Comment by DarkThoughts@kbin.social on Why Baldur’s Gate III is an accidental PS5 console exclusive

Larian is having trouble fitting Baldur’s Gate III on the Xbox Series S, the lower-priced and lower-powered console in Microsoft’s ninth-generation lineup.

I was looking up more information on why there’s such an issue getting BG3 on Xbox, and found this article with a lot more detail on the topic.

EDIT: The issue isn’t graphics or frame rate; it’s memory. The article goes into detail.

Are we ignoring the PC as a platform?

Is the PC a console? No. So it can be ‘console exclusive’ on PS5.

No. If it were a PS5 exclusive it wouldn’t be released on the PC.

Topic title is “PS5 console exclusive” emphasis on “console”. On consoles, it will be a PS5 exclusive for an indeterminate length of time.

The PS5 is a console. If it were a console exclusive, it would still not be released on the PC.

I think they’re saying it’s exclusive on consoles to PS5. But it’s not exclusive to PS5, the console.

The title is confusing for sure.

But there are certain titles that are only on PS5 and not PC?

Of course yeah. But more often than not PC isn’t factored in when something is called exclusive or not because honestly PC and Consoles aren’t in competition in the same way consoles are with each other.

That’s a matter of perspective I guess…

Someone should tell Sony since they only release their games on PC after like 2-3 years have passed :(

Ghost of Tsushima is a PlayStation exclusive game (so far at least, fingers crossed it’ll come to PC soon), but God of War 2018 is a PlayStation console exclusive, small but important distinction

And kind of a console too lol with the steam deck

The Steam Deck is a full fledged Linux PC in a handheld format.

xbox one OS is windows 10 core. That doesnt make it “not a console”

A console is a closed off system. The Deck is literally just a Linux PC in handheld format. You can do everything with it, Valve even explicitly encourages you to do that.

The point I think is that a “console” is from a certain PoV a locked down piece of hardware only able to run certain software in certain ways. So eg. Stadia was a console, while AWS virtual desktops are not, despite both being just VMs running on some cloud service.

Point is, it’s the software that makes a console, not the hardware.

The Steam Deck really blurs the lines between PC and console. Modern consoles use AMD64/Radeon hardware and at least the Xbox consoles use a modified Windows OS. The Steam Deck uses AMD64/Radeon hardware and a modified Linux OS. Both feature a controller-focused user interface centered around gaming.

If you exclude the Steam Deck from the definition of “console” then a console is defined by its restrictive nature and limited selection of games.

If you include the Steam Deck in the definition of “console” then a console is defined by its controller-friendly and gaming-first design (as opposed to a general purpose PC).

I feel both definitions have merit.

It really doesn’t. Consoles are a completely closed off system, to the point where modifying it can get you banned from online services. The Deck is the complete opposite to that, with Valve even explicitly encouraging you to tinker with it. It always has been advertised as being a full PC, because you can do all the things you can do on a PC. You can literally go into desktop mode and have your regular KDE Plasma screen.

By your definition every gaming PC would count as being a console. That’s just nonsense.

I feel like this is a modernized definition of “console”. The earliest consoles distinguished themselves from the computers of the time by being gaming-first, not by being restrictive and closed off. Things that defined a console were not coming with a keyboard or mouse, connecting primarily to a television rather than a monitor, and using a joystick or gamepad for input.

There were a lot of instances of third party published games for consoles in the past, whether officially licensed or unofficial, approved or unapproved. The online service definition ignores half of the console generations in video gaming history. There were a lot of unlicensed/3rd party games published for the 8-bit and 16-bit era consoles (and yes, some of those had to bypass security chips, but I don’t think all of them did).

I think in some ways the Steam Deck is a return to form of these earlier machines, but in a modern way (and handheld). Valve’s openness isn’t a good reason to not consider the Steam Deck a console. I fully agree that it is a PC, but I feel like it fits both definitions in the best way possible.

They weren’t gaming first, they were gaming only. You didn’t load up an office program on an atari or snes. That didn’t really change until they combined them for media purposes, like playing CDs, DVDs & BDs, and even that was extremely limited and without consistency.

No idea what your homebrew / piracy paragraph is supposed to be in regards to this topic though. That’s not just not official, but straight up “illegal” in the minds of their creators. As a kid I personally owned one of those SNES adapters where you’d plug in a floppy disk and would rip the game from the cardridge into a rom. If we were caught with that we might’ve even got into legal trouble. On a Deck you can copy & paste all the files you want. You can download and run all the programs you want, albeit a tiny bit more restricted than your regular desktop distro. But in essence, it’s still a full fledged PC, with everything that comes with it, and you could use it just for non gaming purposes if you so wish.

It’s simply that. A Linux PC in a handheld format.

The Steam Deck is at least a console hybrid, and it works on that.

I’m playing it on the Steam Deck, but it definitely has issues. Have to occasionally restart the game because it starts lagging or being able to interact.

I played it all weekend on my Steam Deck with no issues. I played it handheld for a while and docked on my TV for a while.

You’ve definitely been fortunate.

It’s far from unplayable. I’m still enjoying it. But it does have some issues.

I have like 70 hours on it only on the deck. Zero issues. I think you need to stop saying it has issues just because you have issues. It seems to just be a you thing.

Occasionally? Like more than 1 time during a play session?

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Why Baldur’s Gate III is an accidental PS5 console exclusive(www.engadget.com)

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