Polysics

Bacon and white rice with pickles.

Swingline are pretty affordable ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

A Japanese Math Rock band murders me

100% agree

I’m sorry man but you are just plain wrong on this front. Try any games that are on Switch and compare them to whatever settings you need to get 30+ fps on a Steam Deck. A couple that come to mind would be The Witcher 3, and The Outer Worlds. The Switch versions of those games are absolutely abysmal to play, but on the Deck you can absolutely play both of them all the way through just fine. No one on the planet should expect a Steam Deck to hold up to a proper gaming rig or even a PS5 Pro, but to say it’s worse than a Switch is just ignorance or a flat out lie.

They are, in almost every way, taking the console model approach. Updates when there is a significant generational leap and not just yearly updates because AMD made a slightly faster APU (though they did the switch to switch OLED thing but no one complained about that because they kept the LCD models for sale and the OLED really is nicer), selling at a loss (and making up for it in game sales) and of course, the ease of use that a console interface offers over a traditional PC interface.

Then they step it up beyond that by making it as open as possible (software/emulation, games from any source, it’s really a PC) and making the hardware repairable (making parts available and easy to fix in the first place,) and of course, cheap games and practically every game you’d ever want.

What the other handheld PC companies are lacking is (with some exceptions) repairability, that console experience, and price. Us nerds that can do whatever with technology will do it, so a legion or an ally or a gpd will sell just fine to that demographic, especially for the frame rate chasers. But for most of the rest of people, they would just get a switch or a PS5 or Xbox because it’s just plug in and game, and at least in the case of a Switch or Xbox S, the cost of entry is way lower than a PC, be it a gaming desktop/laptop, or even many of the handheld PC competitors. Yes you can build comparable cheap PCs to an Xbox or PS5, but that means building a PC, and most people don’t want to do that (I’m not talking to you, I know you have a sweet rig.) Yes I know games on PC are usually cheaper especially Steam sales or key seller/bundle sites, but console gamers often don’t consider that, and initial cost of entry is very important to non-enthusiast type people in any given hobby.

There’s a reason why Nintendo consoles sell so well despite being behind the competition in raw horsepower. It’s the console model (and in their case aggressive exclusivity of their famous IPs)

The things keeping Sony and Microsoft in the competition are basically the console ease of use, and their all you can eat subscriptions. Even they both realized that they can get more sales putting their games on PC, but that still means forking over MSRP for a single game, so those ps+ and gamepass subs are keeping them afloat at this point.

I’m a huge tech nerd and have been deep in related industries for over 20 years. I know how to do whatever I want with any pc hardware or software, I own a steam deck, and a rog ally, a proper beefy gaming desktop, a gaming laptop, a Switch, and a PS4. Despite all that, in the past 2 years, easily 90% of my gaming has been on the Steam Deck. It does everything I need it to and more, and it does it anywhere, anyhow. If I want to tweak and tinker with it I can, but more importantly, I can just PLAY GAMES with almost no friction. At home, on a break at work, at the airport waiting for my flight, cozy in bed, wherever, whenever, and fast, and easy.

The Steam Deck is the swiss army knife game device that childhood me always dreamed of, and now it exists. That is why it’s outselling it’s competition, and genuinely making PC gaming a viable thing for the masses. No it won’t beat Nintendo anytime soon, but it’s gaining steam on them and other consoles faster than any other attempt ever has before, and it will only get better.

Black Books

It’s basically a documentary about himself

I know this might sound like overkill but I have ear issues so it’s necessary for me.

Tips go in a little dish of 99% iso alcohol. Don’t have to worry about the whole evaporation to water ratio that is often mentioned. Then if there is visible crud I will use a soft textured toothbrush (like for kids, the extra soft kind) and let them air dry (which is very fast because alcohol)

For the rest, a cotton swab dry to remove crud, and then all the parts go into a UV sterilization box (open the lid of the case to make sure the UV gets in there too)

It’s a whole ritual but it keeps me from getting irritated ears.

And yes I have over the ear headphones but I can’t lug those around everywhere all the time like earbuds.

And never ever use soap because it can and will break water surface tension and penetrate barriers like the speaker and microphone grills.

Yeah I’ve actually thought about doing that and making it an office desk calendar or something. Thanks for reminding me!

I sure am glad I got a Kobo for myself for Xmas and ripped all my books to it. Guess I’ll be recycling my Kindle for good.

Well seeing as how Tim was right up there next to Sundar I’m not the least bit surprised.

People in Houston generally drive 30mph above the speed limit anyway so this is just business as usual.

(I hate it by the way. Houston drivers are so incredibly dangerous. It’s absolutely insane.)

Propaganda. Mostly funded by the rich, in order to, of course, stay on the top of the class hierarchy. Easier to be a filthy evil oligarch when the “rabble” just fight each other and don’t pay any attention to you, or worse, kiss your boots.

Yeah that’s probably it. I did play it recently enough that steam would feed me news updates for it.

Yes.

Well, at least the ones in government probably are.

Thankfully all those hours I put into Anomalous Coffee Machine will probably confuse people since the title doesn’t really give away what it is.

It’s porn in case that wasn’t obvious.

100% This.

So steam has the little update ribbon for games in your library, and recently one popped up for The Outer Worlds in my feed. I thought it was odd since it’s not a new game anymore so I checked it out and it was for some reason just the announcement for Outer Worlds 2. Thought that was odd too since that also happened awhile ago so I went to the discussion thread to see if there was an update to the announcement or something and I got to reading the comments. It was just the most toxic and vile cesspool of comments. Literal mud brained comments like “no woke game, no DEI this time, this game bad because I can’t fuck the asexual brown girl and she should be white anyway because that doesn’t make sense in outer space” and other vile bigoted shit. Like seriously guys? You hated the game so much that you have to spew your ignorant garbage brained thoughts on an announcement thread for the sequel? Fuck me these people are just the absolute sludge at the bottom of the barrel.

I’m all for protesting a game because the company is evil (you know which ones are) but holy hell people, the vast majority of the comments were not that at all. Just fucking go play something else. There are a hundred thousand other choices for any respective genre of game. Please just all of you fuck off.

The other 6% was a few multiplayer sessions of Warhammer Vermintide with friends which I guess I could have played on the deck but I needed the KBM and bigger screen.

Basically used windows for some multiplayer game sessions with friends and that’s about it. Steam Deck for everything else.