There are multiple reports stating that id software has been hit the hardest, with almost all of their programmers (and many artists) having been laid off.

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2026/07/legendary-dev-id-software-allegedly-hit-extremely-hard-by-xbox-layoffs

It looks like Xbox management doesn’t see the point in id having their own engine anymore, which certainly is a decision.

I’m not sure what to think of future id games being based on Unreal (like Halo and everything else), which is the logical conclusion to this. So much of the studio’s identity is tied to their proprietary engines, which have always been industry-leading.

Sure, I don’t think the Xbox 5 will be a success, but it’s highly likely it’ll still ship far more units than the Gabecube, simply because Microsoft is able to shift more units as a larger organization with more presence everywhere (including in the retail space and online stores other than their own).

The difference is that for an organization the size and bloat of Microsoft, numbers that would make Gabe happy would be disastrous for them.

No consumer actually cares about minute differences in performance (or other aspects) between different operating systems and platforms. People buy the platform that has the games and meaningful features they seek, like for example portability, Nintendo’s second-strongest pull after their IPs. Microsoft is hastily trying to claw back their exclusives after a disastrous abandonment of this strategy, which sent margins down the drain. Yes, this will mean that they’ll continue serving the PC, so you can play most of their games on Valve’s devices or any other gaming PC as well, but once more: Normal people buy what’s on the front page on Amazon or on the most illuminated shelf at their local store.

The overwhelming majority don’t even configure their task bar, for crying out loud. Seeing an unmodified one with the big useless search box, spam widget, applications they are never using is one of the quickest reliable indicators that someone is not a tech person.

Look at sales of the Steam Deck compared to consoles and your prediction falls flat on its face. Sure, it would be nice in theory, but both the Deck and the Gabecube are very niche devices.

It was kind of neat in the beginning, at least in theory - and not just from a consumer perspective: Indies in particular benefited from it, since it raised awareness on their titles in addition to the big bucks from Microsoft coming in:

https://tech4gamers.com/game-pass-helping-indie-studios/

Based on everything I’ve read, Redfall was pretty much entirely on Arkane, just like, at EA, Anthem was on Bioware’s internal leadership, not publisher meddling. On the contrary, more publisher meddling would have likely made these disasters less likely.

Eh, both the Steam Deck and the Gabecube are far too niche and unknown for that. I’ve used the Steam Deck on public transportation and pretty much everyone assumed that it was a Nintendo Switch at first - and I had to go to great length to explain what it was.

One notable exception (out of a small handful) was a mother who recognized it as something different and asked me a ton of questions about it, because she wanted to reward her studious son (who sat next to us wide-eyed, with increasing levels of giddiness) for his great marks with it.

The number of people doing this is so infinitesimally small that even within the most enthusiast circles, it’s practically unheard of. It’s a footnote of a footnote, at best.

The S rune is not the only issue. By combination of runes, I meant the whole thing. All of these runes have been used by Nazis and extensively so. While the rune used by the SS is the most well known, this is like a best-of of which runes Heinrich Himmler and modern Nazis are especially fond of.

Holy hell, this does not look like an accident. This combination of runes does not just happen. Whoever did this at the company thought they could get away with it.

Has this ever been the case? For as long as I’ve been playing games (early 1990s), there have always been buggy games that were clearly not thoroughly playtested. The difference was that back then, patches were either impossible (console - at best there was a silently patched re-release later*) or required PC players to purchase a gaming magazine to get them (if there were any). Perhaps the fact that it’s now easy to distribute even large patches has incentivized developers to adopt a “we’ll fix it eventually” approach, but I have no actual data on this resulting in worse games on average. If there is an actual measurable decrease in software quality in the gaming world, it could just be that the increasing technical complexity of games makes it impossible to detect the majority of bugs these days.

*GTA San Andreas is one of the better known examples of this. There were game-breaking bugs in the original PS2 release that made 100% completion impossible. Only later releases (and ports) had these issues fixed.

Until they aren’t being offered anymore. On PC, physical games are practically dead and on console, they are only making up less than 20% of sales at this point (which is why both Sony and Microsoft are offering versions of the consoles without disc drives). Not to mention, there’s often mandatory day-one patches in the tens of gigabytes or (particularly on Switch and Switch 2) the physical media only containing some of the game files, requiring a download to play.

Also, the market is already oversaturated. It’s not just that there are too many AAA and AA games; Indies are also struggling, because supply vastly exceeds the demand due to thousands of titles that are published on Steam every year alone, most of which are commercial flops. Only someone with a complete lack of understanding of what’s going on in this industry would want more people and more games.

Expedition 33

I haven’t tried this game on the Deck yet, so I can’t confirm these work, but have you looked at how other people have achieved 30 fps on protondb?

https://www.protondb.com/app/1903340?device=steamDeck

Another option would be to lower difficulty, if you haven’t already. IIRC, the parry window is much wider on easy.

