State of Video Game Systems

[spinmove_]

Made some progress on the home front yesterday. We were at Bass Pro visiting Santa and we saw some switch games. The wife started asking about a video game system, which one we should get (she seemed to be on the Xbone and PS4 train at first). Her concern is all the "junk" cluttering up the living room. I assured her that the system could be wall-mounted behind the TV, and the controllers could be kept in a basket out of sight somewhere. She asked about "how do you load the games if it's behind the tv?" to which I assured her that you don't insert disks or cartridges anymore, you just download the game from the internet.

Was I wrong about any of this?

Stuffing a switch behind the TV is going to be extremely interesting as well as limiting for being able to seamlessly remove it from the cradle to continue playing might be tricky.

Games being downloaded directly now? Yeah, that’s a thing on the Switch. Just make sure you mind how much data you’re using on your internal storage and microSD card (which is limited). Not sure exactly how it works on PS4/XBone.

I’d just keep your library of games in a similar fashion to how you keep your DVDs/Blu-Rays. Swapping the game cards on a Switch is pretty easy.


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[Chance]

Was I wrong about any of this?

If you purchase games from the Internet, then you can keep them on the hard drive without requiring physical media. Otherwise, some games will want the disc (if you're talking XBOX) inserted for DRM reasons.

[FNFAN]

Same here. Before beating Breath of the Wild, the last game I played all the way through was Skyward Sword. I used to be into Final Fantasy and all the RPG's... I just don't have time for that any more.

I'll take all challengers in Mario Kart though.

You know you're getting old when the the last game you beat was SPLINTER CELL Blacklist.

[Artemas2]

Coming from an Xbone and PC perspective. The switch may be different, but if you plan to mostly download games the industry norm right now if 50-100 Gbs a game plus post launch updates of anywhere from 10-20 Gbs.

With the Xbox an external HDD and good internet is a must if you ever plan on more than 3 games.

A quick look at switch games on Amazon I see roughly 3-20Gbs for some games.

[t1tan]

I'd feel somewhat safe buying a Switch but there are many rumors of a Switch refresh coming 2019 but haven't seen anything definite. Microsoft and Sony will most likely see an evolutionary refresh in 2020/21, major revisions aren't really supposed to be a thing anymore, especially now that both sides are relying heavily on modified PC architectures(that are several years behind the times at launch) instead of trying to reinvent the wheel each generation. Basically expect "faster" with higher resolution output with still somewhat slow frame-rates compared to PC because they go for looks over performance, some titles still locked at 30fps, and at the most 59fps. I'd also expect all digital purchases to work on future consoles.

XBOX Gamepass was mentioned from the standpoint of an XBOX owner, but it is also a valid option for non-XBOX owners to play titles on PC.

All first party titles are available to play on XBOX or PC at launch. So if you have a PC capable of playing games and you want to play exclusives and/or with friends on XBOX, absolutely no reason to ever own an XBOX.

$10/month as already mentioned and option of keyboard/mouse or plug in an XBOX controller and you're set.



Personally my gaming lineup consists of
PS4 Pro for Sony exclusives and Ubisoft titles since they can't port to PC for shit.
PC for Steam, PS4 Remote Play, Battle.net, Bethesda.net, Origin and XBOX Gamepass for Microsoft exclusives and playing some titles with XBOX friends
Switch for Nintendo exclusives and stuff I want to bring with us, but so far has hardly been turned on since I got it for myself and my son at launch




Don't worry about storage space, HDD/SSD costs are plummeting these days. For the Switch, SD cards cost next to nothing, 8-400GB cards are ~$12-95. Sony has a user upgrade-able HDD that takes a whole two minutes, can toss in a 1TB Samsung for $50, or 2TB for $100 and never have to uninstall anything. XBOX and PS4 are both capable of accepting external USB drives as well, can get a few TB for $50-100.

