There’s nothing wrong with them going out of business either, though.

Plenty of games (especially MMOs) have lots of gameplay logic in the server. In many cases that is intertwined with the rest of the intrastructure, like databases, logging, deployment or even subscription services. Lots of games simply wouldn’t be functional without the publisher’s infrastructure.

Of course that is regrettable and could be changed, but it would require a significant change in incentives.

Python is worse, but not by all that much. After all, PyPy has been several times faster for many years.

It does actually help. All heat radiated into the aluminium isn’t in the copper, so makes it to the environment. The copper remains cooler overall.

Gmail was free, undercutting has always worked. Amazon does similar.

Using market success to excuse poor UX is pointless.

Why would they bother to invade Taiwan when they’re winning economically and diplomatically?

Public opinion in Taiwan is rapidly changing towards peaceful re-unification and no one anywhere on earth trust the US will help them with anything.

China economic numbers don't have a winning tune to the in the least. I don't think taiwan could ever be taken by force, but that doesn't matter as Xi Jinping seems to think it's doable and is taking steps towards it (developing landing ships, purging the military of oppsition and pacifists, building a fleet and bombers...)

It would be very surprising to me that taiwan people think a reunification is feasable while the CCP still exists, just see how things are going in HK to see what would be waiting taiwan if they reunite.

> Why would they bother to invade Taiwan when they’re winning economically and diplomatically?

They are hedging their bets. If Taiwan refuses to accept re-unification, China wants to have the option of a military annexation.

They have been planning this for quite a bit longer than the current US administration. They're not going to bank on Donald Trump forever, he's not getting any younger and healthier, and November 2028 is sooner with every passing day. A military conflict is not off the table, and so it is considered and prepared for.

The other big problem would be the lack of intelligibility of English written by native speakers from different places.

They’re killing Xbox themselves already, I doubt they care anymore.

They don’t care, they’re defunding Xbox and even the Windows team is hollowed out.

When the rumour was Windows 10 will be the last windows! I don't think people thought it would because of win11 would be so unbearable it would finally drive users to Linux.. but here we are. RIP.

If you want to play games with friends, you have to play whatever the group plays. This is especially problematic as the group tries out new games, increasing the chance you can’t join because you’re not on Windows.

Personally I'd be interested to see what would happen if Sony/MS did what they could to make keyboard/mouse experience as good as possible on their consoles (I'm writing from a position of ignorance on the state of mouse/keys with current consoles) and encouraged developers to offer a choice in inputs, so that the locked-down machines can become the place for highest confidence in no/low cheaters. If other people want to pay through the nose to go beyond what consoles offer on the detail/resolution/framerate trifecta then I'm sure they could do so, but I really don't see how you lock down an open platform. That challenge has been going for decades.

> I'm writing from a position of ignorance on the state of mouse/keys with current consoles

I'm far from an authority on this topic but from my understanding both Sony/MS have introduced mkb support, but so far it looks to be an opt-in kind of thing and it's still relatively new.

All major consoles support keyboard & mouse or similar.

The problem is more the audience. Console players generally expect to be able to just connect the console to the TV, sit on the sofa and play with the official controller. That’s all the game are required to support to be published on the platform.

Even if you were willing to play at a desk, you’d be matchmaking into a special (and small) mouse pool on the console game. Anyone willing to go through so much faff will accept the extra annoyances of a PC, even with kernel anti cheat.

Well, Nintendo's latest console comes with two mice that you can both use at the same time even.

This really depends on the friends you have. I've never encountered this limitation because no one in my friend group plays competitive ranked games. Basically anything with private sessions doesn't require anticheat, so Valheim, RV There Yet, Deep Rock Galactic, etc. all work fine.

Sure, that helps.

But even then, when everyone is trying out a new indie game there’s a chance it won’t work on non-Windows. It’s happened to me.

Yes, but Linux really has gotten a lot better in recent years. At least whatever runs on Steam. I almost never had any problems with newer indie games.

I think indies are safe. The potential problem I can see lying ahead - at least for me - is Battlefield.

My friends are understanding that I don't play games with rootkit anti cheat (whether on Linux or Windows). There are enough games that we can play other games together still, and when they want to play the games with such anti-cheat (e.g. Helldivers 2) they simply play without me. No big deal.

I am playing Helldivers 2 on Linux right now. Works perfectly. It crashes less often than it does for my friends who play on PC!

Helldivers 2 works on Linux though? One of my buddies uses Linux and he played with us all the time.

i've read helldivers2 kernel component only runs on a normal windows install, you should be able to play on linix via wine/proton without any of that