Putting aside the Ally vs Deck vs Switch 2 argument, I was baffled (as I so often am) by Gar saying he never played the Switch 2 handheld mode.
Apart from competitive shooters on the PC (where I'd sit with a monitor) I can't remember the last time I played a console game on the household TV. I think 95% of my gaming time is now an Ally on the sofa (or occasionally a PC laptop on my STYLISH lap tray). I find the Deck or Ally easy to pick up, put down if there's something to be done and in a multioccupancy household I don't think I'd tie up a TV with a long, story based game. I think I've put 40 odd hours into Monter Train 2 so far, and I just can't see myself ever doing that in front of a TV again. I also think there's something more…. intimate (easy tiger) about the handhelds. It's all very close and personal. Even though the screen is technically smaller, I dunno. I feel a lot more connected to the games. Also, big bonus is you can play it slumped in a heap, in bed, or even in the bath if you're a mad lad.
Also, if you travel a lot, there's the benefit of just being able to grab your games and take them anywhere (with the caveat with the original Ally that it has a battery life of about 4 minutes). Suspend/resume tends to be quicker (ish I accept modern consoles are good at this). The original Switch really nailed this.
The Switch 2's selling point for me would be Nintendo IP on the move, not another TV box. And the robust sales so far (along with the ROG Ally Xbox crossover and Deck) would suggest that gaming is moving a lot more to be a portable device based experience (obviously the DS/Gameboy era was wildly popular, but it wasn't the same fidelity of games you could play on your home console).
There's obviously room for both, but as the fidelity of the handheld experience increases (plus cloud and other stuff) is the concept of a static, TV mounted gameybox something that's going to be around in 20 or 30 years?
It depends on the type of game for me. Persona 5 is a handheld game, Mario Odyssey is a TV game. I'd never play God of War on a tiny screen, I'd never play Fantasy Life on a big one.
I'm not sure there's any logic to my choices. I thought maybe it had something to do with more 'epic' games belonging on a TV, but Breath of the Wild is a handheld game for me. So who knows.
There's definitely something in the intimacy you mentioned. Handheld gaming locks me into the game much more effectively, and I'm much more likely to have a 2-hour session in handheld. (Hand cramps be damned.)
The frustrating thing about the Switch 2 right now is that it doesn't run Switch 1 games in their docked profile. So you have a bigger screen, stretching what was already a low-res, muddy image. It makes a lot of the Switch back catalogue not worth playing, whereas you'd think it'd be fairly easy to serve up the docked version in handheld.
I'm with cav here and I remember saying similar when a substantial chunk of my gaming was on PSP, and then Cav telling me I was in my honeymoon period and I'd soon lose interest in it. I did, but not because I was wrong, I lost interest in the PSP because I ran out of games to play on it.
I think most videogames just work better handheld.
Yeah I have certain preferences for one reason or other, but there are games like FFIX which I mentioned I bought specifically for S2 because I can do both. I don't know if anyone plays Visual Novels but I've got Fate Stay/Night on Steam and am reading it on the Steam Deck, and if I finish it before Tsukihime is announced for Steam I'll buy that for the Switch 2 as well, it's like a kindle in a different form!
Also, I play games on the Tram to work and before work starts in the canteen, if not for handheld gaming I'd have not been able to finish many games, like both Shadow Hearts games.
I'm with cav here and I remember saying similar when a substantial chunk of my gaming was on PSP, and then Cav telling me I was in my honeymoon period and I'd soon lose interest in it. I did, but not because I was wrong, I lost interest in the PSP because I ran out of games to play on it.
I think most videogames just work better handheld.
This Cav guy sounds like a massive dick
I bet you didn't try Ace Combat for the PSP, very underrated. I guess you need to like AC from the start but still.
The simple answer is that I find modern, large handhelds quite uncomfortable to play for long periods of time. They're heavy and the flat design of the Switch in particular isn't really very ergonomic. Also the current style of design, with the controls on either side of the screen, necessitates you looking down at a different angle than the older dual-screen devices, which had the contols below the screen, and something about that completely does my neck in. It's very much a "me" problem and yes I'm getting older but that's the bottom line.
I solved the problem for my Steam Deck by buying a ridiculous "gaming cushion" with the Steam Deck clipped into a kind of jointed arm that comes out of the top, and it's lovely. I can now play it at just the right angle without any wrist aches or neck aches. But it's also kind of difficult to remove it from the clamp, so it stays in there permanently, and I'd need to source a different clip for the Switch 2 anyway which I don't feel inclined to do.
The Switch 2 feels like a perfectly fine home console to me. It does 4K and HDR and surround sound and all those nice things, and it feels like much less of a compromise than its rather underpowered predecessor. I'm not fussed by the apparently quite shit screen it's got, because I don't use that, and I'm not bothered by older games scaling badly, because I don't do that. I'm perfectly happy to stick it in the dock, and use it to play Nintendo games while my Steam Deck fulfils my handheld gaming needs.
I have played VC4 on Switch 2 with the kickstand on my PC desk when I was testing the battery life, it was pretty damn good as a handheld that I wasn't actually holding imo.
This Cav guy sounds like a massive dick
I wouldn't like to comment.