[rob_s]

Stuffing a switch behind the TV is going to be extremely interesting as well as limiting for being able to seamlessly remove it from the cradle to continue playing might be tricky.

Games being downloaded directly now? Yeah, that’s a thing on the Switch. Just make sure you mind how much data you’re using on your internal storage and microSD card (which is limited). Not sure exactly how it works on PS4/XBone.

Frankly, the ability to play this thing hand-held is a huge downer for me. If I see this thing out of the dock and in one of the kids' hands I'm going to lose my mind. They already have iPads and every time I see them on the iPads I want to throw the goddamn things in the pool. I'm *not* getting the game console for the girls to have one more solitary isolationist screen to stare at. In another year or two they'll have phones and I'll never speak to them again. I'm not going to encourage that now.

That said, I didn't realize that the Switch took cartridges, so I'll either have to figure out a way to access it to insert a cartridge or deal with the issues of digital only.

If I want to get this thing into the living room, it is going to have to be invisible. Both my wife and I can't stand clutter and wires and gadgets and gizmos and 1997 "entertainment centers" and "home theater" and all that. We went out of our way to get the TV mounted to the wall with no credenza, bench, furniture, etc. All you see is the TV with the sound bar mounted tight to the bottom, and that's in. Huge blank wall, 65" TV, nothing else. It's beautiful.

I’d just keep your library of games in a similar fashion to how you keep your DVDs/Blu-Rays. Swapping the game cards on a Switch is pretty easy.

Part of our solution involves not having any sort of physical media player. With the Apple TV completely hidden behind the TV and on an RF (or bluetooth, or whatever magical non-line-of-sight method it uses for the signal) remote I can control the TV volume and Apple TV everything else from a remote that's smaller than one half of a Joy Con.

It's to the point that I won't even go get and hook up the DVD player for a movie I already own. Last night we watched Elf, which I own two physical copies of, and in less time than it took my wife to find either of them (she never did) I had the file on apple movies for $10 and had it cued up to play.

[rob_s]

This is an interesting video on loading times based on various storage methods. Cartridge vs. hard drive vs. SD card.

Zelda, for example, evidently uses 13GB of the 32 the Switch starts with (is down to 25 after operating system).

The upshot is, fastest to slowest

1. internal storage
2. MicroSD
3. Cartridge

but it's a matter of, for example, 27 seconds vs 31 vs 32 (in order) so I don't know that it really matters.

At the end of the day though, it seems like I just get a massive SD card and set it and forget it.

and zip-tie the goddamn machine into the dock.

[spinmove_]

This is an interesting video on loading times based on various storage methods. Cartridge vs. hard drive vs. SD card.

Zelda, for example, evidently uses 13GB of the 32 the Switch starts with (is down to 25 after operating system).

The upshot is, fastest to slowest

1. internal storage
2. MicroSD
3. Cartridge

but it's a matter of, for example, 27 seconds vs 31 vs 32 (in order) so I don't know that it really matters.

At the end of the day though, it seems like I just get a massive SD card and set it and forget it.

and zip-tie the goddamn machine into the dock.

Except that the Switch has limits on how large the microSD card can be.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo...crosd-card-faq

It seems they have gotten way more lax since some recent firmware updates, so that’s good, but the storage is somewhat limited, so buy absolutely YUUUUUGE if you’re going that route.

Have you considered a small yet reasonably powerful PC that you could stick behind the TV running Steam?


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[rob_s]

Have you considered a small yet reasonably powerful PC that you could stick behind the TV running Steam?

Not even remotely, not on any planet, not in any universe.

I'm only considering out of the box gaming boxes. The less fiddle-fuck the better.

[rob_s]

Except that the Switch has limits on how large the microSD card can be.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo...crosd-card-faq

The various videos I've watched so far seem to indicate 200 and even 400GB cards will work. Is there something specific in that link that indicates otherwise?

I see a minimum here...
microSDXC (64 GB and above)