Things you prefer about the platform(s) you don't prefer

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Wman1996 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

I am no fan of Steam, but they have a much better track record with digital purchases than the big 3 do.

It is tougher to get banned from Steam and by extension tougher to lose access to your digital games compared to consoles. Steam has no written right to brick your computer or even your Steam Deck. The console corporations can brick your hardware for severe violations. 

Steam is not perfect and still has DRM but is more secure for purchases over time. For instance, the Wii Shop Channel and DSi Shop had an outage from mid-March until July 6, 2022. Over two and a half months and people could not download their purchased games. I see the ability to use those two shops to download games getting discontinued in the 2030s or at least around 2040. Additionally, I don't think Xbox 360, PS3, Vita, 3DS and Wii U will survive into the 2040s to download your games.

I could see Switch, PS4 and Xbox One still supporting downloads in the 2040s given how popular digital games are on them. 

Well, you are preaching to the choir on this one, lol.

But since we are heading towards a dystopian all-digital future, I can only see that helping Steam.  Within the next decade or so I can see Steam gobbling up even more marketshare, Nintendo being the alternative second-place platform and the other 2 becoming niche or forced out of the console market entirely.