The friends we asked also gave split opinions

Classic too many cooks problem. Best stick to one person who seems like they know what they are talking about. Don’t look at me, I’m just pretending. ;)

but I’m not sure about ventilation then

The more, the merrier. Map out a clear path for the air to travel through the device, from the least hot to the hottest component and out again. Larger fans are quieter at the same amount of air moved than smaller ones. Cable management gets more important the smaller the case is, so make sure to pick a modular power supply and tuck everything that can be tucked away neatly out of sight and out of the way of the airflow.

Without SteamOS it seems I’d need a keyboard/mouse out for every boot too.

You can configure Steam to immediately launch in Big Picture mode on any operating system it supports. There are many ways of achieving this, but here’s a simple script for Windows:

https://github.com/jazir555/GamesDows

For couch PC gaming, I would also recommend getting one of (I have amassed several over the years, for some reason).

I’m also not knowledgable about specs, but I figured when, say, Borderlands 4 is not playable at 4K 60fps, then I could just deal with Full HD 30-40fps, which would be enough.

I would recommend waiting until it’s out and people have thoroughly tested it. Within a few days of it reaching the hands of customers, there should be plenty of videos, articles and forum reports on how well it performs with all sorts of games, including particularly demanding ones like Borderlands 4. Digital Foundry are the best address for this kind of performance analysis.

The closest solution is PS5 Pro or PS6 when it comes out (and they fit on shelf, never checked size)

The PS5 (Pro or not) is absolutely humongous. I would be surprised if the PS6 ends up being any smaller. It’ll probably fit onto your shelf, but not in it.

but, no Steam library then. Or mods, emulation. All in all, it seems I’m in an extremely specific situation where buying SM seems optimal.

Looks like it. This computer will undoubtedly be an emulation powerhouse, just like the Deck. If the price is right and if it doesn’t have any teething issues at launch (which I doubt, given how mature the Deck was right away), then it might just be the ideal PC for you. If it’s pricier than expected for the performance, then you might want to return to me and we can discuss a SFF build as an alternative, if you want.

One thing I would recommend is buying the base model and upgrading storage yourself, since this is likely where Valve will charge more than what it would cost to perform the upgrade yourself. There are no other spec differences between the models and it’s likely that they’ll sell the base model close to cost, like the Deck. Based on what I’ve seen, upgrading storage should be trivially easy, far easier than on the Deck.

Which games are you struggling with on the Deck?

What kind of issues did your friend have building a PC? It’s a rather straightforward process, really. You can make mistakes, of course, but if you prepare your build carefully, maybe get a second or third opinion from people with experience and knowledge, read a tutorial or two, then few things can really go wrong. I’m willing to help with the selection of components and some tips on the building process, if you want (I’ve been building PCs for decades, if that counts).

I get the appeal of the “Gabecube” (I hope this name sticks) for you though, but keep in mind that it is a relatively limited system in terms of power, quite a bit below current-gen consoles by current estimates and especially limited by its relatively small amount of VRAM. It should be able to play every Linux-compatible game for now (the most demanding at low settings only), but sooner or later, the limited GPU (which can not be upgraded, unlike on a normal PC), will result in games just not running well enough or not even booting, similar to certain newer games on the Deck. It is considerably more powerful than the Deck though.

It really depends on the price whether or not it’s a good low-end gaming PC. Hardware prices are not exactly ideal at the moment (RAM is the current sticking point, but GPUs aren’t cheap either), so if the Deck manages to be more affordable than a comparable budget build - kind of like the base-model Steam Deck has been a very impressive value proposition - it might be worth it.

There are games, but few exclusives (just 18 the last time I checked). If you want to play modern games and don’t want a PC, it’s fine for that, without really being special in any way. It is a difficult value proposition for owners of the previous gen, since the jump in visual fidelity is much smaller than between prior generations (an inevitability that isn’t Sony’s fault) and since the previous generation is still being at least partially supported and was strongly supported for a very long time. However, over time, most have clearly made the jump and with the release of GTA VI (timed exclusive for PS), the system will see another significant boost.

Mods are not really a factor on consoles. Very few console gamers care about them. Xbox has slightly better support with fewer restrictions, but there are only a handful of games with support (mainly Bethesda RPGs). It clearly hasn’t helped the competition from Redmond.

Both games released and even the N64 port of Daikatana is more fun on original hardware than Star Citizen ever will be.

Also for decades, Linux has had awful drivers for graphics cards (among other things) and godawful usability. It’s not like Linux would have taken over the desktop computer market in 1998. Have you ever tried installing a vintage distro? It’s a nightmare.

Large corporations, just like any large organization, have significant institutional momentum. I would bet good money that this move was planned for months, if not longer, and was not a reaction to Veilguard underperforming.

I’m well aware. How does them re-releasing older games make this worse?

How are these things even related?