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16 comments

  • I hope Valve blocks this block

    • Sure! Just install SteamOS, and the verified Sony games will run just fine!

      • yeah but people who buy this next xbox shouldn't have to jump through those hoops to play a game they purchased (a license to) on compatible hardware

  • Between this and infinity nikki actively blocking non SteamDeck devices I have a feeling that Valve will bring the hammer down on this sometime soon.

    When people buy a game, the store front says it should run and then it doesn't they're not going to yell at the developers. They're going to yell at the store and I doubt Valve wants to bother with the extra support workload that entails.

  • We seriously need to ditch console exclusivity. No consoles today (other than the ones Valve has made/are working on) are even remotely worth having exclusives for. Just let people play games on whatever platform they prefer.

  • The comparison to GeForce Now is wild, because that's a service running "your" games on someone else's hardware. Of course Sony can walk up to NVIDIA and say "fuck off, we don't authorize you to run God of War for your users" and NVIDIA will say ok we won't run God of War anymore.

    Steam distributes game installers. Sony can't make Valve produce a special version of Steam for the Xbox that tells its store that it's on an Xbox, especially if the Xbox in question is literally a windows PC with a UI skin and a lock on administrator access. I can run Steam right now on my android phone via winlator and download+install a Steam game.

    What Sony could do is patch restrictive DRM software into all their games that checks the hardware info and fails to boot if you're on "an xbox".

    • Sony has a habit of cutting off their nose to spite their face when it comes to cross-platform releases. They're still closer to Nintendo in it, but for every step they have taken forward, then end up taking two steps back and then shooting themself in the foot making taking a step forward again harder.

    • What Sony could do is patch restrictive DRM software into all their games that checks the hardware info and fails to boot if you're on "an xbox".

      They'd definitely do that, they've already used what amounted to a Rootkit for DRM in the mid-2000s, so your idea wouldn't even be the worst they've done lolol

      • Problem with that is, if the xbox is a PC with sideloading capabilities (instead of being a much harder thing to engineer: a true "console experience" that just adds Steam), then all Sony's current games can be pirated on the thing. Future titles would have whatever lock and also probably Denuvo, for sure, or Sony could just stop putting their games on PC. Sony probably wasn't seeing a future where anyone but "sweaty PC nerds" would be playing Steam games in their living room with controllers, and Microsoft has the perfect opportunity to say "alright, whatever. We lost the exclusives arms race to Nintendo and Sony so let's just do what we do best and maintain the biggest gaming platform in the history of the medium but make it as easy for Joe Rando to use as an Xbox 360 was".

        Microsoft has such an opportunity to learn the right lessons from the Steam Deck - make good convenient hardware with a lot of compatibility, slap a user-friendly interface on it, and do nothing to stop tinkering and customizing other than making it easy to restore back to stock.

16 comments