Stadia seemed perfect for a casual gamer like me, but it had so few games at launch and I knew better than to buy into a Google consumer product. I have a MacBook, but using it to game on my TV would be a wonky setup.
Game Pass Cloud does work on some smart TVs, mostly the latest ones from Samsung so if you got one of those then you don't even need a box. Amazon Luna is the same. Samsung TV.
Since all the actual gaming hardware is in the cloud, all you need is a device that can output the frame rate and resolution (and maybe HDR) you want, which should be easy enough to find.
I feel like a combination of a few comments here. Itching to put together something that can bring justice to Zelda and tinker with AI
Apparently there is a way to stream games from your own machine similar to GeForce now. It's built into their GPUs -- https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/04/nvidias-gamestream-is...
There are also services like Shadow that just rent you a GPU enabled Windows box, and you can run whatever emulator on there you want. It's cheaper than renting GPU hours from the enterprise providers (who mostly target AI workloads, I guess?)
1. Provide great value to the user while you are weak. Provide them a great deal and a disproportionate amount of the surplus value of the exchange.
2. Provide great value to your corporate partners once you become stronger than your consumers can organise against. Provide your corporate partners a huge amount of the surplus value of the exchange.
3. Take all surplus value for yourself once you're stronger than your corporate partners.
Cloud gaming is at stage 1.
I have seen this too many times at this point of my life to ever trust a good deal like this again.
Investing in things you own is an investment in yourself.
Subscriptions are signing up to be a tenant.
There are network effects help the companies from phase 1 to phase 2.
Ultimately there's an inertia in human decision making that means we almost always stick around longer than we should when we are being taken advantage of.
I would say that it's not worth the hassle of creating the hassle of escaping.
To each their own.
These are experiences that you go through and move on from, not heirlooms you keep. If you absolutely must play old games, they'll likely become either abandonware for emulators or remastered in 16k a few years from now.
You can go to great lengths to horde hardware and your own DRM free copies of games if that's your thing. Me, I'd rather just rent them from Steam while they're on sale for a few bucks, play them on hardware someone else maintains, and then forget about them. I'll never be able to keep up with all the great new releases in a lifetime anyway.
I built dozens of gaming desktops as a kid and young adult, but lately the time demands of adulthood means it's hard to keep up with the latest trends. Like you I got sick of fighting Windows just to launch Steam. But I also had numerous bad experiences with desktop Linux, and with not wanting to deal with Proton and Wine. When I want to relax I just want to get in a quick game for an hour or two, not go through a ton of driver updates etc.
To that end, GeForce Now has been... no pun intended... game changing. It works miraculously well, and has almost top of the line hardware. Paired with my ultrawide QHD screen, most games run beautifully. Shooters are out due to the input lag (small but definitely noticeable) but all the other genres feel fantastic. No fan noise, no heat, no giant tower taking up space, no worrying about upgrades... It's an amazing service at a terrific price point. I have a Mac but just plug in a Windows keyboard and mouse and it works flawlessly. Same with an Xbox controller.
People pooh poohed cloud gaming for so long, but these days it's so easy and seamless I'm honestly worried about the future of the gaming PC market. Nvidia seems well on their way to providing data center and AI cards and just renting games as a service. (Honestly, that's fine with me...).