I’m thinking about getting into gaming again.
I don’t have a Windows machine and I’m reluctant to go back.
So instead of getting into buying a gaming rig and running Windows on it for gaming, why not get a console.
Because Linux gaming is not going to give me the high end gaming experience i’m looking for.
What is your opinion on this? Do I have any better privacy gaming with a playstation?
Cheers
Can’t go wrong with a console. Gaming on a separate dedicated machine is the best way to do it. Main downside is how locked down they are so obviously if you want to run mods and things like that it’s not great, but personally I like the plug-and-play experience. Not really sure what PlayStation is sending but really all they’re going to get is what games you’re playing, none of your personal data is going to be on your PlayStation.
I think a PC is a clear winner if you care about freedom.
With a PC, you are free to install anything on it. Even with Windows, you have the choice to modify it to be reasonably privacy friendly. While you are not interested in Linux now, you can always install it later, or try it out in dual boot.
With a console, you can only use what is given by the manufacturer, nothing more, nothing less. No customization, other than at your firewall. Even if your only purpose is gaming, you are totally dependent on the manufacturer. And I guess you already know what it is like given the recent Sony outage.
I agree that compartmentalising your gaming from your personal stuff is a good idea. Whether that means using a console or a dedicated PC is really a personal choice.
The best option is to stick with offline games on a Linux machine. I consider factors beyond just privacy—things like game ownership and compatibility are important to me. That’s why a console isn’t really an option for me; I prefer owning my games and playing them on a platform that I know isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
That said, if you’re using a separate machine for gaming (and just gaming), I wouldn’t worry too much about privacy.
Personally I would like to ask what games are you planning to play?
It is very import to factor whenever you can viably game on Linux, or Windows or Console.
I’ve been a playstation then xbox user and now I’ve switched to PC full time, Dual booting in 2 separate SSDs Linux and Windows, Nowadays I mostly game on Linux playing Zenless Zone Zero and Marvel Rivals, with windows only ever accounting for ChilloutVR + Mods. I also have a handheld (Lenovo Legion Go) that runs Bazzite full on for gaming on it
Mutahar from SomeOrdinaryGamers on the other hand Exclusively uses a separate windows PC for Rainbow Six Siege due to Ubisoft not supporting Linux but games and creates content on Arch Linux his primary pc, as things should be. And of course he has plenty other hardware including Steam Deck.
In Conclusion, depending on what you’re doing, you don’t need a second PC (if you already have a strong one at that) or a Console. Alot of this can be solved by say buying another SSD or first deciding what games you’re gonna play: As “High End gaming” isn’t enough to tell. And if both examples is anything to go by, each one has separate preferences.
Regarding gaming consoles: I roughly went through the privacy policies of Nintendo [1], PlayStation [2], and Xbox [3], and it seems that Nintendo provides the most privacy-preserving service out of the three. However, this doesn’t mean that Nintendo is entirely privacy friendly—it still collects user data and telemetry. In contrast, Xbox collects the most user data, and it’s worth noting that Sony experienced a huge data breach back in 2011 [4].
I’m not sure if this applies to all three services, but in general most gaming consoles can be used entirely offline.
Well… gaming is actually decent in Linux (see Steam Deck) and in some cases, even slightly better than Windows (feel free to search around for this, I think there enough evidence to have a blanket statement).
What doesn’t work usually are games with very invasive Kernel-level proprietary anti-cheat and Linux people wont stand for that.
There are two places to check how well Linux gaming fare:
and
For online games.
I’ve been soured by online competitive multiplayer games because of cheaters so I dont play those and I’ve been playing strictly on Linux since 2018. Only one reason forces me to go back to Windows for gaming; Steering support for Thrustmaster (I should have picked Logitech). Other than that, most of the games I play work.
The most privacy respecting storefront isnt Steam, its GOG because they dont have any DRM and your privacy is generally protected to the extent GDPR can. I like Steam because they are pro open source and has been providing upstream from Wine via Proton.
Glorious EggRoll of ProtonGE fame works for RedHat and pledges support for Nobara Linux (a fork of Fedora) for as long as he is playing with his dad.
@Volkan what are you looking for specifically in a high level gaming on Linux?
I have a question in terms of compartmentalization, which might be silly.
I’m primarily gaming on Linux (Ubuntu). I still have a Windows partition for Fortnite, but since Marvel Rivals, I have not been playing Fortnite, and don’t even miss it.
On Ubuntu, I use Steam, which is my primary platform and has 90%+ of my gaming library. Currently, I’m playing Marvel Rivals and Metaphor: ReFantazio. Metaphor is an offline game, but since I bought it on Steam, I have to sign-in to Steam first before I can play it.
Is there any benefit to set my Steam offline before playing the game? Or going further by creating another user account to separate my online and offline games? Or going even further by separating my online/offline games between two different PCs? The last option would be the most inconvenient.
The way I see it, since I have to log-in to Steam either way, there’s no point in compartmentalization, but am I wrong?
Sony privacy policy is quite questionable. There was also the Crunchyroll lawsuit because they were collecting data and selling to third parties. Now you have a toggle that you have to flag in each device that you have Crunchyroll to prevent this to happen. Needless to say that I stopped using this service.
I would stay away from their products.
I don’t really see the benefit of switching between offline and online modes this if it is on the same account. If your steam account is used for Marvel Rivals, it will need to be online eventually.
To have compartmentalization, you should separate your gaming activities from everything else. This could be a separate gaming PC or a VM with GPU passthrough. If your threat model isn’t too high, a separate partition works too
Ah, thanks. That makes much more sense.
Also HDR support isn’t really there unless you’re using bazzite’s gaming mode or similar
As some others have pointed out, if there are some games you need to play that absolutely won’t work on Linux you can totally use a game console. My personal preference would be to dual boot Windows and Linux on a single PC and only use Windows for the Windows-only games. Dual booting can be complicated and I haven’t bothered with it in a while, but it’s my understanding that dual booting becomes a lot easier if you use separate drives for each OS installation.
There are a couple benefits to this:
If that still doesn’t sound like something you could get behind then I’d consider getting a Nintendo or Playstation console. Personally I’d avoid Xbox because I wouldn’t want to further support desktop Linux’s main competitor, but maybe that’s just me.
As it is right now, you either get HDR via steam’s gamescope session and its honestly annoying to use because if you need a decent browser with ad blocking capabilities, you’d have to exit the Steam Big PIcture mode (thus exiting games) and restart the desktop.
But HDR is present in Linux at a slightly flawed state. I’d pick that over enshitified WIndows any day.
My daily driver is an 8 year old laptop with debian.
Its got, i7, 32gb ram & 1tb nvme. But no gpu that can do decend gaming.
For everything other then gaming i will probably use it untill it dies 
When I see titles coming by like cyberpunk 2077 or red dead redemption 2, i really miss the time i used to game. Used to play call of duty a lot, might try that again.
So yeah, these games need proper gpu power.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I could even go as far as buying gift cards to not give sony any of my personal data.
The question is what am I really sharing with them. I could use a ps5 without ever sharing any lf my personal data. They’ll have my ip address and what games i play.
I’m not quite sure what you’re intending to say. Could you please clarify?
Even if the privacy policies of the console manufacturers are not very privacy friendly. If I never give them any of my private data, how big of a problem is their privacy policy then?
I want to know if I’m missing something in my thinking here.