This has actually the potential to be the best news ever for Steam gaming - depending on what Valve has negotiated with their distributors.

Nobody is able to buy PCs & RAM usage of games must be frozen at status quo - the Steam machine suddenly looks interesting.

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One can only applaud the developer, that's the best marketing an indie game can hope for. Genuinely impressed.

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(and why wouldn't it - handheld gaming is niche compared to living room gaming)

Not really, Nintendo DS is the second best selling console of all time. The Nintendo Switch has sold lots (all-time #3) as a hybrid. Unlike Nintendo's consoles, their handhelds were always a success.

And unlike the Steam Deck, the Steam Machine has not the same novelty factor. Anyone can already buy/build a small form factor PC.

It will piss off a lot of purists, but it can happen. It won't work on all Linuxes of course, but it can work on these devices.

Yes, I also believe Valve will kill Linux gaming in the long run.

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Are there benchmarks of old nVidia GPUs comparing old & new drivers with new games? Is nVidia actually still optimizing games for old GPUs, say 1080 or 2080?

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Is text-to-speech actually the same technology as generative AI? I feel like it should be a different thing, but I don't know.

TTS is just a implementation-agnostic description but you can be pretty sure that any modern TTS will be LLM based.

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That's exactly what I said. And if GOG are having cashflow problems that's entirely the choice of their parent company, which, I'll say again, is the largest video game company in Europe.

Ubisoft has at least 10 time the employees CD Projekt has.

And just because share holders value them highly doesn't mean they can wish money out of thin air. It produces opportunities & they invest it into their games (6 at various stages, at least 3 are more actively pursued). It has shown that this is also the best opportunity for GOG.

They don't need your charity.

You're right. Instead, they could produce scummy free to play title & prey on kiddies to sell them nothing (stuff that used to be available free in old games). That's obviously a more honest income.

GOG actually wanted to provide a subscription service with the preservation program. But it seems that was rejected by their customers.

So, let's go back to wishing. I'm sure then everything will be well.

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"By September 2017, it was the largest publicly traded video game company in Poland, worth about US$2.3 billion, and by May 2020, had reached a valuation of US$8.1 billion, making it the largest video game company in Europe."

That's all of CD Projekt, not GOG.

Take a look at GOG's results which is much more "humble": https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/investors/regulatory-announcements/consolidated-annual-report-for-fy-2024/ [External Link]

Net profit 2024: 1,134,000 PLN (268.085,11 €)

It alternates between profit & loss with huge profit spikes when a CD Projekt game is released (2023 was much higher due to the release of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty).

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The GOG Preservation Program ensures classic games remain playable on modern systems, even after their developers stopped supporting them. By maintaining these iconic titles, GOG helps you protect and relive the memories that shaped you, DRM-free and with dedicated tech support.

The GOG Preservation Program is a marketing stunt, when they do well it's great (See Alpha Protocol, Resident Evil and Dino Crisis) but most games simply get wrappers to solve basic incompatibilities and then get slapped with the label to make them more appealing on the store.

You mean, they're doing exactly what they tell us they're doing? What a scandal!

Just because they did some additional restauration with other titles doesn't mean they would or even can rework every game. They just make sure it runs on the current Windows (!) release.

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I'd think the benefits (people talk about the game) outweights the additional work.

It would've been a great marketing stunt.

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Great, another round of "Let's blame open source project for the incompetence of the billion dollar, closed source company". I'll get my popcorn.

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