This is probably the only time Nintendo has come out of the gate with superior hardware and I actually don’t give a shit, why on earth would I want to buy a steam deck that is locked behind corporate control and price gouging?
I don’t give a shit how fast the scrreen refreshes or how fancy some of the features, I want a computer that can play games, I don’t want a toy that is purposefully broken so I can’t use it for things I want to use it for, ESPECIALLY if I drop hundreds and hundreds of dollars on it.
Nope.
I understand why you think this, but its kind of wrong. Because Nintendo has had the upper hand with hardware many times.
- SNES was arguably better than Genesis system
- N64 has much more raw power than my favorite system the PS1
- GameCube was stronger than PS2 and Dreamcast
And yes, I’ll just wait and use my steam deck until SD2, because I also just want a computer that I can play games on.
I stand corrected, I guess I was comparing the gamecube to an xbox, but yeah agreed, I just bought a second steam deck OLED when I already had the LCD model because honestly I think the economy is going to crash hard and it is going to be a long road to affordably getting a gaming device in the US for the foreseeable future.
It is a shitty situation to be in, but I didn’t even hesitate because the current calculus is a no brainer. I have Blender on my Steam Deck and I am using it to create cool visualizations of Lidar data for Geology, Nintendo would respond to a statement like this with something like “yeah, that is cool but it sounds very niche, people don’t need that” and my response is “Fuck you, you haven’t even let people try”.
I heard of another Geologist bringing in their steam deck to present a talk off of it instead of a laptop too, these kinds of interesting unusual use cases aren’t trivial and hyper individual, they represent people developing the future of handheld computers in real time, and Nintendo has completely lost the plot here. The Steam Deck really isn’t a gaming device, it is a gaming device that Trojan Horses you into having an awesome handheld linux computer that can also play your favorite games.
If Nintendo thinks they can compete with the Steam Deck by just selling a better handheld gaming console, they are so fucked… or at the very least they are walking away from what will actually be the next big growth area in computers (that people were SURE AI and VR would be).
Nintendo execs are likely sitting there being like “damn we are going to make so much money selling the best handheld gaming console and completely dominate the handheld gaming console market so we can charge $100 a game” while missing the MUCH LARGER profit opportunity of evolving their handheld console into a handheld computer.
Think about it, Nintendo is in the perfect position to evolve their Switch into more and more of a computer, and it would give them a MASSIVE new horizon of growth opportunities especially since countless kids grow up playing on Switches and already know how to use them inside out… it would help Nintendo protect itself from encroachment by other big tech, and do any number of other longterm things for Nintendo’s growth and profit.
Instead the idiots want to gouge people for more money by squeezing ONLY the gaming potential out of the switch, it is pathetic and I wish legislation around the world didn’t allow massive corporations to behave this foolishly in trying to close down their systems so they don’t accidentally create the “wrong” kind of value or innovation.
This is exactly why I purchased a steam deck. My gaming PC died (RIP to a real one), and I needed something for general use more than I did for gaming.
I need to check the price of broken steam decks, there are so many fun project’s I could do if I had the motherboard or daughter boards in the steam deck, and no I need my current steam deck intact to play on
“Mouse mode”
Yeah, the Steam Deck has that. Its called dual touchpads, and unlike the Switch 2 you can easily switch from analog stick to touchpad (they also have more functionality and are actually utilized to their full potential with desktop mode).
I have a Steam Deck definitely felt no need to get either the Switch 1 or 2.
I dunno what y’all are talking about, the Deck chip (Van Gogh, 7nm, Zen 2 but with Rembrandt-era SoC features, RDNA2) is “newer” than the Ampere chip (circa 2020) in the Switch 2.
The display supports 1080p+120hz, games running at that res and fps will be rare I imagine. I mean, it would be amazing but Xbox also supports 4k 120 and it usually runs Up to 1440p upscaled 30fps so idk how much it will really differ from what we’ve already got.
I’m skeptical about 4 hour Elden Ring session.
Nintendo games never come down in price either.
BotW is still going for what it did on day one. Even second hand copies go for nearly that.
Although it does mean you can basically rent them for as long as you want for a few dollars if you sell it again afterwards…
Soon as I heard about the price of games I was out
We have a switch 1 and the game price has been the driving factor preventing us from investing more in the platform. The games are too expensive, go on sale too infrequently and not for low enough prices. Just not the ecosystem for my family right now
I laughed when they showed their game chat mode as some accomplishment. They spent years just making discord…
Another funny moment was when the Civ VII dude said something like “if you already have Civ VII you will be able to play the enhanced switch 2 mode!.. After purchasing the upgrade.”
They’re so unapologetically greedy.
Yeah. Even bethesda just gave you the enchanced skyrim edition for free…
I’m done giving money to Nintendo. Their litigious behavior is inexcusable. Just ask the parrot on my shoulder. He’s on the same side as my eye patch.
