Have you tried VR? My time with PSVR felt as fresh as the 90s, can't wait for PSVR2 to drop next year.

But indeed, the slow down in AAA game innovation is pretty bad. I hoped we could have actual conversations with NPCs by now, ask a question instead of choose from a few options. Like Starship Titanic did with text in 1998. As well as procedural evolving / changing worlds as you play. Dynamic quests that adjust to your play style. AI director that keeps the game interesting and adjusts the encounters to your play style like Left 4 Dead did.

Instead we're just getting shinier graphics, more detail / clutter and higher resolutions. Basic game design hasn't changed in over a decade, just more of everything. At least accessibility options are being added, a welcome addition now I'm getting older.

Nintendo kinda dropped the ball for me with the Switch. The WiiU still had some interesting new things, clever use of the pad plus tv. The Switch is limited to everything having to work both in handheld mode and tv mode. Can't rely on touch screen, can't act as a secondary screen. Motion controls are all over the place.


I blame the market growth slowing down for the lack of innovation in main stream gaming. AAA games cost so much nowadays you can't take risks. Proven formula or make an indie game. Of course indie games don't have the resources to develop entirely new systems. So we're kinda stuck. Hopefully VR still allows innovation as the graphics for VR don't need to be as detailed. PSVR2 while higher res still only equates to the detail of 640p gaming on TV. I'm llooking forward to what devs can come up with now its not limited to Move or DS4 anymore.

No interest in VR. And I definitely don’t think Nintendo has dropped any balls this gen. This gen will long be remembered for Nintendo having created high watermark moments for many of their key franchises. 

I have no concept of what is happening on PS or XBox systems. Don’t have the time, money, or interest to dally with the other ecosystems. Between Nintendo’s first party outings, the maxing and interesting indie titles, and the occasional “how is this happening” ports I’m good. 

My short memoir: I didn't experience gaming as a kid, besides portable tetris that I played for a short period. For entertainment I read a lot of books and of course watched TV. On my 15th birthday dad gifted me a PC which was mindblowing at the time and where I lived, it was something very very special, for example nobody else in my class of ~20 students had a PC at home. I gamed all my free time. Half a year later my dad bought a 3dfx Voodoo 2. I was one of the lucky ones to experience Unreal when it came out with 3D acceleration. In mid 2000s I became partly financially independent and built my first PC and kept upgrading it all the time, but by the end of 2000s I started feeling bored more and more often. In 2011 one of my friends was raving about PS2 games on PCSX2 and I started getting into it but soon realized that very few games actually emulated well and started looking at the PS2 hardware until bought a brand new Slim. I felt amazed by the world of Sony exclusives and ports that revealed to me - Okami, God of War I&II, FFX, SSX3. Soon in 2012 I bought a brand new PS3 Slim and then a PSP Street. I became a Sony fanboy in a short time. I have been playing this and that on PC as well but my main platforms have been Playstation consoles for the past 10+ years. But I don't like where Sony is going - I really hate Dad of Boy, I didn't like Spider-Man, Uncharted 4 was meh, games like Stray and Kena are gay as hell -what happened Sony? At least TLoU2 was great ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) If Sony keeps this trend I could be moving back to PC sooner or later.

While I'm not exactly going to fully participate with my life story on gaming consoles, know that I've, quite literally, had almost all of them at some point or another: the only two I "skipped" were the Xbox and Xbox360 because they came at a time when I was solidly ventured into PC gaming.  I was PC gaming at 1080p when I had a GameCube, for perspective.

What I DID want to chime in on is mentioning the Xbox One S and Xbox One X, both what I consider to be some of the best console designs ever made during their time.  You like small, sleek, and quiet, and both of those were exactly that.  They carried the design philosophy into the Series X, and you should know that despite being a rectangle, it's actually still considerably small, sleek, and quiet.  In terms of gaming console design, Xbox is actually at peak right now (even though that's super hard for a LOT of "gamers" to hear).  They've popped out three top quality console designs in a row, and nobody really seems to talk about this hence me chiming in on your post.

Granted, you like the Series S, but I personally don't recommend it in the face of the Series X. It's one of those nice "budget" options you can secondarily place on your desk and connect up to your 1080p monitor, and I currently see it as more of an extension of the Series X for the "bedroom/office" desk where someone does not have a desktop PC and instead just connects a laptop to monitors (which is the case with many working individuals who work from home).  As a serious, big screen TV console, the Series S just doesn't really cut it in the same vein that the Switch also doesn't.

