It’s silly to compare Switch 2 sales to Steam Deck sales.
The Switch 2 is a locked-down, vertically integrated platform. There are no ROG Switch 2s. No Lenovo Switch 2s. No Switch laptops or tower PCs with discrete GPUs. If you want to play Mario Kart World, your only option is to buy a Switch 2. Period.
Steam Deck, by contrast, isn’t a platform. It’s just one hardware option—one entry point into the sprawling, open ecosystem known as PC gaming.
Every year, around 245 million PCs are shipped globally. If even 20–25% of those are gaming-focused, that’s 49–61 million gaming PCs annually. Steam Deck is a sliver of that. So of course it won’t outsell a console that’s the only gateway to a major IP.
But that’s exactly the point.
PC gaming is too decentralized for any single device to dominate. The last “PC” that did was the Commodore 64, which sold 12.5–17 million units over 12 years because it was a self-contained platform, unlike modern Windows, Mac, or Linux machines.
That the Steam Deck has sold 4 million units despite competing with every other gaming PC in existence is remarkable. It didn’t just sell—it legitimized a category. Handheld PC gaming is now a thing. That’s why Lenovo, ASUS, and MSI have followed. Even Microsoft is getting in, optimizing Windows for handhelds—something they would never have done if the Steam Deck didn’t hold their feet to the fire.
So no, Steam Deck didn’t outsell the Switch 2. It didn’t need to.
Very doubtful tbh. You can look at HL: Alyx as an example. It sold well I’m sure, but not Nintendo level. As much as people like to belly ache about VR being too hard to get into, it’s truly no more expensive than a Steam Deck if you actually bother to take more than 2 seconds to legitimately look into it.
I played Alyx on a mobile 1060 and a $300 headset and while it wasn’t top of the line, it was still perfectly playable. I imagine most gamers these days have at least that, but Alyx absolutely did not sell like hot cakes. And I doubt the Steam Deck would either, even for HL3.
I don’t think it would help SD sales much, either (and everyone would just play HL3 modded to run on regular PCs anyway if that happened), but Alyx is a bad comparison because the barrier to entry for VR is much higher than pretty much any other platform. It’s not only expensive, but requires a large amount of room, which not everyone has to dedicate exclusively to games.
Eh, I literally played Alyx on a gaming laptop with a 1060 in front of my dining room table in no more than a 3x3 cube with a $300 headset. That is not a very high barrier to entry for existing pc gamers at least. A Steam Deck exclusive may fare a little better since it’s a self contained console, but I doubt it would do that much better if VR was enough to discourage people tbh
That’s good that you were able to do that with that specific game, but would all VR games work in that space? After all, you wouldn’t be getting it to play one game.
I mean, I played most of my library in that space. I ‘S’ ranked plenty of Beat Saber maps on Hard. Played Space Pirate Trainer a few times. The Lab. Phasmophobia. Etc. You can genuinely easily play most VR games seated if you really wanted to, even if it’s not as nice as having standing room
There are actually thousands of games that run on Steam Deck with no additional configuration that aren’t even available on Switch, and conservatively, hundreds of those are extremely popular. Plus a lot of Switch’s library is on Steam Deck, where it tends to be a better version of the game for one reason or another, not the least of which is free online play.
I can’t imagine a point and click RPG like Baldur’s Gate or Fallout 1 and 2 being remotely playable on a Steam Deck. You pretty much have to have a Mouse and Keyboard for them. The Glide Pads will only get you so far.
You have a fanboy perspective here. The Steam Deck’s ecosystem is hardware agnostic, and to a large extent, Steam agnostic. No one game needs to “stand out” on the Steam Deck when it plays almost every video game that exists besides the ones Nintendo makes. Out of the sample size of “almost every video game”, there’s a high chance that there are many that are important to you and not made by Nintendo.
Heh. There’s been way more Steam Deck/PC gaming fanboyism in here than Nintendo fanboyism. By calling someone out as a fanboy, then defending something, then ending your post with an attempted “drop the mic” moment, you’re kinda being a hypocrite.
