I am trying to choose between buying a Nintendo Switch or a Nintendo DS.
This may not be the perfect community to ask - but I can't think of any better place.
The reason for my question: I don't want to own obsolete hardware in 10 years. Lately most games seem to depend on a "phone home" feature, which is not really an issue for my pc because it is always connected, but a console is something I want to play always and everywhere.
I already did some searching and found that games can be played offline fine (most of them, some exceptions are there like Multiplayer and Mortal Kombat), but:
- There is something like the paid Nintendo Online Account. I am not planning on having a paid account. How much of the system depends on the account?
- Can I have progression in a game (let's say: one of the Zelda franchise) and will my Wife and Kids all have their own progression, without having to pay for X accounts?
- People who own a Switch, let's take this to extremes, do you feel like in 20 years from now you can still do the same things on your hardware as you can do now? (No multiplayer is fine)
Also, feel free to rant about "paying is not owning", the state of the gaming industry is horrible.
edit: Thank you all for the comments! I don't post a lot, so it was kinda overwhelming :)
For clarity:
- I meant I want to "buy for life" (not really "life", but, if the hardware survives you can play on pre-internet consoles forever - you can even buy more games if you can find them)
- I want to buy a physical copy of the games, not download them
I've decided to go with the Nintendo DS for now (I have a DSi - this week I bought a couple of games, 2nd hand). Reasons:
- I already had it
- Joycons on switch. Multiple people mentioned having problems with them. I don't count on being able to buy them new in 10 years, meaning they will have to last.
Again: thank you all for the useful input!
I don't know if Steam counts as an "open" ecosystem though. You still kinda need to be online to play Steam games, and you can only launch said game with Steam. DRM free option would be GOG games, which doesn't require online and the GOG launcher to play games afaik.
They said the Steam Deck and it's competitors. They are talking about handheld gaming computers which can be used to play whatever; including Switch games. Not Steam specifically.
I'm fully aware of other options like the ROG Ally, I'm just talking specifically about the Steam Deck :)
It depends really, I've personally never been prevented from opening a Steam game with or without a connection.
Some other games are less clear - I'll use Palworld as an example: this can be played offline, on a dedicated server on the same network, but it needs to fetch your username from Steam first, and perform some checks using Epic Online Services. As long as it's started by the Steam client it's OK, and the errors regarding EOS servers can be dismissed.
Some people have managed to join official online multiplayer servers using pirated Palworld copies, so I would not expect the current graceful network error handling to be so lenient in future updates.
Pirated steam games can be started using an open source steam emulator - protection is basically non existent compared to intrusive DRM like Denuvo. Although I do get where you're coming from in regards to the platform & accompanying client software being a closed ecosystem.
Steam's hardware on the other hand, that's open all day long 👌
I fully agree.
I'm going to be controversial here with the launcher requirement though: I use Steam because it is a launcher, games store, save file sync client, online social platform, modding client (Workshop) and games library all in one. Any device I pick up - my deck, linux laptop, or windows desktop - will continue from where I left off, without fail.
For that reason the only DRM I'll turn a blind eye to is Steam's own: it never gets in the way of me accessing what I purchased. With Proton/SteamPlay, games originally targeted for Windows work seamlessly on my preferred platform, Linux. If a game is unsupported, it will still set up the compatibility layer for you at your choice, for further investigation at your leisure.
Their policies also prevent developers from revoking games from users' libraries, unless it's a Free To Play title (most of these will have an EULA orange warning box stating such).
DRM should not have to exist at all to be honest, but in the current reality where publishers want some "protection" on their games, I'll either accept the single, most unrestricted one, or head to the open seas 🏴☠️
I am told that if you are offline w/ steam for more than 30 days or so it kind of requires you to go online. I am unsure exactly how true this is because I've never had that much of a cap in my internet availability.
Yeah but you can install whatever OS you want and pirate the games. That's its as open as you will ever find.
He said steam deck, not steam. You can install games from all stores (eg gog) and any operating system you want on the deck
If you run SteamOS I don't think you can, can you? But other than that, yeah I get the point.
Steam Deck is an open platform because you can run any OS, launcher, etc. on it. It's just a handheld PC. Steam itself is a closed ecosystem but the Deck is very open.
You can start steam in offline mode.