That of course speaks to the final part: your core belief in simplistic design focus.  You want something built to do something specifically, and the truth is that despite Xbox/PS having far more "PC-like" consoles, the vast majority use them exactly the same way you use your Switch: turn it on, pick a game.  What IS actually difference is the complexity of the games themselves.  Since Nintendo's hardware can't do it, many games coming to these other consoles are hundreds if not thousands of times more complex in their designs, multiplayer, graphics, add-on content, etc., and thus you end up with always needing internet, updates, etc. that create that "PC-like" experience.

Case-in-point: pick an indie game, something simple.  Play it on a Series X or PS5.  It's as simple as you playing on your Switch.  The complexity is actually less the console and more the games.  The consoles do more because creative people want to do more, not the other way around.  If you go for games made by indie devs, they tend to make their games with a more simplistic focus like Nintendo, and you end up with the same kind of experiences.

Besides, let's not forget that thanks to technology, I'm no longer blowing on cartridges or cleaning the goldfingers... or getting mad at someone for scratching the CD, or having to use CD head cleaners, or having 3 RCA cables, and having a bunch of cables running across the ground and getting tripped on cuz we're all getting a bit TOO excited over that skillfully shot green shell, and can now play with those same friends even if they now live in a different country as the years rolled by.  Nostalgia is a powerful drug, but not everything old and "simple" was better lol

Late 1970s / early 1980s:

The first encounter with electronic games was probably our family's Carrera track:

A monochrome LCD handheld with "Space Vikings" (a "Space Invaders" clone) and a simple racing toy infected me with the "video game virus":



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heU8jOWXtRQ

I also played frequently on some arcade machines (e.g. 1942 + OutRun) and many pinball machines.



At my best friend's house we were often allowed to play with his Atari VCS (Pong, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Q*Bert, Atlantis, Frogger, Jungle Hunt, Defender, Pitfall, Moon Patrol and Pole Position) when the weather was bad... That being said, we had more fun playing outside without electronic devices.



Late 1980s:

At 14, I had saved enough money for a Commodore 128 + 1571 floppy drive + Commodere 1702 color monitor + a dot-matrix printer (of course, I needed that home computer for school!).

In addition to the color monitor (much clearer picture than the old TVs), I had bought a small TV box, so I became independent of the family TV.

Here's a "throwback to the past": two pictures of the desk in my old room from 1989 (unfortunately, the photos are not well preserved):

The C128 ran mostly in C64 mode, but I loved the advanced commands of Basic 7.0 in my first programming attempts, so the extra cost was not a waste. Numerous text adventure games and especially Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken had awakened my love for the point&click adventure genre (still my favorite genre), and since most of the games had no German translation, my English skills improved quite quickly.

When I read the review of "Indy 3" in PowerPlay 10/89, I made the decision to save money for my next computer: an Amiga 500. At that time, I couldn't even imagine buying a sinfully expensive PC. I didn't have a sponsor for "electronic stuff" in my family, so I had to buy all my electronics myself (including my stereo, walkman, discman, VCR, TV...), but that's okay. Builds character.... I hope

In the early 1990s:

When I finally had the money together, Monkey Island and Loom had already been released. So I bought an Amiga 500 + 1 MB memory expansion + Commodore Monitor 1084 S. Later I "pimped" my A500 with more upgrades (e.g. two external floppy drives, a turbo card, another 8 MB RAM, a kickstart switch for different ROMS were added)..... Maybe I should have started with an A2000 as a base

I often played Super Nintendo and Mega Drive with my friend and was even allowed to borrow these systems and all his games for weeks.... my favorites were the Donkey Kong Country games.

Mid-1990s until today (PC):

The next impulse for a new computer was again a LucasArts adventure: Day of the Tentacle (and Wing Commander, which was playable on the Amiga thanks to the turbo card, but not really smooth). My first PC was a 486 with 33 MHz + high quality 15" monitor (the picture quality was always very important to me), later the CPU was upgraded to 486 DX4/100 MHz.

This was the beginning of the hardware spiral, especially with graphics cards, as I always wanted to be up to date: I bought the first 3dfx card (Orchid Righteous 3D) right out of the gate, then Riva 128, Riva TNT, Riva TNT 2, GeForce 256 DDR, GeForce 3, GeForce 4 Ti 4600, Radeon 9800 Pro, Geforce 7800 GS, the outstanding 8800 GTX, GTX 275, GTX 460, GTX 580, GTX 970 and GTX 1070.

