Well it is good, if season passes are a thing then having proper mechanisms is good - more transparent, easier to manage, more organized. I'm not particularly invested in the idea of season passes (I rarely buy things on release much less in advance), though I'm not strongly against it either.

Quoting: pbThe idea is good but some of it doesn't seem enforceable, I'm sure they will be adjusting these requirements.

That is presumably why they are only doing it with selected partners with a proven track record. This is likely going to work more as a friendly agreement than a set of hard rules.

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This cell and these restraints are both entirely for your protection. We can't guarantee your safety if you are free to leave.

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Well it is not

Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: AnzaUnless you have habit of activating everything right away, then it doesn't matter.

Is there a habbit of not doing it right away? Feels unsafe for me to not just redeem it right away and be done with it.

Well people that give away leftover keys often wait and do a whole lot at once, and for subscription people might just be getting them automatically and not necessarily they will take action on a particular month.

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Wow, this is amazing! I have wanted this for a while, for my old Phenom II X4 desktop that I'm using as a HTPC; it is certainly good enough to run some lightweight or old games, which includes most couch coop games I'd install on it, but few of them would run with Proton.

This can also help with my third gen i5 laptop, which I still use when I want to play something in bed or in the couch or traveling. That one is pretty good already, some games need the PROTON_USE_WINED3D flag to work but generally proton works (unlike the older desktop, where stuff often fails to launch or requires a lot more troubleshooting).

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Extremely reasonable. I get very frustrated when people that expect a new steam deck so soon, there were a few parts that were higher-end, the competing device is stronger, there must be a new deck soon!

There is little point to doing it for such incremental upgrades. There is an advantage (for developers, and for game compatibility) to having a stable platform, there is an advantage (for Steam, and for price) on having larger batches instead of renewing all stock that often. They still haven't sorted out distribution in most of the world, which in my opinion ought to be a priority over upgrades.

Quoting: missingnoForget about power, I just want a Steam Deck Pocket. One that fits in my pocket.

This depends a lot on what clothes you wear. I have some cargo pants where the pockets could fill a small laptop, but if you wear women's clothing then it is never happening.

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Hmm, a bit disappointed that they list a discrete GPU as requirement. Not that those are unreasonable, my 5600G will work just fine.

But Civ is a game that has a very diverse and casual audience, that play on their cheap laptops and even on their smartphones (yes Civ 6 was ported to android/iOS not just to tablets but eventually for phones). It isn't a game specifically for the core gamer audience that has a GPU for all their modern ARPGs and shooters.

I really wish the minimum specs were "Intel Iris Xe or equivalent", not for my sake but because it is what many potential players will have... and honestly I doubt it won't work on it (with bad performance but playable if you can tolerate it).

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Damn I just got Chaosgate Daemonhunter. Though to be fair it was cheaper on sale (even more due to regional pricing that Humble doesn't get), and there is preciously little else I'm interested in this bundle. Starsector is sort of uninteresting, and the Age of Sigmar RTS is exactly the kind of RTS I'm not into, and both are only on the highest level.

It's just not a very exciting bundle - they mix the action and strategy games and the games end up having little to do with one another. Put the likes of Sanctus Reach, Mechanicus, Gladius with Chaosgate. Action games and RPGs with each other.

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Quoting: Mountain ManIf you want to play Nintendo games, then buy a Nintendo console. It's as simple as that.

Lol, are they still making game boys? My Nintendo console died and I can't play the Nintendo games I own, and I can't find new game boys anywhere. It is all collector copies or battered down stuff for parts.

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Tech standards are good. This is obviously good for people that want to make multiplatform software, and by consequence for us that are on a minor platform that is quick to be dropped and forgotten.

But also, adopting standards is generally good for companies. They can contribute a fraction of the work designing stuff and still get the full benefit. It makes their products way easier to use, reduces the entry barrier. It expands every adopter's market, allowing them to play to their strengths without needing to be best in everything. If you aren't 100% sure you will be dominant on your own, this is a safer bet.

Now, Microsoft is humongous and anti-competitive so they often go to great lengths to break compatibility because the status quo is their dominance. But I'd hazard a guess that specific shader models aren't a particularly important part of that strategy. DirectX/Direct3D as a whole, sure, but not this.

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QuoteI like the idea of security prompts, but it does make me think: when is putting all this on the user too much? Prompt fatigue is a very real thing, and people and up ignoring them a lot. Is there any better way though? Likely not, giving the users ultimate control on what apps do is good.

I think from a package manager standpoint, there is not much to be done - the solution is apps adjusting to use fewer permissions (and the permission/sandbox/API system needs to be sensible so that apps don't need access to many non-standard things). Not something Canonical could solve.

What I mean is that the issue with permission prompts is often like on Windows everything needing "admin privileges" (overly restrictive standards and overly broad privileges) or mobile where the ecosystem has grown to be so abusive that everything asks for all permissions all the time, often for undesirable reasons (ads, tracking) and users can't enforce any boundaries because they lack leverage. Prompts for like, sites wanting to use your microphone aren't as annoying because few sites will ask for it and it is generally obvious whether it needs it or not.

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