and they are both amazing machines and the games great and worth every penny. PS4 was probably the greatest console I ever owned in terms of the quality of games and how little they cost.

Honestly, I'm avoiding most online games these days.
Anything competitive tends to have toxic communities, but really I just like being able to pause whenever.

Yes. There's barely any difference between a console and PC components-wise and size-wise nowadays. With a current-gen console, you pay more money for fewer input options and exclusive titles than PC, plus the privilege of paying for an online subscription to game peer-to-peer on the internet connection you already pay for. There's literally no reason to game on console anymore.

My last console was a Wii because that had games I couldn't get on PC. Xbox and PS were always just too similar.

Didn't see a reason to get a Wii U and with the Switch Nintendo had joined the pay for multiplayer crowd. Plus the Switch controllers were too small for my hands.

I "bought" a couple games on ps4 back in I think 2021. I turned on my PlayStation recently and I was signed out and I couldn't sign in. Turns out Sony deletes accounts that haven't signed in for 36 months.

Valve never would've done this.

I'm with you, in concept. Not exactly in timing. I'm aiming for PS5 and Switch 2 to be my last consoles.

PS is already dropping discs, for the others physical seems at least on the way out, if not gone by next round. Games are more and more online.

But most of all, to me, it's just that there's a lot. I still have games I want to play, want to buy, for older systems, and the constant stream of new stuff is just too much. I'm getting old, 'bout time to turn off the firehose of caring about new, hyped, heavily marketed stuff.

Steam is way preferred if I'm going digital or online. It's a different thing, but I think it fills a gap that consoles don't for me.

Original PS2 scratched the fuck out of games if the laser lens got dusty and in doing so scratched the lens.

360 red ring of death

I don't know how common it is but I've had trouble with the Steam Deck power button not always working. Keeping it paired with a Bluetooth mouse really cut down on frustration.

I couldn’t find a ps5 when they came out and I could afford to buy one (at retail price, not scalper crap). Now I can find them everywhere, but I have 2 kids, and while working 2 jobs, can barely afford to pay my bills thanks to today’s economy. So I’m avoiding them, but certainly not by choice. I want so badly to play cyberpunk, battlefield 6, Hogwarts, Spiderman 2, etc. and am incapable of achieving that feat.

I’m not actively avoiding. There’s just not much that makes me want to get one. I can play most games I want on PC.

Although I’m a bit tempted by the Ocarina of Time remake.

Yes. I still play games for the Atari 2600 sometimes, especially with all the new user-made content coming out. What was that considered... 2nd gen? (ditto for the C64, a semi-console)

Also a few Super-Nintendo Chalmers titles, which I guess would be 4th gen? That was almost the perfect era to me, because the mix of memory, graphics and CPU were perfectly sufficient to pull off any number of good, fundamental games.

Better graphics were never really needed via later consoles IMO... except when it came to FPS-type games. One of the few arguments for more pixels and color depth, but obviously I date myself. XD

Right there with you. I’m left with only two games on the PS4 that I wish they had ported to PC: CTR: Nitro-Fueled and DriveClub. I’ve always been sad about the death of DriveClub.

PS4 /x360 had paid multiplayer…