Due to the lower performance increases in the CPU area, I don't change my CPUs as often since my first dual core. The performance bottleneck has also shifted from CPUs to GPUs before the introduction of 3D graphics: 486/33, DX4/100, AMD K6-266, Celeron 400, Celeron II 875, Athlon XP 2000+, Athlon 64 3400+, Core2Duo E6600, Core2Quad 9550 and i5 4670K.

Monitor changes became even rarer: after a 17" monitor, the Iiyama VisionMasterPro 501 (21") had served me well from 1999 to 2007. From mid-2007 to early 2018, the Dell 2407WFP (24" with S-PVA panel, 1920x1200) was my main monitor and was supported by a 120 Hz Acer monitor since early 2011 (specialist for fast action games and stereoscopic mode). My new main monitor since early 2018 is an HP Omen 27 (G-Sync, 2560x1440 @ 165 Hz), my good old Dell was demoted to a secondary monitor and the Acer was an upgrade gift for my brother's PC.

Here's the evolution of my gaming/entertainment room with pictures from 1999, 2008, 2012 and 2020:

Mid-1990s (consoles)

Parallel to the PC I had and have a lot of fun with all consoles and handhelds. As already mentioned above I had some console experience with the Atari VCS and the SNES, but my first own home consoles were the PlayStation (1) and the Nintendo 64.... actually both consoles were a joint purchase with two friends (consoles were traded back and forth and played together). In the end, however, both systems and all their games stayed with me because both friends focused on PC gaming after losing interest in consoles.

My PS1 is still hooked up to my good old "Black Trinitron" tube TV in my retro room and ready to go (alongside all my other "pre-HDMI consoles"):

But these days I prefer to play PS1 games on much smaller screens: my PS Vitas or my Steam Decks. On TV, those old games are too coarse pixelated for me, especially the first polygon games.... a small handheld screen is much more forgiving.

Late 90s/early 2000s (consoles):

I have to admit that I wasn't very interested in console games for a while after the 5th generation..... I had more than enough great games on the PC.

I never bought and played a Dreamcast (but I got most of the former DC exclusives years later for PC, f.e. Shenmue). I also never bought a PlayStation 2 (after all, the most successful home console of all time).... but I was allowed to borrow another friend's PS2 for months (come to think of it: I have really great friends, that's not a given!).

In April 2003 Nintendo brought me back: for a longer vacation trip (USA west coast) I bought a "GameBoy Advance SP Silver". In the package there was also a 50€ voucher for the purchase of a GameCube:

The GC was already quite cheap at that time, but thanks to the coupon I got the black "Metroid Prime" bundle for a paltry 144€ (including console, game, shipping and taxes).

In March 2004 the first Xbox followed... I had chosen the pretty "Crystal Edition":



Mid-2000s to present (consoles):

From that point on, I bought all handhelds and home consoles, starting with the fantastic PlayStation Portable (PSP) in April 2005. Similar to the GBA SP, I had bought it for my second trip to the USA (East Coast this time). Since it didn't have a region lock, I imported the "PSP Value Pack 32 MB" for a very good price (150 € instead of 249 €) from Canada, and received the handheld several months before the European launch.

In November 2005, the Xbox 360 was my first console, which I absolutely had to have on release day due to a great selection of "launch games". With a group of other pre-orderers, I stood in the cold in front of the local "Saturn" store while we awaited the opening of the store.

Exactly one year later, I also bought the Wii on release day. Since I hadn't enjoyed the previous year's "experience" due to the cold, this time I pre-ordered the console and the Zelda game "Twilight Princess" at a small toy store in my hometown and was able to pick them up after work in comfort.... much better! From 2007 onwards, all hardware and software was ordered online and delivered to my home on time.... even better!

When the PS3 was launched in Europe in March 2007, I wanted to wait and see.... too few exclusive games, since I already had the Xbox 360 and a good gaming PC. But three months later, we signed an extremely attractive cell phone contract that included a PS3 as a bonus. Over the next few years, it replaced the Xbox 360 as my favorite 7th generation console.

In December 2008, I bought a black Nintendo DS Lite to catch up on some good Nintendo-exclusive handheld games.... I immediately fell in love with the third-party Professor Layton and Ace Attorney (Phoenix Wright) series. I also really liked the CING games (Hotel Dusk / Last Window). I could only smile at the outdated hardware after years of PSP use, but most games were still fun.

