I own a Switch, but I'm still debating whether I play BoTW on Deck or Switch. Either way I'll probably buy it on Switch because developers should be rewarded for making good games, but it's handy for me to have all of my games in one place. Plus the Deck is a much more comfortable for me to hold - more ergonomic, better fit for larger hands.
Thank you for being part of normalizing consumer freedom while being responsible enough to support the people who worked on the thing.
Part of what makes the discussion of emulators or alternative means of playing games so difficult, is that the loudest voices are those who make it clear that they have no intention of actually buying the product to begin with.
It makes it hard for any conversation around the publisher’s pushback to “protect their IP” to move beyond their need to protect their income stream, and into the legitimate reasons a consumer would want to have more control over how they play the publisher’s game.
It's a no-brainer for me. The headache of setting up emulation of consoles more modern than about N64 era makes it way less appealing right from the start, plus the Switch is way lighter, and all the native hardware features just work better when you aren't going through a few levels of translation (Steam's controller mapping is great, but gyro working seamlessly is hard to beat, and amiibo support is a hassle to replicate). The Switch is a bit less comfortable to hold on its own, but there are lots of grips that fix that problem (I'm a fan of the Skull & Co one).
I've found emudeck on the Steam Deck to be surprisingly easy (I have a low tolerance for that sort of tinkering in my spare time). Downloading the right ROMs has been a little more painful (and slow), but once you've got them it's generally been just SCPing them onto the deck and then pressing the button to generate the menu entries.
Admittedly though, I don't care about amiibos or motion controls (I always turn them off when using my Switch).
> but I'm still debating whether I play BoTW on Deck or Switch.
Debating what ? Are you pulling the "IP owners don't make their products available on my platform so I am forced to pirate it" netflix card when you own the device the game is supposed to be played on ?
Do you act with the same rampant indignation at people who rip their dvd/blu rays to a home NAS so they can watch them without having to faff about looking for the disc?
Maybe read the whole comment first before reacting in future?
> Maybe read the whole comment first before reacting in future?
You mean that part ? Where it says "probably" ? Yeah, I read it. It says "probably".
> Either way I'll probably buy it on Switch because developers should be rewarded for making good games, but it's handy for me to have all of my games in one place.
> Do you act with the same rampant indignation at people who rip their dvd/blu rays to a home NAS so they can watch them without having to faff about looking for the disc?
Only those who claim they probably have the dvd/blu rays somewhere or are planning to "probably" buy them while claiming they'll watch the rip on their home NAS because it's much more convenient.
I would have thought that the console doesn't have much effect on the financial model though. The margin on the console has to be fairly low, and they sell many games for each console sale. I've always assumed that the vast majority of their profit was from the game sales.
TBH I don't know. Apple is obviously a hardware company that happens to make software.
As you say, Nintendo does sell software as you say. But there's plenty of people out there who buy the devices for a couple of games. The people that always just want whatever the latest Mario Kart or Smash Bros is, or whatever.
That's why I've figured they view themselves as a bit of a hybrid. If they viewed themselves as a software company I'd think they would be less fanatical about having their own hardware.
