Orange Pi Neo upcoming Linux gaming handheld prices have been announced and probably will be SteamOS ready
paultimate14 @ paultimate14 @lemmy.world Posts 0Comments 564Joined 2 yr. ago
paultimate14 @ paultimate14 @lemmy.world
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Just one more offenses added to the pile of anti-consumer tactics employed by tech companies.
The EU is slightly further ahead than most, but globally most governments have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to protecting consumers from anything digital.
Is there a reason to use those over Steam Link?
I have a AMD cards in all my desktops, so Moonlight is out. I could never even get Sunshine to run properly on my desktop, let alone stream.
Steam Link just... Works. It's an official Valve thing. There's a ton of options to dial things in or work around weird issues, but for the defaults are usually fine. It handles non-Steam games just fine. All sorts of resolutions and refresh rates- I stream to my 4k TV in my living room, my 1080p tablet, various phones, and the Deck. My only complaint about Steam Link is that, for some bizarre reason, it's not on the steam store. It would be a lot easier to just install it from the store in Gaming mode on the Deck, with a default controller profile. The picture is good, the latency is fine unless I'm on wi-fi and getting really far away from my router b
I can't hear Richard Horvitz without thinking of Invader Zim. He does a ton of random voices in the more recent Ratchet and Clank games and it's very distracting.
FYI- you can also stream from your laptop to the Deck. Technically you can do it on a per-game basis through Steam (which you may have already noticed), but I find it's even better to install Steam Link as a non-Steam game, similar to what you probably did with Chiaki. As long as you have a good local network it's great and uses way less of the Deck's power.
I have no idea why Valve hasn't added Steam Link to the Steam store. That would make things so much easier, and you get way more settings and fewer bugs that way than doing the per-game streaming option.
I don't want to accuse Trump or his administration of having rational or intelligent decision-making processes, but it's hard to really have any productive thought or conversation about theit decisions if I just assume they are irrational or stupid. So bear with me as I try to make sense of something that might be senseless.
There have been a handful of odd discrepancies from the Trump administration piling up. Mueller, for all his flaws, did prove that a good chunk of Trump's campaign in 2016 had illegal ties to Russia and Putin. Even though Trump avoided direct consequences and pardoned some of them, they were still convicted and the ties to Putin are solid. Heck, there were ties between Trump and Russia going back to the 80's.
Musk also has ties to Russia and Putin. So it was not all that surprising to see Musk throw his full support behind Trump last summer and then do the whole DOGE thing. It was a bit odd to see someone so thoroughly tied to electric cars support someone so pro-fossil fuels, but I could see Musk deciding that defense contracts for SpaceX, Starlink, and other businesses might outweigh reduced EV subsidies for him.
Allegedly, Trump and Musk had a falling out. The back-and-forth on social media, Musk stepping back from DOGE, and later walking back some of his statements. Speculation as to whether that was real or not. Was it really over the spending bill? Was Musk really leaving DOGE? Was this all a ploy to manipulate the stock market and do some insider trading? Was this just Musk on drug-induced psychosis?
Then the tensions between Israel and Iran flare up again. Trump sides with Israel as the US traditionally has, Putin sides with Iran as Russia traditionally has. There was the recent Tucker Carlson interview of Ted Cruz, and we've seen some discord among the far-right over whether to support a US war against Iran or not. The US struck Iran and didn't appear to do a whole lot of damage, and Iran struck back in the most polite way possible and did pretty much no damage.
Other wonderful folks have dug up old Trump tweets from the Obama years, speculating that Obama was appearing weak and would strike Iran as a show of strength.
So was this all just political theater? Trump doesn't actually care whether Iran has nukes or not. He wants Trump to appear strong and willing to go to war. He wants to show his support for Israel and reaffirm America as the World Police.
So my guess is that Netanyahu keeps pushing what he can get away with. Allegedly, there was tension between Netenyahu and Biden over the line between counter-terrorist operations and genocide. Biden, the consummate centrist neoliberal, allowed the genocide as long as it didn't hurt businesses, but seemed to have been pressuring Netenyahu to keep restrictions on it. Trump abandoned those and Palestine seems to be suffering far more since he took office. Then you add the Israeli strikes on Iran on top of that- I don't think they had anything to do with new intelligence Israel received, just that Netenyahu felt he could get away with it while still maintaining US support from Trump, which he could not have done under Biden.
Where I start to really speculate- I don't think Trump cares about Iran. He doesn't care about of they have nukes or not, he doesn't care about Islam vs Judaism vs Christianity. He care about the media narratives, especially in the US. Same thing with the tarrifs- it was more about appearing powerful to his base than actually being powerful.
