this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
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They can switch to xbox
Honestly, not much better.
What?! Well, surely Nintendo is better then!
Also no.
Please tell me my ball-and-cup is safe?
... for now.
replacement strings are an additional cost.
And you don't own the ball
You licensed to use the ball with only qualified sellers of licensed string to keep the game fair.
Each cup sold separately.
Steam machine! $1050
Checkmate.
I actual kinda want one…
Meh. My pc is already set up in the living room hooked up to the TV. I don't need an overpriced and underpowered computer. Actually, 90% of my gaming is on the Steam Deck these days. I am interested in the Frame, though.
All of those companies are trying to fuck us over. Purchasing from any of them right now is expressing consent.
If you want things to change show some self control or go to piracy if you really can't.
The only company (with two exceptions) that I actually paid for games is GOG. Exactly because they don't include DRM and also provide offline version of their games.
steam machine*
Tbh, after the power went out and I tried playing games on my steam deck only to find they wouldn't launch because... not even sure if it was DRM or because it's set up to need to download shit from the internet. And last week I brought my steam deck to play while my daughter had a thing going on and same shit, even though I remembered to put it in offline mode before leaving. And on a flight, I had installed a game specifically to play, but it needed to download more content or some shit and wouldn't run.
While I could probably avoid the annoyance with some sort of script or automation that just runs each of my installed games every so often on it so the DRM shit is refreshed, I am seeing that Steam is already in the bad place for digital rights. I intend to at least start a habit of checking gog for games before getting them from Steam and might start looking in to how to keep permanent access to my top games that I've bought and paid for, regardless of what Valve decides.
Also this renews my desire to skip any game with deneuvo, as that also requires an internet connection to validate.
It's just a repeat of one of my earlier pirating vs using a legit copy experiences. Took weeks to get into some software at work that the company paid good money for. Then, when I wanted to use it for a personal project, I had the pirated copy running the same day the download finished. DRM fucks legit customers more than pirates.
while. i agree that steam isnt good its still the best digital store out there besides gog. also its hardware doesnt force u to buy games over there and thats a major selling point imo.
I've been doing the gog habit for years. It's definitely worth it. My gog library is actually bigger than my steam library now.
And if you log into gog with heroic launcher, you can also use proton to run games on Linux very easily. It's all point and click. There's no reason to use steam except for the fact that some games only release on steam, but somehow exclusives are fine when valve does it (according to many PC gamers).
You can plug a DVD drive into the Steam Machine and it works.
Ah yes the """platform""" that Sony is copying from...
But that's the neat thing, you aren't locked into just steam as your only store. You can use other stores, I recommend GoG for downloadable, DRM free, offline installers
You're expecting the average Sony fan to know about GOG? That's kinda cute. Steam subscribers don't care about GOG, if they even know about its existence.
But Valve's hardware still have no physical media, and their digital model is still what's inspiring Sony. How about being consistent and rewarding neither?
I think you're conflating a locked down system with an open one with one and the things that can and can't be done on each.
Console: locked down operating system and hardware with 1 store from the manufacturer incompatible with each other if from other companies and often not backward compatible
Computer: multiple stores with choice being given to operating system and hardware where great strides have been made to further open compatibility for software no matter what operating system and backwards compatibility that goes back nearly half a century.
Like I said though, GoG has downloadable, DRM free, offline installers. Download the installer yourself and make physical media. Mine physically exists in my NAS on the platters of my hard drives. I'll still buy from Valve just to reward them for helping the compatibility side enabling many of us to move off closed source Windows. Each has their place and we can move on from the stupid ass tribalism a la the console wars. There's no need to shit where we eat and buddy, eating is good on the pc gaming side on the software side minus the AI RAM winter.
Then you don't care about the Sony dropping physical media thing, since you're willing to give Valve a free pass despite literally paving the road Sony is going down on.
I'd expect people boycotting Sony over their decision to be better informed than that, and stay clear of Valve's dystopia, right? Right?
EDIT: also since you said consoles are locked down to 1 store yourself, I want you to make a guess how many PlayStation users are going to figure out that they can go buy their stuff from GOG on hardware literally branded after Steam, where as I established, its subscribers don't give a shit about other stores, much less GOG.
Dystopia? Brother, you need to understand that games were locked down to windows for the longest time. If you don't remember the shit show that was windows 8 and Microsoft shutting down games for windows live, then you don't understand how bleak the outlook was for PC gaming at that time. Valve has nearly single handily moved compatibility to other operating systems for nearly all games all the while keeping everyone's library available for nearly a quarter century. When Valve does shady shit, we'll call them out for it, but I'm not about to stop supporting them when they're making using a real alternative for a better OS a reality.
Not to mention the sales making PC gaming much more affordable than console gaming.
I wouldn't care if Sony dropped digital if there was another source to get games other than the official Sony PlayStation store, but since there is no alternative, it is bullshit. The loss of physical isn't the real fight here though, it's open competition. Why else do you think Google and Apple are fighting tooth and nail to keep other stores off their mobile phone platforms?
How will they learn about alternative stores? Like this.
It's called a computer. C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R.
Though now it's sort of vendor locked in to AMD and Intel (plus whatever those few Chinese clones were) and a very specific combination of software components on Linux (or just Windows), with janky emulation and translation for everything else, but that's a separate issue.
You see, the avarage sony users won't care, they see an idiot proof interface and just be happy