Nah, not really. Would be nice to see more people on the smaller subs, but that’ll happen slowly.

I have much less screen time now as an adult. But games have grown in every way and are now a legitimate art form. It’s hard to say if I had more fun playing jet set willy on my 48k Sinclair spectrum, or playing cyberpunk on my steam deck. Both were great, in different ways.

Yeah, nostalgia is a big thing here. Past experiences that were amazing just don’t hold up compared to modern tech. In most cases anyway, some stuff is fairly timeless.

I had the original Gameboy, and that was cool as fuck at the time. Later I had a PS2, loved that shit, spent an entire summer sat in a squat with my site boy mates, smoking crack and playing vice city. And silent hill, on my own, in the dark. Great machine, great memories.

But really I think my favourite is the one I have now, the OLED steam deck. Nostalgia aside, it’s amazing to see how tech has progressed in my lifetime. (My first computer had 1k RAM lol). Steam deck is, IMO, the best so far, certainly best I’ve had. I’m just pleased to have lived long enough to see things come so far from pong and pacman.

I mean, it would bring global tech to a standstill. It would be a significant problem. Once existing stuff broke, there would be no replacement. I know very little about chip manufacture, except that the lithography machines are fantastically complex and costly. It would probably take years to spin up new production.

This seems like a pretty solid mutually assured destruction deterrent and doesn’t even involve nukes.

Yeah, you have to make much more than you need and sell the excess to keep per unit costs down. At that point you’re a chip manufacturer. I’m not sure even valve could afford the startup costs involved.

Yeah, kinda shows there’s zero competition in the market.

Lol, and YouTube is full of shorts of those same people drowning their truck on a boat ramp.

This is true, but there’s also a real lack of small pickups on the market. The fuckers just seem to be getting bigger and bigger. I used to have a Proton Jumbuck and it was really useful. Used it a lot for hauling wood and soil, it was small enough to get around and park easily in the city. I got rid of it eventually because it was so hard to find parts, shame, it was a handy little machine.

Yeah, me too. But I find not getting really hammered achieves a similar thing. I’m working on that.

Yeah, wish I’d thought of it. There are always fools with too much money.

Yeah, I’ve built PCs before, could do it again, but I’m busy and I can’t be arsed. Also, it would probably cost about the same as this machine, just with me doing the labour. Plus, this device looks nice and valve have so far got a good record of making quality hardware, at least IMO.

Valve seem to have been pretty good so far about keeping scalpers from becoming part of their distribution network. Compared to the shit we saw with the PS5, for example.

Yeah, I’m on a similar salary. The only reason I could afford my steam deck is because I live in a van. Housing is most people’s biggest expense. Reducing that means I have a bit of disposable income, even a small savings account. But it’s not an ideal situation, and not feasible at all for some people.

Yeah, I live in a small space so the steam deck is my only gaming device. Never tried VR but was considering the steam frame just for the big screen experience.

The timing here really fucked valve. They announced these products around the same moment that component prices went through the fuckin roof. Hopefully the price will drop in a year or so

Yeah just recently. Never played this type of game before but I’m really enjoying it.

I always seem to take at least twice the stated play time to finish a game. Yeah, I think I’m just a bit slow. But if I’m enjoying myself, no stress. I’m playing baldur’s gate at the mo, 140 hours in and I’ve only just started act 2.

Yeah, but my 386 had a turbo button!

My first computer was a ZX81 with a mighty 1k RAM. Didn’t do much with it. Then I got a Sinclair spectrum with 48k, you could do a lot with that. That’s when gaming got good for me.

Maybe they see it as a loss leader with the exclusives thing?

Same with alien