The following years are really going to suck for gaming. Sony is no longer cool with people owning their games, similar with Nintendo, who still do sell physical cartridges, only just some of them will actually contain the game. As for Xbox, it’s straight up imploding right now. The only ownership-friendly option right now seems to be PC with stores like GOG, itch.io or Zoom (no, not that one).
However, all of the platforms mentioned still have one problem in common, which is likely going to persist for the next few years: hardware has gotten ridiculously expensive thanks to the AI chip crisis. Right now the smart move seems to be to stick with the hardware you have until the chip crisis blows over, unless you are comfortable with paying through the nose for a new PC or console.
I watch quite a bit of anime and a lot of subtitles seem to be in a format that includes advanced features such as stretching/shrinking text, rotation, karaoke effects and what have you. I think the sub format is actually called .ass or .ssa, but don’t quote me on that.
Anywho, I tried watching some random anime a few years back and was using VLC at the time. VLC detected the subtitles, but couldn’t do anything outside of just displaying them. It couldn’t do the advanced effects. So, I switched to MPV which just worked and have been using it ever since. As I said, this was a few years back and VLC probably can do advanced subtitles at this point, but eh. I’m too used to MPV now.