Well, this isn't about side-loading or alternative app stores though. The lawsuit is looking to force Sony to allow 3rd party key sellers. So you would have to use a different device like your phone or PC to go to another website, process your payment and get a code, then go to the PlayStation store and redeem that code to have the game added to your account and available for download. Just like there are 3rd party sellers for Steam keys. I know Nintendo allowed that for the 3DS, because there was a period of time where you couldn't process payments on the 3DS's eShop, but you could still redeem those codes.
What you're suggesting would be akin to allowing Ubisoft, EA, or Rockstar to have their own stores on consoles where you could bypass the PlayStation Store/Xbox store/ Nintendo eShop if you want. Potentially 3rd parties like GOG, Steam, or Epic, but certainly there would be restrictions there. For examples, Steam would probably just be the Store without all the other platform features Steam offers. GOG's anti-DRM stance probably would not fly.
Another key difference is that consoles have physical media. As far as I know, you've never been able to go to an Apple store or any other electronics store and buy a physical copy of an app. Even the digital edition of the PS5 now has an optical disc drive available for purchase.
This isn't adding up. I'm all for consumer protections and I love European countries forcing global countries to behave, but this reads more like a console-war fanboy hit piece than legitimate criticism.
According to the article, Sony "is enjoying the position of a monopolist with 80% of the Dutch console market". That number does not pass the smell test, and there's no further details provided or sources given. I know Xbox sales are considerably worse in Europe, but the only way I can imagine Sony hitting 80% markets are is if we ignore the Switch and Switch 2 as "handhelds", and also ignore gaming PC's and the Steam Deck. Which seems like a bad faith argument to use when evaluating software markets.
The article also claims that "Sony can easily control game pricing in its digital store". So is this lawsuit exclusively discussing Sony-published titles, or are they just ignoring the role of the publisher in this?
It looks like the goal of this lawsuit is... To force Sony to allow 3rd party platforms to sell download keys that can be redeemed on the Sony store. Which... Is fine I suppose but I don't expect that to really help the consumer or have an impact on competition. The article doesn't provide any data on that and I'm not sure whether any actual research has been done there, but in my anecdotal experience those kinds of sites either just follow the MSRP and sales, or are doing shenanigans with different regional price rates or FX rate arbitrage, which can occasionally lead to issues for users depending on how the game works and how important the region is to it. There might be some reduced fees from Sony in the transaction, but I expect that to be made for by similar fees from the 3rd party, or the publisher pocketing the difference. It doesn't seem material enough to change the price consumers see. Digital "goods" don't have supply restrictions, so this won't increase the supply and I don't see how it changes demand.
Also there's a lot more questions I have about their methodology. Maybe things are different in the US than Europe, but Nintendo is famous for having fewer sales with shallower discounts than anyone else, with multiplatform games (both physical and digital) being more expensive. The phrases "Switch tax" and "Nintendo tax" have been around the Switch for almost its entire life. Is the Switch just being excluded as a "handheld"? And when they are looking at disc prices, does that include used copies too, or perhaps include a factor for resale value that is reducing the cost?
Maybe they are right, but this article leaves a lot more questions than answers, and I can't find those answers from a quick Internet search.
My guess is that this could be used to help reverse some of his accomplishments? Maybe revoke appointments for judges?
I never said EVERYTHING is real. In fact, I would agree that the vast majority of the internet is not. I just think TV news sources don't have any reality left at all.
Shining Force is a classic. Basically Seva's answer to Fire Emblem.
Wargroove is pretty good too. Kind of like Advance Wars, but in a more medieval fantasy setting. From an indie dev with pixel art. My only real complaint is one I have with all modern "retro pixel art" style games: the "pixels" can move by much smaller increments than themselves. I wish games that used that style would align everything, including animation, to the fake pixels. It looks kind of busy and messy imo. It doesn't bother me enough to ruin Wargroove though.
Banner Saga was pretty good. It's a combination of tactical RPG with mostly text-based choose-your-own-adventure style elements between battles. Still haven't played the 3rd one, but I enjoyed the first 2.
With how bad TV news has gotten this might be a good thing.
Social media allows for all sorts of disinformation and misinformation, yes. But there's also real people talking about real experiences. Primary sources spreading their eyes and ears across the world.
TV news is owned by billionaires like Murdoch and Bezos and are basically just propaganda outlets for them. And while I'm sure Zuckerberg and Elon are influencing their social media platforms just as much, at least on the internet there are places like Lemmy where the truth at least has a chance to exist.
I think you need to go back to middle school science to understand the importance of sample size. With a sample size of 1, it is not possible to isolate variables and determine a correlation, let alone causality. Was the driver under the influence of any substances? Was this on a section of road or intersection that was poorly designed or maintained? Were any parts of the bus or bike poorly designed or malfunctioning? And while I hate to blame victims, if the goal is to understand what happened and prevent future incidents, we need to understand the victim's behavior and how that may have contributed as well. What a case study, particularly an individual death or injury CAN tell us is that we need to further study the situation to learn how it happened and how to prevent or mitigate it in the future.
