I don’t think a post has ever felt this alien to me. Lol.

Enjoying fiction at any level is an exercise in tricking yourself that something fake is something real, but the deeper you can take that process, the more fun the experience is.

Those of us who do that type of thing are unsatisfied with “insight into someone else’s imagination,” which sounds like an extremely shallow appreciation for fiction. We want full immersion in that imagination. With that comes an appreciation for internal consistency, well thought out lore, curiosity in how different universes we care about might interact, disagreements with any of the former, etc. all colored by our real lived experiences.

I’ll use your example as my example. I’m a big STEM guy, so naturally, I appreciate thinking that’s more in line with those areas. I think George Lucas’ idea of lightsabers being lasers frozen in place is dumb. I prefer to think of them as electromagnetically contained plasma, which also explains other sabers and laser/plasma projectiles bouncing off of them. That headcanon allows me to appreciate lightsabers (and thus the stories around them) more. That headcanon is also fun to express to others (like here).

More like whoever was supposed to work on that implementation is the same guy working on the higher priority Frame Controller updates now.

It’s not a bet at all. Sony already has hard numbers on gamers with mixed physical and digital libraries, how many people are using discs to watch movies, etc.

The vast majority of customers have heard zero of this news and aren’t principled in their purchases or easily compromise on them, so it’s safe enough to assume that anyone who primarily buys physical games but has bought digital before will still fully transition over out of necessity.

Only Sony knows these numbers, but whatever they are, they’re one-sided enough that Sony is already killing off ways for them to backtrack, and Xbox isn’t far behind.

Not theory. I copied their comment straight into search and got this: https://mp1st.com/news/report-sony-digital-transition-decided-for-some-time-disc-manufacturer-switches-optical-microlenses

(There’s a more prominent Verge article that’s paywalled though.)

Yeah, Valve should really have more information to give. Still, to keep the analogy consistent, any baked-in (hah) time expectations are going to scale with actual production times and hard deadlines. Cakes can be produced in the range of hours or days and are typically ordered ahead of dated events. A device like the Frame is 3 months minimum from part procurement to delivery and is a luxury good no one should expect to need.

Well, I think the reserve list is still actual inventory and that the wait list moving is still inventory getting allocated. If you ordered a cake from me and I had all the needed ingredients in the back, I wouldn’t think twice about saying, “Okay, we have a cake reserved for you.” That’s just how I’ve always thought the word worked.

That said, I do have the 'tism, and I don’t have prior experience with making product reservations shaping my expectations.

Valve definitely dropped the ball on communication, but there is a real distinction between the lists.

The reservation list likely ties to guaranteed inventory. This would cover everything from warehouse stock to parts awaiting manufacturing and/or assembly, RAM being the probable bottleneck. As long as a full bill of materials is confirmed and finalized, Valve would consider those allocatable units.

The waitlist would then be all demand beyond that, and since Valve might not have RAM or storage obtained for them, those people might see a price increase.

I don’t want to sound like too much of a fanboy, but I’ve owned every first-party device of theirs so far, even the old physical Steam Link, the OG Controller, and the Vive which I count as theirs, and they’ve consistently hit the sweet spot of what I want out of hardware:

No hostility to the user; very tinkerer friendly; a good balance of build quality, ergonomics, and features without going into diminishing returns; long-lasting software support (even the market failure of the Steam Link has recent firmware updates); forwarding wider Linux and gaming software ecosystems; etc.

At this point, I’m just grabbing them if I have even an occasional use case for them, and I don’t regret it one bit. My Frame comes in tomorrow, and I’m very excited.

Yep. Just stay away from the Meta headsets. They are cheaper than the competition for a reason.

Yes, that looks to be the case. I seem to remember needing to be deliberate about seeking them out to play them, but I guess my brain made that up. Lol.

Oh, if you’re not caught up on the previous games, I do think you’ll be losing out quite a bit playing Alyx first. Trying to avoid spoiling too much, Alyx’s story connects back to them in a way that feels pretty huge if you’ve played them and a way that I think might feel a bit nonsensical and emotionally empty if you haven’t. Then again, I seem to care more about story, world-building, etc. than most, so others might disagree.

When Alyx originally came out for the Index, I was in a similar position having played no Half Life games, so I decided to play them first to get up to speed. I don’t regret setting aside all that time since they’re all fantastic games in their own right and made the Alyx experience even better.

