Not exactly a surprise but still great to see for Steam Deck fans for the ongoing support from Valve, as the Steam Deck is now firmly the global top seller on Steam once again.
I think it’s a really nifty device, but I can’t really stomach the price for my use case. I’m mostly at home, but occasionally drive out to events. At home if I already have a gaming PC, I don’t see myself using the SD. I mean you could lay down while gaming which is true, but I don’t mind sitting especially if it saves me a couple hundred bucks.
Again, I do think it’s an interesting device. I just think handhelds are stuck in this tug-of-war between portability, battery-life and power. The more you go towards one, the further away you are from the other. Either you go all the way portable with something like a Nintendo DS/3DS and you get a small size, plus decent battery life, but you just don’t have power. If you go towards raw power, the unit tends to be huge and you’re going to eat your battery like it’s a sample at Costco. You also have to turn settings to low to make it playable and you’re likely going to have to plug it into the wall, which defeats the point of being portable in the first place. You could dock them, but that then makes it pretty much a PC, so you could just get a PC.
I think the SD’s best place is to play middleweight games - games that are more than the smaller ones which you could just play on a smaller portable, but less powerful than the AAA games on consoles/PC where you have to massively limit frames on the SD and where you’re battery life is dramatically reduced. As it is, I game pretty much on PC and carry a modded 3DS when I’m on the go if I want to busy myself with a smaller game while waiting somewhere.
Again, I do think the SD is an amazing device that’s really cool; I’d get one over buying a PS5 or XSX. I just think it doesn’t make sense for my use case costing that much money. If I had money lying around then I could buy it to try it. I think SD is a very versatile device. I like how it’s basically a PC and can be used as one. You can output it onto a TV as well. I just feel in terms of raw gaming, my portable needs are met with a smaller device and raw gaming is just better on the PC/console in terms of performance and comfort. I’m fine with playing smaller titles on the go like Tetris or Mario. I don’t mind playing Starfield on my desktop and prefer to play it there where I have better FPS, a larger screen and a more comfortable controller.
I think it’s a really nifty device, but I can’t really stomach the price for my use case. I’m mostly at home, but occasionally drive out to events. At home if I already have a gaming PC, I don’t see myself using the SD. I mean you could lay down while gaming which is true, but I don’t mind sitting especially if it saves me a couple hundred bucks.
Again, I do think it’s an interesting device. I just think handhelds are stuck in this tug-of-war between portability, battery-life and power. The more you go towards one, the further away you are from the other. Either you go all the way portable with something like a Nintendo DS/3DS and you get a small size, plus decent battery life, but you just don’t have power. If you go towards raw power, the unit tends to be huge and you’re going to eat your battery like it’s a sample at Costco. You also have to turn settings to low to make it playable and you’re likely going to have to plug it into the wall, which defeats the point of being portable in the first place. You could dock them, but that then makes it pretty much a PC, so you could just get a PC.
I think the SD’s best place is to play middleweight games - games that are more than the smaller ones which you could just play on a smaller portable, but less powerful than the AAA games on consoles/PC where you have to massively limit frames on the SD and where you’re battery life is dramatically reduced. As it is, I game pretty much on PC and carry a modded 3DS when I’m on the go if I want to busy myself with a smaller game while waiting somewhere.
Again, I do think the SD is an amazing device that’s really cool; I’d get one over buying a PS5 or XSX. I just think it doesn’t make sense for my use case costing that much money. If I had money lying around then I could buy it to try it. I think SD is a very versatile device. I like how it’s basically a PC and can be used as one. You can output it onto a TV as well. I just feel in terms of raw gaming, my portable needs are met with a smaller device and raw gaming is just better on the PC/console in terms of performance and comfort. I’m fine with playing smaller titles on the go like Tetris or Mario. I don’t mind playing Starfield on my desktop and prefer to play it there where I have better FPS, a larger screen and a more comfortable controller.