And of course, I mentioned several other personal vehicles as options. Over 40k people die each year in the US alone from all motor vehicle collisions- we should also be looking at legislation to sedans, vans, busses, motorcycles, roads, and everything else safer. However, compared to busses personal vehicles are WAY more dangerous. To the point where it's kind of silly to even display this data in a bar chart.
Here is a study looking at a larger sample size. Trucks and SUV's are more likely to strike pedestrians and more likely to be fatal.
Or are you suggesting we should do nothing? Just accept the fact that manufacturers are allowed to design and market death traps, and individuals are allowed to rampage through the streets as they please? Maybe we should remove seatbelt requirements too while we are at it?
Why do they need to do it "better", and how are we defining "better"?
Those vehicles are all much better at not running over pedestrians. They get better fuel mileage when not towing things, which is the vast majority of the time. They fit into parking spots better. We could go on and on arguing the pros and cons of these classes of vehicles and how good or bad they are at different things. And then we can dive further into specific models and how electric trucks might get better mileage or how kei trucks are much closer to vans than modern American trucks. Or even how small pickup trucks used to exist in America and we're mostly fine. Or we could look at things like how all the biggest logistics companies in the world have put billions of dollars into developing their own vehicles and none of them have landed on pickup trucks.
Honestly I don't really care how good a vehicle is at towing or hauling stuff. If it cannot do so without losing a ridiculous risk to pedestrians and property it shouldn't exist. There are tons of products that have been banned despite being very effective at what they were designed to do because they also happened to be good at killing people.
Lol that's silly. Even motorcycles can tow things. Sedans can tow things. RV's, vans, station wagons.
The Switch 2 being a bad deal and Nintendo having a VERY strong history of anti-consumer behavior has nothing to do with console wars. The person you are replying to is equally allowed to have a nuanced take.
What, are you expecting every comment critical of Nintendo to also include criticism of how terribly Xbox has managed it's game studios just so we can be "fair and balanced"?
Kinda sad how fascists seem to be so much better at taking down fascists than anti-fascists are.
Where were these people in 2017?
What else do these all have in common?
They all have art styles that are purposefully designed to be really cheap and easy to make. The same choices that helped these studios crank out hours upon hours of formulaic content also helps the rule 34 artists.
If you are a professional who is installing insulation all the time? You absolutely need that mask.
If you're a flipper who buys a new house every year or two and usually replaces the insulation? You should wear a mask.
A homeowner who installs it once, maybe twice in their lifetime? Eh. A lot of PPE mandates are about doing it often and professionally where you can get a lot of exposure. Or if you already are at risk. If you have respiratory issues then if course you should wear a mask. If you have healthy lungs and plan to do this task just once in your lifetime, just having decent ventilation and not shoving your face in it is fine.
I'd wear gloves, but more because the rafters probably have splinters and rusted old nails or staples or whatever. The skin irritation from fiberglass lasts like a day or two and doesn't have any long-term impacts, but I also find gloves aren't as inconvenient as masks.
Eye protection is a must. I don't mess with that.
Or you can just pay the extra money for Rock Wool and get all the other benefits that come with that too.
This has:
And that's before we get to the APU side of things, where other commenters here are expecting the Neo to outperform the Deck. Hard to say for sure until we have benchmarks, but it seems reasonable that this will be more powerful in general.
And what is the Neo missing compared to be Deck? The back buttons, which are nice on the Deck but I would not say are deal breakers. The ambient light sensor, which I didn't even remember my Deck had until I looked at the specs just now. And apparently the Deck has 2 microphones while the Neo just has 1... Honestly I have had mine for 2 years and I wasn't even sure it has a microphone at all. I don't see that the Neo has capacitive sensors on the sticks, but I never find a good use for those on my Deck anyways.
Now, this thing is not close to making me want to upgrade from my Deck. Just looking at it- the control layout is wrong. The track pads look like you will have to awkwardly stretch your thumb to reach them- similar to where the Deck has the Steam and Quick Access buttons. While I can play a ton of mouse-based games on the Deck for hours with no problem, the Neo looks like it will only be good for games where you use the mouse occasionally. Should be fine for navigating menus, launch screens, and setting up emulators, but not for playing games.
The other question is build quality. This looks like cheaper plastic. The buttons look cheap. The grips look top shallow. I don't know how easy this will be to upgrade or repair.
Imo this is a reasonable product at a reasonable price. Not perfect. But it has reasonable trade-offs compared to the Deck. If it can manage to be significantly more powerful than the Deck with similar battery life, I think we have a real competition.