Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't region locking on the NES and SNES largely implemented via the shape of the cartridge? Frank Cifaldi and the VGHF just put out that NES history video, and it had some kind of authentication chip that could only be provided by Nintendo, and it was in the NES but not the Famicom. And on Gamecube, I seem to remember you needed an Action Replay to break the region locking, but I never dabbled in it myself.
- Posts
- 87
- Comments
- 1678
- Joined
- 2 yr. ago
- Posts
- 87
- Comments
- 1678
- Joined
- 2 yr. ago
Fuck Cars @lemmy.world Congestion pricing after one year: How life has changed.
Games @lemmy.world The Untold Story of the Nintendo Entertainment System
Games @lemmy.world Did Obsidian Master the Art of the Efficient Epic? | NYT
Games @lemmy.world The Knightling Did Everything Right - It Still Struggled to Sell | Beyond the Pixels Podcast
Games @lemmy.world Vince Zampella, video game developer behind 'Call of Duty' franchise, killed in mountain road crash
Games @lemmy.world Video Game Physical Software and Hardware Sales Just Had the Worst November in the U.S. Since 1995 - IGN
Games @lemmy.world ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Maker Promises ‘Divinity’ Will Be ‘Next Level’
Games @lemmy.world A Gaming Tour de Force That Is Very, Very French
Games @lemmy.world Evo Japan and Las Vegas 2026 lineups announced
Games @lemmy.world Neath - Announcement Trailer
Games @lemmy.world Wreckreation maker Three Fields Entertainment puts whole studio on redundancy notice
Games @lemmy.world Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment
Games @lemmy.world LET IT DIE offline version announced
Games @lemmy.world Valve Addresses Steam Machine Anti-Cheat Concerns, Says It's Working Towards Support
Games @lemmy.world Preserving code that shaped generations: Zork I, II, and III go Open Source
Games @lemmy.world The Turbulent, Seven-Year Saga Behind Hit Game ‘Dispatch’
Games @lemmy.world Sony’s Concord Is Playable Again Thanks To Fan-Made Custom Servers
Games @lemmy.world Steam Hardware
Games @lemmy.world ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ Is Postponed Again — to November 2026
Games @lemmy.world Pillars of Eternity – Turn-Based Mode Beta Announcement Trailer












All of new gaming hardware is decidedly less imminent now that this pricing nonsense is going on. Even if the tech exists, no one thinks they can sell at what they'd have to charge for it. It's going to be a rough near term future for gaming hardware before it eventually levels out. Reports are that consoles planned for 2027 are now looking like they'll be pushed back.
I'm not super used to calling that "hybrid gaming", but my wife seems to have no problem playing cozy games on the Steam Deck, almost exclusively on the TV when I didn't take it with me on the go. And we're once again back to the best games and the best graphics not being all that correlated. The other part is that even if a random gamer has a Steam Deck, it's unlikely to be their only gaming PC, and if they want the power to produce that larger image at better frame rates at home, they'll play on that other PC, and that game will run its best there. On Switch 2, that one device is your only option no matter what. That means that if you want to play one of those beefier titles from the Switch 1, they're not going to run at better settings ever unless the developer explicitly upgrades them; even then, there's often the Switch tax compared to buying the same game on PC.
I'm not trying to talk you down from a Switch 2 if that's your preference, but if someone's asking me for a recommendation for a gaming handheld, the Steam Deck is going to be what I tell them until I rule it out due to some other need. I definitely wouldn't start with a Switch 2. The Deck just hits a compelling price with a good software experience and, perhaps most importantly, a library that dwarfs what Nintendo could ever hope to match by following the traditional console model.