In case you want to follow along, I played just enough Half Life 1 to get a feel for it in light of its historical significance, but then I continued with the very good, more modern fan remake, Black Mesa. Then came Half Life 2 (non-VR), then Half Life 2 Episode 1, and Half Life 2 Episode 2. These last two are continuations of the main story, so don’t skip them. I mention that because I remember thinking something else originally due to their names.

I actually haven’t played the VR version of HL2 yet, but I would save that for a later replay. VR naturally makes things more intense, so Alyx slowed its pacing to compensate, and HL2 dialing it back up makes it a natural followup gameplay-wise.

I think you’ll be fine as long as you know going in that Alyx is a bit of a rarity. Have you ever played a really good AAA game and still found a simpler, older, indie title fun afterward? It’s like that. Even after playing Alyx myself, there’s a lot of much simpler VR experiences I still enjoy, even some of the jankier mods and such.

Fair enough, and you’re welcome.

I will add that I have a Steam Machine I only occasionally use because I have a much better desktop already connected to my living room TV. However, I don’t regret getting it, because it’s genuinely a joy to use every time I have a good excuse to, and it’s a nice refuge from a tech industry that largely feels hostile to its users.

I know you asked for the opposite, but it actually sounds like you’re a good fit for the Steam Machine. You didn’t mention the price being a deal breaker. You will appreciate the form factor and quietness. You want performance, but you’re apparently not a stickler for it, and the Steam Machine should be enough performance for a long while, especially with the market stagnating. You already like Linux. You mentioned a busy life, and the Steam Machine doesn’t require you to build it, makes getting in and out of games as fast as it’s possible to be on PC, and is popular enough that you will have the most possible reference material for quickly setting unique things up (like emulation) or doing troubleshooting.

Now, it does have less modularity and upgradability than your typical desktop PC, including small form factor builds (usually still at least twice the size and noisier), but how big of a negative that is is up to you.

You mentioned the Steam Deck being too heavy. Have you tried using it, or is that an assumption based on its listed weight? I personally find it so well balanced that it feels lighter than it actually is, and that’s apparently a common opinion, but I’m always interested in seeing other opinions. It’s probably the best backlog killer available now (including over the Steam Machine) if you can work with its compromises.

Those links aren’t smoking guns.

The first details troubled rollout of software upgrades, “upgrades” being the key word. That’s really just the nature of complicated software development in general. The previous complete package of software is already up-to-task and running it longer than desired isn’t a huge issue.

The second says they can’t fix multiple problems simultaneously, which is again another common software development reality and a very different statement than not being able to fix things.

The third flat out says the opposite in that many fixes actually have been completed, just not all of them yet. It’s an adjacent issue, but the headline also frames the secret keeping as a bad thing when that’s just a sensible thing to do.

Technically, they’re both supersonic, not hypersonic, but yeah, that’s just semantics. The actual important detail is that the SR-71 is twice as fast (or more) as the F-35. There’s a lot of testing you can do with the former that’s just not possible with the latter.

The F-35 has nothing to do with this, but just to correct anyone’s misconceptions, F-35 loss and readiness rates only sound bad because that kind of coverage gets clicks/views. When you add back in the context of comparison to other aircraft and the total number of airframes produced and hours flown, the F-35 is actually performing great.

In case this saves anyone else the trouble, I got my purchase email for the Frame (256G) yesterday too. I went through the purchase process a bit too excitedly, and after completing it, I realized I never selected any accessories. I assumed I missed this step on one of the pages I didn’t scroll down on.

Stupidly, I never checked the Internet to learn the accessories are sold out, which apparently has been news for about a week now. Even more stupidly, I looked at Steam Support options for the purchase, and made the closest selection I could make to what I wanted, a refund request with a comment about actually wanting the purchase just with accessories.

It turns out the request was either automatically approved or approved by someone who didn’t bother with my comment. I had to make another Steam Support ticket to which they told me to get on the wait list again after which they would make a one-time exception and send me the purchase email again, which I’m currently waiting for.

So, not a big setback overall and definitely in the territory of first world problems, but I am getting the Frame at least a couple days later than I otherwise would have. Don’t rush through purchases, kids.

Edit: Repurchase complete.

Yep, you got it.

If you want a less dark explanation, I think the toys are powered by both individual and collective imagination. Really popular toys like Buzz gain sentience immediately, because there are masses of children already thinking of them that way so much so that proximity isn’t needed. Non-toy items like Forky can gain toyhood and sentience from a concentrated dose of imagination. Most toys would be somewhere between those two extremes.

You could also go a step further and say collective imagination results in a lower quality sentience, explaining all the Buzzes, green aliens, etc. starting out less self-aware.