In the summer of 2010, I treated myself to another great mobile companion: my first iPad. I love this form factor, it's best suited for point & click adventures (still my favorite genre). Hundreds of good classic games and newer titles were ported to it, especially in the early years, and the low game prices were incredible (in-app purchases and micro-transaction rip-offs were not an issue back then). The Infinity Blade series and many other games were extremely impressive technically (for that size of device) and well suited to touchscreen input. Over the years, a few Android and Windows tablets have come along as well, but the iPad series is still my favorite.

2012 was another handheld year for me: I bought my first PS Vita (OLED, 3G) in February and the 3DS XL at its launch in July. The first 3DS model had too many design decisions that I didn't like, and they were ironed out with the XL version.... I'm glad I waited this long.

In the last week of January 2014, two home console additions arrived at my house: the Wii U Premium (Nintendo Land Bundle) and the PS4 (Killzone Bundle). I was very skeptical about the Wii U from the start (weak hardware and very meager game offerings in the first year), but with a cheap UK bargain, I couldn't say no. I cancelled my PS4 pre-order on release day, as I preferred the bundle and important launch titles were postponed.

In 2015, I added another PS Vita Slim and an Xbox One to my collection.

In October 2016, the PlayStation VR opened my eyes to a new dimension of video gaming, and a month later my PS4 was replaced with a PS4 Pro.

As a new VR fan, in 2017 I bought an "Oculus Rift + Touch Controller" bundle (thanks again for a forum member's tip!) for PC during the "Summer of Rift" (first big price cut), as well as a PS Aim controller along with the PSVR game Farpoint.

I also finally picked up the Nintendo Switch in October 2017. I initially wanted to get the red Mario Odyssey bundle, but then discovered a good deal on the regular red/blue version. In the meantime, I'd be happy with the different colored JoyCons, it saves the risk of confusion when connecting. A pretty Xenoblade Pro controller, a LAN adapter, a 200GB microSD card, and a (wired) Zelda controller for guests completed my Switch setup.

At the end of 2018, I bought an iPad Pro 10.5 which has still great performance and still gets the newest OS updates. My good old iPad Air, on the other hand stayed at iOS 10.3.3 for compatibility with all 32-bit apps.

In September 2019, I trade in my worn-out Xbox One for an Xbox One X. From then on, of course, the desire for a "4K" TV became more present to take full advantage of the console graphics. At first I was going to wait until the next console generation, but just one month later, I bought my 4K OLED TV.

I was already excited about the OLED black level on the PSVR and Oculus Rift displays, so I wanted that for my next TV as well.... and indeed: it looks pretty awesome in dark scenes in corresponding movies and games. HDMI 2.1 for variable frame rate in games, very low "input lag", HDR10, Dolby Vision and other bells and whistles had to be there, of course, after all, the TV is supposed to accompany me through the entire 9th console generation.






In 2020 I was a few hours too late to pre-order a PS5 for launch day and it was sold out the next half year, but I got the Xbox Series X day one.

However, since I just built a new PC with Ryzen 5800X + RTX 3070 a few weeks before that (and just before the chip shortage + skalping + mining demand), I found out that I had no use for that console: all new Xbox games were also released for the PC and the remaining older Xbox games already ran good on my Xbox One X. Since the UHD drive of the Series X made al loud humming noise, went back to the retailer.

In the summer of 2021, I was finally able to get a PlayStation 5 without "scalper tax" for Sony-exclusive games:

In March 2022 my pre-ordered Steam Deck arrived, I was very lucky to get it that early.

And I was very pleasantly surprised about the ergonomics, weight distribution, performance, power efficiency and compatibility. It's the best handheld I ever had (so far)! Thousands of my Steam games run without any problems and the 40Hz/40fps option is a great compromise between performance and battery life. Almost any other PC launcher and emulator can be integrated quite easily, too.

And just before Easter 2022 I found again my long lost first video game: Space Viking... that 40 year old handheld still runs fine after I replaced the battery.

In the summer I got the chance to order a second Steam Deck... this time I bought the 64 GB model and upgraded it myself with an 512 GB SSD. Since then I got a bit crazy by buying Micro-SDs for my two Decks:

In autumn 2022 my friends and me were invited to a pinball event at our local manufacturer of pinball machines. We had great fun to try almost hundred different pinball machines that evening.

In December 2022 I couldn't resist a good offer for an Xbox Series X with a second controller (which is now attached to my PC).

