SmallDeadGuy

That just sounds like all you had access to was a Nintendo console, not necessarily due to your own choice. I missed out on all the early zelda, metroid, and mario home console games because we were a playstation family until the wii.

I think they make a bunch of money having Windows being the default installed OS on prebuilt PCs and laptops. Gaming PCs and laptops are a pretty large market included in that. There's a chance vendors/builders might start to sell cheaper options which don't include Windows installed, savings for both them and the customers.

Will have to see if that actually happens though, even as a power user myself there are still a bunch of pain points with SteamOS/steam deck that are harder to deal with than similar issues in Windows.

They've released a Warcraft Battle Chest which includes remasters of those games at three times the price (but also includes Warcraft 3), hoping to capture those old game sales into a more expensive offering. Awful for consumers to not just have both options, but shareholders > consumers for public companies unfortunately.

Exactly this. My dad still demonstrates his CubeStormer and other Lego robots on behalf of Arm at trade shows, because both the Lego robot control unit and the phones used for camera/solver are Arm-powered. And CubeStormer 3 set the previous record over 10 years ago at this point.

CubeStormer was a hobby project though, so not the same as this robot which looks like it entirely uses company resources.

No it doesn't necessarily change what the emulator is used for, but it changes the optics on what it's developed for. If you develop an emulator without any methods of DRM circumvention built-in, then out-of-the-box it can only be used for homebrew stuff like making your own games/apps for that platform.

If you include DRM circumvention with the emulator, then there's an argument that it's developed specifically with piracy in mind.

Yeah I've used the candle trick with a Wii before too, but that doesn't mean it isn't a much larger barrier for entry than Switch games working most of the time with just a standard controller (and therefore keyboard mapping). As for controllers, I don't think I even had bluetooth in a desktop PC until somewhat recently (~3 years ago) when I paid a little extra for a motherboard with WiFi 6 and BT built-in.

"Your entire gaming experience will be better if you spend twice as much on new hardware than something which came out 7 years ago, and also forfeit a bunch of other switch features like motion controls and detachable joycons"

Nintendo have typically been pretty good with backwards compatibility as newer versions of consoles come out. GBAs could play GB/GBC games. DS could play GBA games. 3DS could play DS. Wii could play GC games. Wii U could play Wii games.

The Switch is an outlier in that regard but mostly because the hardware is so different from previous consoles. It could never support the 2 screens required for DS/3DS or some Wii U games, nor is it big enough to fit Wii U disks anyway. But it wouldn't surprise me if the Switch 2 could play Switch 1 games.

Nintendo also typically put entire games on their cartridges, and day 1 patches are for bug fixes only and are optional. If you keep the cartridges and your console, you keep your games perfectly fine. Or you can go out and buy cartridges second hand. And digital downloads will also still function, like my 3DS still has my digital purchases even if the eshop is gone. I just can't purchase new games anymore, for a 12 year old system.

Most popular Wii games had significantly different control schemes than what is available on a standard PC. Afaik, dolphin was primarily used for things like Smash Bros but other system sellers like Wii Sports, Wii fit, and LoZ: Skyward Sword just wouldn't work at all. Even Mario Kart was typically played with motion controls, because that was new and exciting for home consoles at the time.

Contrast that to the Switch where most system sellers can be played on a standard controller without a gyroscope, the threat to their bottom line is much higher.

A lot of games are only on PS5 and Xbox S/X, not available on PC or other platforms. So if it's exclusive only to other securely walled gardens, they still don't need to bother.

The yuzu people were doing things that are morally reprehensible. From what I've heard: * They managed a private discord with hired moderators that actively encouraged piracy. * They saved important releases to coincide with major game releases like TOTK. These releases would include performance optimizations and bug fixes specifically for those games. * These important releases would initially only be available behind a patreon paywall (like the private discord), so they actively profited off people trying to get the latest release specifically for pirating the latest games.

The emulator could have been developed and released open source without the ability to decrypt Nintendo games, which (I believe) is a copyright violation and one side of the lawsuit. And also not put the latest emulator builds and private discord encouraging piracy behind a patreon paywall.

I have nothing against a Switch emulator existing at all, but making it conveniently easy for the masses to pirate games, condoning it in private spaces you manage, and profiting off the demand for the emulator due to that piracy are all against the ideas of preservation.

How is the Switch overpriced and underpowered? I picked up a switch lite with a game as a bundle for my wife for £180 brand new. If you want detachable controllers and the ability to dock the Switch to a TV, you can spend more. But those features and the built-in screen are ones that literally no other games console had at the time and is only just starting to gain popularity in the handheld PC market recently. It may be underpowered now, but the Switch has been out for 7 years. And it still has enough power to play games like TOTK, The Witcher 3, Xenoblade Chronicles, etc.

As for releasing games on PC, I don't see any reason why they would? Developing for PC is much more difficult than a single console, when it comes to handling the variety of hardware, anti-cheat, etc. TOTK and their Mario games are system sellers, with the former even releasing alongside a special edition console and pro controller. Delaying the release of these games to add dev time for a PC port is never going to be worth it.

Unless you have any health issues whatsoever, or want to have a child, at which point you absolutely should not move to the US. Maybe the ridiculously inflated tech salaries in the US can compensate for that, but outside of tech I don't think it makes up for it at all.

If I ever win the lottery I'm dropping software engineering to do music somehow. I play guitar and learn music theory as a hobby, but only at a beginner/intermediate level with not enough time to practice and get to the next level.