A couple months ago I ran into some money to get a new next-gen gaming console. At the time I had a PS4 and a PC with a 10th gen i3 and a 1650 graphics card. I was going to originally get a PS5 since my wife enjoys gaming more in front of the TV and the PS4 is getting phased out soon… but then the idea of a steam deck came up. So now we just mainly use the steam deck as a docked console.

It has been life changing. Sure, the graphics probably aren’t as good as a PS5 but my gaming has slowed down a lot in the past 10 years to a point where it doesn’t take much to wow me graphically. I’ve always cared more about gameplay, and this is what I’ve gotten. I’m currently in act 1 of BG3 on the SD and it’s not super pretty all the time but I am still able to have a great experience (so far). Just having an option to access the entire Steam store on something that works so seamlessly with a controller is life changing. We just bought Portal 2 for $0.99 and are about to play it for both of our first times.

There is also a massive backlog of games that I missed throughout the years, including Bioshock series, Fallout Series, RDR1, Skyrim, etc that I now have the ability to play, whether through emulation, Steam, etc. I’m playing Pokémon Violet, my first Pokémon game since Gen 3, and I also started a run of LoZ:WW for nostalgia’s sake.

tldr: if game catalog is priority over ultra graphics settings, the Steam Deck may actually be able to substitute a PS5/next gen console. YMMV, just my experience so far.