And at the end of February 2023, my PS5 will be joined by the PSVR2

@Conina That's awesome! Thanks for sharing.

My Grandfather used to have a pinball machine which stayed at our house for a year or so. Tons of fun to play around with it. Such mechanical wonders. Of course as kids we couldn't resist taking the glass off and playing with the bumpers etc. The inside was fascinating, as well as the back with the mechanical score counters. Sadly my grandfather eventually sold it.

It was from the 70s but I can't find the actual design. It was up to 4 players and when you hit bonus a ball would bounce up and down visible in a little window in the middle above the flippers. It had a stopper between the flippers which you could activate and a little side gate you could open to return the ball to the start through the right hand side escape. I'll recognize it instantly when I see a picture but just can't remember any names on it :/

This style, but not it


Awesome collection btw, don't let anyone ever convince you to throw anything out!



@ZyroXZ2 While we're not blowing on cartridges anymore, nowadays we deal with having to charge controllers, lengthy installs, lengthy updates, having to manage disk space and if you have internet like me, plenty "You have been disconnected" while playing online :/

I also wonder whether quick resume is bugged on PS5. Today again, I turn it back on to continue where I left off "The license cannot be verified right now, try again later". I was connected, psn, internet all fine, but no resume and can't start the game. Cycling the internet connection worked this time but again, it would have been faster just to turn the console all the way off instead of using quick resume. Maybe it only works correctly on the primary PS5, timing issue, game tries to resume before PSN connects.

Conversely, modern controllers last quite awhile (well maybe not the Dualsense which averages 6-7 hours) in which you're highly unlikely to have it "die" on you in one sitting unless you do the oh-so-healthy marathon gaming thing.  The second part, yea: if your internet sucks, then you really are going to have an extra layer of troubles.  But again, that's all tradeoffs: we like to pretend everything old worked perfectly, but anyone with time spent literally knows otherwise.  N64 controllers drifted like crazy because those analog sticks became loose like kite in the wind if you played a few nights of Mario Party or Smash lmfao

As for the rest mode, here's the funny thing: I ALWAYS turn my consoles OFF.  I never use suspend, quick resume, rest mode, sleep, none of that, not even on the Switch.  The irony is because, well, it's a waste of electricity to me.  Newer consoles boot up so quick that I can simply turn the console on, and by the time I've finished turning on the TV, sound system, and switched the input to the correct console, it's already at the log in screen.  This has the added benefit of me never having to deal with those types of issues.  At the same time: you need to set your PS5 to remain connected to the internet while in rest mode.  There's a literal setting for that lol

Yeah I always turn it off as well, but sometimes we get distracted / interrupted, not sure where we are in relation to the last checkpoint (Hate that "all your progress since last checkpoint will be lost" with zero clue how long or where that last checkpoint is) and it puts itself in rest mode after an hour of not using it. Therefore I have all energy consuming things turned off in rest mode (thus no internet). But since quick resume often doesn't work, I guess I need to turn stay connected on and waste energy. If games could just save where you are...

As for the N64, I didn't use that that much so never experienced any issues with the system. Controllers lasted forever since wired! My original PS2 controllers still work fine, no drift either. But indeed, further back, loading from tape was a pita. Some games I had to load 2 or 3 times before it stuck.

Well... here's the thing that's often not talked about: other than online multiplayer games (duh, right?), Xbox's Series quick resume works EXACTLY as you describe and PERSISTS BEYOND POWER OFF.

Case in point: when I was playing Ni no Kuni off Game Pass, the save points are a little more, erhm, "classic".  There's no auto-save, so you have to make it to a save point.  I decided to risk trying quick resume because I knew but never tested that it creates a save state rather than just "suspending" the game.  Lo and behold, it works: I simply home screen, and power OFF my Xbox.  This includes the fact that I also turn OFF the power strip that powers all my consoles because I don't want them drawing "ghost" energy (all of my non-essential electronics are actually TOTALLY disconnected until use; example here is my Keurig.  I literally unplug my Keurig and only plug it to make a cup of coffee!).

Welp, I flip the power strip back on, turn my Xbox back on, select Ni no Kuni, and BOOM, it's exactly where I left it.  This apparently works for up to five games at once.  This is a feature NO OTHER PLATFORM HAS AT ALL, but you know, hating Xbox is still the easier thing to do because they remain in third place in terms of market share lol

So yea, what you want actually exists, but it's only on a single platform: Xbox Series X|S hahaha

Quick resume on Steam Deck is also awesome: