Short term the argument that 'piracy exists yet doesn't affect steam sales' holds true.
Long term when someone makes emulating Switch 2 on your Steam Deck a 1-click install I'm not so sure.
Long term when someone makes emulating Switch 2 on your Steam Deck a 1-click install I'm not so sure.
Internet nerds like us aren’t really Nintendo’s target market, I don’t think. Installing emulators or jailbreaking a system isn’t something most of their customer base would have the want or need to do, IMO.
For what it's worth: you can use your ordinary Switch controllers on any PC just fine.
But still, you have to set it up, so I get your point.
I also own a Switch 1 w/ Breath of The Wild but I prefer to emulate it because you can increase the draw distance, get 60 FPS, add some HD textures [1], and fix some other issues that I had with the game because the Switch 1 was such terrible hardware. Even the Switch 2 version isn't nearly as good as the one you can get from emulating.
The whole experience just feels so enshitifies from the days when I could just put in a cartridge and boot into a fame in seconds with no internet, updates to manage, accounts to worry about, etc.
A tiny fraction of people might decide to go through hoops to pirate, but most will either play the normal way or do something else.
I had a thread disagreeing with me when i brought that up.
That’s still not what the typical person does
Like if you want to do zero technical things and provide access to Minecraft without providing access to TikTok.
Which seems to be what everyone did everywhere, as the console sold very very well and the software for it sold poorly.
For what it's worth, I also had a cracked PSP. I did the battery pack hack, it was gory and awesome. I'm guessing some of the later iterations got a little simpler? All software?
I wonder what % of kids today are using a modded Switch or rooted Android.
Still seems rather self-enflicted pain for Intendo due to still pushing locked-down consoles in 2026.
the level of polish and stability on the open world zeldas is astonishing, i never experienced anything like that in third party AA/AAA games form the last 15 years or so, playing on the switch or on the pc.
[1]: Given those were originally Playstation exclusives, it might not be the best example/comparison, but they have been available on Steam for quite some time
But yes, Nintendo’s polish is definitely on that level, even their weird little Japanese games like Tomadochi Life have an incredibly coherent theme and polish within themselves despite some being incredibly whimsical and goofy. I think part of it is what you get when you have the same devs working for 40 years on say, Mario games. Truly masters of their craft. Super Smash Brothers is a supreme work of social engineering how they managed to convince so many disparate companies and even competitors to allow their IP in the game and everything just fits together so well.
I have. In terms of a bug-free experience, nintendo games and the main cinematic sony games (including also last of us 2 and the like) feel equally good.
The surprising thing about open world zeldas is that they allow a lot of physics tinkering. Keeping a story based, relatively on rails game stable is far easier than an open world sandbox. TotK feels like it should be a skyrim-like bug ridden experience but it isn't.
Also nintendo games tend to feel very satisfying, call it good UX if that makes sense. Animations, sounds, they do really know how to produce a sense of wonder.
That said I hate the hardware, I own a switch and yet I play on a steamdeck. The screen's not that good, controls are awkward, the sticks start drifting as soon as you blink...
Alas. Having a pleasant and moral game-playing experience falls on our and the community's shoulders.
In Europe, the games are often available for cheap on Amazon.fr.
The pre-order for Ocarina of time was available for 46 Euro.