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It lacks the main benefit of a digital game: not needing to keep the card with you.
It lacks the main benefit of a physical game: not needing an internet connection, which also means these fake cartridges will stop working once servers shut down
It captures the vibe of having a physical card, which I appreciate, but that’s about it. Otherwise it’s worthless.
Honestly $80 price tag on new game is not that bad. The $60 standard has not kept up with inflation.
Everything else though … paying to use the better performance of the new hardware for games like Zelda, paid advertisement demo app, lack of OLED on an HDR console, especially when the previous gen had OLED, same faulty joystick technology, dedicated subscription service ad button on the controller…
- a tool for backing up offline installers
This really should be something they offer for free, and there are already some FOSS options that do this, although they aren’t as good as I’d like.
- ability to install previous versions of a game
This is a feature they already have for free and there would (or at least should) be backlash if they were to lock that behind a subscription
- extra insight into the preservation work they’re doing.
Sure, neat.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
Sure but said votes better have an actual impact.
Here’s a list of VR games I’d 1000% recommend:
- Half Life: Alyx
- I Expect you to Die (James Bond themed virtual escape rooms - 3 games in the series so far, all of them are good)
- Super Hot (slo-motion first person combat puzzle game)
- Beat Saber (a unique rhythm game)
- Pavlov (CS:GO but in VR with extensive modding support)
There are other good ones out there but that’s the list that justifies the headset to me.
Also there are some good VR ports of non-VR games out there such as Myst and The Talos Principle. Also there are some good Minecraft mods that add VR support (Java edition of course). Stay away from the Skyrim port though.
Yeesh sounds like your monitors color output is badly calibrated :/. Fixing that requires an OS level calibration tool. I’ve only ever done this on macOS so I’m not sure where it is on Windows or Linux.
Also in general I wouldn’t use the non-hdr to hdr conversion features. Most of them aren’t very good. Also a lot of Linux distros don’t have HDR support (at least the one I’m using doesn’t).
I didn’t really understand the benefit of HDR until I got a monitor that actually supports it.
And I don’t mean simply can process the 10-bit color values, I mean has a peak brightness of at least 1000 nits.
That’s how they trick you. They make cheap monitors that can process the HDR signal and so have an “HDR” mode, and your computer will output an HDR signal, but at best it’s not really different from the non-HDR mode because the monitor can’t physically produce a high dynamic range image.
If you actually want to see an HDR difference, you need to get something like a 1000-nit OLED monitor (note that “LED” often just refers to an LCD monitor with an LED backlight). Something like one of these: https://www.displayninja.com/best-oled-monitor/
These aren’t cheap. I don’t think I’ve seen one for less than maybe $700. That’s how much it costs unfortunately. I wouldn’t trust a monitor that claims to be HDR for $300.
When you display an HDR signal on a non-HDR display, there are basically two ways to go about it: either you scale the peak brightness to fit within the display’s capabilities (resulting in a dark image like in OP’s example), or you let the peak brightness max out at the screen’s maximum (kinda “more correct” but may result in parts of the image looking “washed out”).
AI slop gameplay is already a thing. It’s fascinating, but certainly not ready to be an actual game.
You’ll never perfectly solve the “no pissing people off” issue because in competitive games you necessarily have people benefit at the expense of others and in cooperative games you’ll fall into the trap of backseat-driver players telling you what to do on your turn.
That being said, here are some of my favorites I’d like to suggest:
Cooperative:
- Time Stories (kinda like a time-travel themed mystery-solving role-playing game where the pre-built deck is your DM. 1-4 players. You can buy more decks, each with a different setting and story.).
- Pandemic (Stop
COVIDa deadly disease from killing off the planet. Work together to limit the spread and find the cure before it’s too late) (1-4 players)
Competitive:
- The Settlers of Catan (claim resources and land strategically to build the most prosperous kingdom) (2-4 players but there are expansions and spinoffs so this could be like 1-6 players)
- 7 Wonders (draft cards to build the most prosperous kingdom) (3-8 players IIRC)
In-Between:
- Betrayal in the House on the Hill (explore a haunted house until you find a dark secret that turns one of you into a villain the rest have to fight) (3-6 players)
You could look at this: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-win-4-2025-amd-apu-handheld-console
I have one of their older products and I’m happy with it. I’m considering this one.
Comes with Windows 11 but says it supports SteamOS. Should certainly run at least older games well. They say it’s 220x92x28 mm (7.87x3.62x1.1 in) which is a bit chonky for something I’d put it my pocket but not unmanageable.
What I’m wondering now is, does the target app have to keep running to receive those messages?
No it doesn’t. What’s happening is target’s webserver sends a message to Google’s webserver, which sends a message to your phone, which is displayed by the OS. The Target app doesn’t need to be launched for this and won’t be launched unless you tap on the notification, which typically launches the associated app.
That means it’s potentially continuously collecting the phone’s location.
Target’s app isn’t doing this, although they probably do record what you bought from which target and when.
Google can / probably is continuously collecting the phone’s location, to some extent. Your cell service company can do this too.
Some particular reasons why I’d recommend Minecraft for this: