[thegginthesky]

I won't be defending Nintendo because their issue with joy-stick drifting, their unwillingness to fix their design flaw, and their constant efforts to stop video game preservation really pisses me off.

But emulators are hit or miss, specially if you aren't tech-savvy enough to fix specific problems, and depends on the people's preferences:

- they need to install and configure an emulator, which isn't fool proof

- go through the hoops of downloading ROMs from sometimes sketchy sources

- configuring each game to work well

- self troubleshooting any issues they might have with some games

- not wanting to play their games online (which in Nintendo's case the online experience is truly lacking)

- not have any moral issues with piracy for games that are currently selling in both physical and digital format and are widely available

Nintendo's Switch is due for a very necessary upgrade, but the console is still widely available, very convenient with minimal setup and troubleshooting, and very plug and play. With the added benefit that you get to support developers to continue making the games.

[gjsman-1000]

> I won't be defending Nintendo because their issue with joy-stick drifting, their unwillingness to fix their design flaw, and their constant efforts to stop video game preservation really pisses me off.

I think this criticism is a little misguided.

1. Joy-con drifting doesn't happen much with newer Joy-cons. Nintendo also repairs all Joy-cons for free now - even ones that aren't drifting. Break a button? Damage the rubber top of the Joy-con? They fix those free too, and even pay all shipping costs. We might as well bring up the Xbox Red Ring incident, or the PS5 having melting USB ports.

2. "Their unwillingness to fix their design flaw" - as already stated, it already has been mostly fixed through subtle changes. Sure, there's no big announcement of a specific revision that has no issues, but that would be begging for a class-action lawsuit (the reason why companies can never admit guilt publicly - or they've already lost). Also, if they were to announce that "revision X has no issues," and then it developed issues eventually like all non-Hall sticks do, another lawsuit.

3. "constant efforts to stop video game preservation" - You've surely never seen Sony or Microsoft's efforts then. They are more subtle and skilled, but don't think for a second they don't have the same goals. I actually think Microsoft is the most insidious character; for making consoles that cannot be set up without internet, combined with "backwards compatibility" for "preservation" that also does not work without internet.

[smoldesu]

> I actually think Microsoft is the most insidious character;

Towards game preservation? Microsoft is basically a patron saint. For starters, the concept of an "Xbox exclusive" barely exists. Most console titles Microsoft publishes release day-and-date on PC, where DirectX is entirely reverse-engineered and doesn't rely on Windows. The Xbox itself is the only console among the companies you mentioned where you can install an emulator without hacking the OS or red-teaming the OEM.

> combined with "backwards compatibility" for "preservation" that also does not work without internet.

That's because the Xbox does not contain redundant backwards-compatible hardware. It provides high-level emulation for older titles, which doesn't work unless you can download the mods. It's a bit like complaining that FPS Boost doesn't work without internet to download the update from.

[kevincox]

Yeah, I definitely like emulators because I don't have to have a library of consoles beneath the TV and some features such as rendering at higher resolutions and savestates + save management in general are great. But they aren't a seamless experience (especially for newer hardware) and I wouldn't expect the majority of people to prefer it compared to the original hardware.