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Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]

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781 points HelloUsername | 4 comments | 16 Jan 25 13:08 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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tmvphil ◴[16 Jan 25 14:57 UTC] No.42726064[source]▶
I get this is Nintendo, so it'll never be fixed, but I honestly hate having to buy Nintendo hardware just to play the three or four big-name platform exclusives per generation. It would be so much better for consumers if they would just abandon the hardware and be a regular games company
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lenerdenator ◴[16 Jan 25 15:00 UTC] No.42726130[source]▶
I think the same thing. Metroid is good, but is it $250+ good? Meh.

Microsoft more-or-less does the same thing with Windows in the personal consumer market. With Office being online these days, the primary motivation for a lot of people to buy a Windows license for a computer instead of using Linux or buying a Mac is gaming, along with pure inertia.

This will be a problem with everything until games are FLOSS.

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spencerflem ◴[16 Jan 25 15:14 UTC] No.42726354[source]▶
Sadly, I don't think games will ever be FLOSS until we figure out how to get people to pay for FLOSS software.
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1. ranger_danger ◴[16 Jan 25 15:46 UTC] No.42726824[source]▶
I actually don't think there is a big obstacle to this. Most people don't care about FLOSS and don't even know what it is, so I think that shouldn't really affect sales. I think companies are just worried about people stealing their code to use it for more "undesirable" (to them) things like cheating and mods, and then having to go after them for it because you do actually have to try to defend your copyright/trademarks if you want to keep them.
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2. spencerflem ◴[16 Jan 25 15:53 UTC] No.42726940[source]▶
People will know and care instantly when there's an easily accessible storefront like app with those games one click away and perfectly legal. Same reason excellent tools like Aseprite are no longer floss - it got packaged (legally) in Debian and others and why on earth would you go way out of your way to buy it, or even think that they might be trying to charge.

I don't think games companies are against mods generally, many have steam workshop support built in. Nintendo as the big exception here ofc.

Cheating is ofc a huge problem for multiplayer games and can absolutely tank some genres. Very mixed feelings about the kernel level rootkit type spyware but there's no denying that games companies are paying big money to put them there for the players benefit.

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3. ranger_danger ◴[16 Jan 25 16:44 UTC] No.42727643[source]▶
I don't think a majority of people will even go to alternative storefronts to get the software in big enough numbers to matter. I think it's more of a legal concern than a monetary (sales) one, but I could be wrong.
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4. spencerflem ◴[16 Jan 25 16:49 UTC] No.42727686{3}[source]▶
I think you're right, as it stands now, especially for platforms like Android with one canonical store that already has many free offerings. I use fdroid because i love the philosoply and am willing to put up with it but to be clear, the apps there are unprofessional and ugly and I get why most people don't.

But if this became a common practice I think people absolutely would. Tons of professional quality games instantly available for free is such an incredibly good value.