It's not as much portability but the entire hybrid concept of the device itself that makes me choose to buy games on Switch over PS4. The convenience of being able to hook it up to the projector in the living room, the monitor in the office, play it lying on the sofa or in bed or take it on holidays just trumps everything. Both my girlfriend and I own a Switch each and use it extensively, often at the same time. And thanks to it being a hybrid there's never a situation where one of us can't play or watch something because the other is hogging a screen.
The system is obviously compromised in some ways due to being less powerful than the other consoles. It also doesn't get all the games and many of them perform noticeably worse. It's why I still keep a PS4 around for the times when I do want to play something that is straight up unavailable on Switch. But more often than not, it's a choice between either playing a game on Switch or not at all. I've been replaying the first TLOU, a ~15h game, because my girlfriend wanted to watch and over two weeks later I'm still not done. It's why I've completely stopped buying RPGs on home consoles because I know that I will never finish them there. If a game has a badly performing Switch version, I sometimes skip it altogether because I can't be arsed to play it on a stationary console. The very first game my girlfriend finished was Journey on the PS4. She hasn't touched the system for anything other than Disney+ since we moved in together earlier this year.
When I was a student, single and living in a flat share with lots of free time this was less of a concern. I had all of my stuff set up in the room I was renting and could spend hours upon hours playing on my PC without a single care in the world. With a full-time job and limited free time plus other hobbies, choice paralysis when it comes to media became a real problem. The more convenient it is for me to play a game when and where I want to, the more likely I am to spend time with it. It's also why I appreciate streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. Often when cooking or cleaning dishes I set up my MacBook or iPad to watch something. For me, that's sometimes the only way I can watch something. Traditional consoles are similar to a BluRay player that is hooked up to your home system. This is also a reason why I'm pretty interested in xCloud.
To summarize, the appeal of Switch is only partially its portability, it's the fact that it lines up with the way I play games. It's not only become the de facto place for me to play but has also dramatically increased my total playtime.
The system is obviously compromised in some ways due to being less powerful than the other consoles. It also doesn't get all the games and many of them perform noticeably worse. It's why I still keep a PS4 around for the times when I do want to play something that is straight up unavailable on Switch. But more often than not, it's a choice between either playing a game on Switch or not at all. I've been replaying the first TLOU, a ~15h game, because my girlfriend wanted to watch and over two weeks later I'm still not done. It's why I've completely stopped buying RPGs on home consoles because I know that I will never finish them there. If a game has a badly performing Switch version, I sometimes skip it altogether because I can't be arsed to play it on a stationary console. The very first game my girlfriend finished was Journey on the PS4. She hasn't touched the system for anything other than Disney+ since we moved in together earlier this year.
When I was a student, single and living in a flat share with lots of free time this was less of a concern. I had all of my stuff set up in the room I was renting and could spend hours upon hours playing on my PC without a single care in the world. With a full-time job and limited free time plus other hobbies, choice paralysis when it comes to media became a real problem. The more convenient it is for me to play a game when and where I want to, the more likely I am to spend time with it. It's also why I appreciate streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. Often when cooking or cleaning dishes I set up my MacBook or iPad to watch something. For me, that's sometimes the only way I can watch something. Traditional consoles are similar to a BluRay player that is hooked up to your home system. This is also a reason why I'm pretty interested in xCloud.
To summarize, the appeal of Switch is only partially its portability, it's the fact that it lines up with the way I play games. It's not only become the de facto place for me to play but has also dramatically increased my total playtime.
