Tbh, I’d love to be able to use this less for games and more for just Android apps.
I’d love to move more to a less-Google-owned mobile platform that still has the apps I use and the power to run things. I think the two frontrunners are like /e/OS or GrapheneOS.
But with Lepton: A) there’s a better chance of the idea of a Linux-non-Android phone, since Lepton could allow Android apps run on a Linux phone; or B) make Linux tablets better, again with Android apps.
I also have an idea in my head that next “upgrade” I can afford I’ll ditch my phone and go for a smartwatch (with 4G/5G) and a tablet (for apps). The best pairing is probably from Samsung, which unfortunately is both Android/Google and now focused on promoting AI features (ew). I’d go for GrapheneOS if I could put it on a tablet of suitable specs, and if a smartwatch would work well with it (which the watch would probably still be Samsung’s, but maybe RePebble can do something great?).
But if I could use a Linux tablet? That’s a computer at that point, and I could also benefit from having a laptop since there’s also things an Android device couldn’t do that a computer could (I’m a software dev, it’d be painful on Android). Waydroid/Lepton then supplements the part where there are things Android can do that computers can’t, which is just “apps the developer didn’t make a webapp/computer app for”. Still would have to figure out the watch part, but it’s a start
I don’t think Hello Games lied as much as you may think. Sony lied, and others layered their own expectations on top.
HG turned to Sony for publishing and marketing help. Sony, like any game publisher, wants to get as many sales as possible, preferrably on release day to look the best (for further marketing when sales slow down: “X million dollars on release day”/“Y copies sold on release day” kind of stuff). So Sony had a huge hand in promoting the game, and undoubtedly crunched time on HG, reducing their ability to get what they wanted to out the door.
Plus, people hear what they want to hear and read what they want to read sometimes. Game journalists and streamers and influencers and such layered their expectation on each other, chalking up the game to more than was promised by HG, only to be disappointed when it wasn’t. Murray even said the day before its release that it “maybe isn’t the game you imagined”.
And sure, not to absolve HG of all the blame here, there was underdelivery and bugs. They got swept up in a storm of shit larger than they were ready for. They probably could have said more at the bungled release, but I wonder how much (if any) they couldn’t because of Sony’s hands in the PR. Iirc they were allowing returns of the game past normal return timelines? Given all of that, though, they committed to their game, even when Sony left, and even if players left and didn’t come back. That’s why people talk about it’s comeback story.
For Cyberpunk, though, I’m less supportive of that comeback story because CDPR had other majorly-known games (Witcher). They knew how game-dev-crunching and publisher pressure reduces their ability to deliver. They understood how marketing grows hype and expectations of their games. They even saw how NMS’s release went, and they still fumbled their release horribly. I’m happy for those that play CP2077 and enjoy it today, but I’m less on-board for that one.