Switch l2
I think Cisco is working to remove the points about uptime and not having lags/crashes
We are currently moving away from cisco because they want 12k+ for a new switch. Juniper or HP for us i think.
That’s why you don’t buy Cisco
(For anyone who wasn’t alive in the late 90’s or 00’s this is a rapper named Sisqó, famous for his highly intellectual song called “Thong Song”)
Why’d you ommit the price of the layer 2 switch? curious
If we’re talking home use, you can buy enterprise switches for less than $100 on the secondary market. I got a 1GB PoE 24 port managed switch for $35.
I believe I found the switch but can’t find the price - IXR-G24044X-24PH
A Steamdeck can emulate a Switch. The number of exclusive games for the Switch 2 will be so pitiful it would scarcely justify a purchase though I’m sure some people will buy it. I also think that a Steamdeck 2 can’t be far off appearing.
All this has done is make me want a steam deck even harder.
I have a steam deck oled and love it, but the SOC is slightly old now and was never the fastest. If you’re playing slightly older games or are fine with slightly lower settings, than it’s still great.
SteamOS is great, but I think you can install it on other handhelds as well. It sounds like current competition isn’t great unless you’re willing to pay a bit more and the steam deck 2 isn’t rumored to come out soon, so the steam deck is probably still worth purchasing tho.
Honestly who cares about the power of hardware on a handheld, sadly this is something Ninendo used to understand better than anyone else.
Focus on making the games fun and the hardware capable enough, don’t get lost in the hype of trying to out hardware competitors and pull in customers that way.
Well, they have clearly abandoned that strategy, but I think this was the worst possible situation to do this in because they are going to continue to get destabilized by the Steam Deck just being a Switch that doesn’t try to obsessively control everything you can do on it. It is a waste of money to buy such a closed down device, even if it is more powerful than a Steam Deck.
How powerful is it? Just based on the graphics of what I’d seen I assumed it was around the same.
Anyways, I think the switch can get away with worse hardware as every game is specifically optimized for that exact soc, while the steam deck has to play games optimised for a PS5 or a midrange gaming PC for example.
Yeah, but the Steam Deck also can run indie games, it can run open source games like Beyond All Reason, Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead and Xonotic, it can run Steel Panthers Winspww2 which is an absolutely horrendously old DOS game.
Why do I care if it can’t run the newest AAA game? I know some people do, but to me I already have such a large pc library (of paid and opensource & free games) that the concept of the Steam Deck getting “left behind” by having too outdated hardware doesn’t make sense to me.
Ok, so it has a hard ceiling of the games it can play, new games will continue to come out both above and below that ceiling, and I will continue not to really care about AAA games that don’t bother to optimize well for lower end devices.
At the end of the day, the Steam Deck is a linux computer handheld, there are already people gaming on and using potato-ass linux computers to do useful things that are WAYYYYY shittier than the Steam Deck is, and they are happy. I don’t see myself becoming unhappy with the hardware on the Steam Deck anytime soon.
Years and years? Idk
I love it.
I saw Elden Ring worked for Steam Deck, and I either had to buy a new graphics card or get the Deck, and I chose wisely.
Excited for Switch 2 emulation on Steam Deck in a few years
Steam deck is also backwards compatible with nearly all of Nintendo.
Something tells me that the Deck will be compatible with “way more” than old games in the near future… Some times an emulator goes down, and two or more rise up.
We’re lucky Valve has fuck you money for when Nintendo inevitably come after them
Comes after them for what? Selling small computers?
yeah, or infringing on their “patents” lmfao
Remember they got a patent for catching monsters using balls just to start a lawsuit against Palworld, and if my memory doesn’t fail me, they tried to patent some stupidly base mechanic in Zelda TotK (like using local coordinates for constructs).
I’m not sure they wouldn’t try to get a patent for the concept of “handheld gaming console” because they came up with the Game Boy.
I don’t see how Nintendo could go after valve. Valve doesn’t make or distribute the emulator, or the ROMs.
I agree. They could go after windows at that point.
Current plan is to borrow a Switch 2 from a friend in a couple years, to play the games we’re really excited for.
Seeing that the "explore the Switch 2” game wasn’t included with the system just pissed me off. I’m not paying to play an interactive manual.
I’d be completely flabbergasted by anybody who wastes their money on that “game.”
Satoru Iwata is rolling in his grave.
Fr. It’d be a forgettable bit of marketing, a tech demo no one really cares about if they’d included it free. With the price tag it turns from that into an anti consumer insult, a slap to the face to anyone who thinks they’re in this for any reason other than extracting as much money out of their consumers as they can get away with
I wonder if it’s gonna cost more than Deltarune
I wonder how much steam would charge if they did that? Oh they didn’t deck job is free
Even the PS5 did it for free, and that feels like a game more than a demo.
And so is The Lab.
The lab’s a fucking masterpiece. Also, i love the robot dog, reminds me of my own :D