• nottheengineer@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    That’s good news because it means that those things will be hacked sooner or later. With unrestricted android, it could be a great steam link device.

    • sudotstar@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      We still don’t know the price of the device. I think this device has to really target a low, potentially subsidized, price point in order to be worth it over existing handheld devices capable of streaming (or even running games locally), and if that’s the case, it may suffer from the Amazon Fire problem of being incredibly locked down and not seeing as large a development community as would be necessary to achieve a “no restrictions” Android setup. If Sony is subsidizing the device, they would really prefer it if consumers stay within their media ecosystem rather than having the ability to go out and use and/or pay for services that don’t allow Sony to recuperate their losses.

      It is also possible that the device seen here is just running Android for testing purposes, and the final device will ship with something more locked-down. This seems unlikely due to being far more effort than just using common tablet hardware and shipping Android, but Sony may prefer to do that to achieve more control over the device.

      • ijeff@lemdro.idM
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        1 year ago

        The controls could potentially end up being the main benefit over existing devices.

        • sudotstar@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I was referring to the niche-but-growing segment of handheld game devices primarily designed for cloud/streaming services, like the Logitech G Cloud or more “traditional” handheld gaming devices like the Switch or Steam Deck, not necessarily all generic-tablet Android devices.

          • ijeff@lemdro.idM
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            1 year ago

            Yeah the Dualsense controller is significantly better than the other options around. Besides the lack of dual trackpads, it’s a lot better than my Steam Deck.

        • sudotstar@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Sure, modding the device will always have a niche interest, and people doing it just because they can, but if the price point of such a device is comparable to a Switch (easily hackable) or even a Steam Deck (outright open for you to do whatever with no barriers in place), would this device have any practical benefit for that kind of stuff over the alternatives?

          I think it will continue to have some niche benefit, especially if modding the device still retains its presumably “first party, easy” path to streaming games from a local PlayStation, and for people who would want to keep the presumably better-quality and 1080p display over what’s found in the Switch and Steam Deck, but I think someone looking to get something to primarily use with Steam Link or other such services have better (incl. first-party) options for that use case.