The conversation is about Switch 2 compared to a Steam Deck. Defending an open marketplace without outdated concepts like console exclusives doesn’t make me a fanboy for one of the two subjects in this conversation, nor does it make me a hypocrite.
Exclusives are a bad thing. The fact that you’re asking to be fed the same regurgitated ip slop gives them the idea that maybe, $80 games are underpriced. Maybe they can bump that up to a base $90, $100 for physical. Nintendo keeps exclusives out of greed, worse than even Sony. There shouldn’t be exclusives. Ridiculous.
Exclusives are good for the company making them, but they are anti-consumer. I’d be open to buying Switch games if they were available on PC. But I’m not buying a whole separate piece of hardware (complete with various accessories) so that I can play whatever exclusives that I’m interested in. I’ll just pass on it.
Well for one thing, playing online games (that aren’t F2P) on PC does not require me to pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of using my own internet connection that I already pay for. That is the most odd subscription to have to pay for - doubly so on Switch where most games of their FP games are ironically P2P, last I’d heard.
I also like being on an open platform where my games will generally continue to follow me as I upgrade. The only one who actually holds even somewhat of a candle to this is Microsoft with their Xbox backwards compatibility program, but there are no guarantees with that. If I had to pick up the PC I used in 2007 to play Portal, I’d be pretty upset given how hardware degrades over time (especially in the realm of handhelds - ie batteries). If I want to play the Nintendo Wii version of Animal Crossing however on an official supported Nintendo console, I’d have to buy another Wii given that when I moved out I didn’t steal the Wii from my other siblings who were still growing up. Thankfully I can emulate it on PC (such as my Steam Deck), but I wouldn’t want to gamble on emulation being possible, similar to Xbox’s BC program.
The money spent on the hardware in the PC ecosystem also go further than just playing games. I work from home, and am able to use that same hardware to do my job. Funnily enough, I thought I was going to end up having to dock my deck to do a shift due to a failing drive - meanwhile I can’t even open Spotify on a Switch to listen to some music. If I even tried that on a NS2, Nintendo wants to permanently brick the entire device, no thanks.
So no, I don’t need a “Haha! I can have this game and you can’t!” to justify a hardware purchase. There are plenty of reasons for me to justify my purchase of PC hardware that won’t just be used to harm me.
For example, games like Jedi Survivor. Very popular. Not an exclusive. You can play it on Xbox, Playstation, PC, whatever. If all games weren’t exclusives and could be played on anything, then the only reason to buy or not buy a console would be the console performance and company behavior. This would definitely increase game sales and availability as well.
Novel interactions and consistency remain a factor, though.
Xbox is essentially straight and standard, but Nintendo and Sony games often make use of controller features (gyroscope, touch, IR sensors) which, while not exactly widely utilized, allow for interesting methods of interacting with games that are not typically found on multiplatform releases that mostly support only features common between all platforms.
And with that in mind, you can safely make some of those novel interactions into core features of first party games when you can safely assume everyone is using the same input devices and has the same hardware.
This is basically a very minor nitpicky consideration, but as an example, gyroscopic aiming was born out of first-party games. If you’ve played a game with gyro aiming, it’s very cool and nice to have, but it will never become a standard part of most third-party games if only a subset of users have hardware capable of supporting it.
The gyroscope and touchpad of the PS5 controller have actually been really useful for setting up games designed for M+K on the TV via my Steam Deck. Kind of funny, since those features go completely unused by me on the console it was designed for.
I spent a few grand on my gaming PC. I can play those games on other hardware, but the hardware I bought plays those games the way I want to play them. The same goes for a Steam Deck compared to any other handheld gaming device.
It’s not what I can play, it’s how I can play it. The Steam Deck is a super convenient way to play thousands of games either portably or on the TV without lugging a laptop or PC tower around. If you always just play games on PC at a desk, there’s no reason to get a Steam Deck and it wasn’t made for people who play that way.
that anyone would even have the thought of “killer steam deck game” amazes me. It’s just a pc. You can run literally every game in existence that doesn’t require a top of the line nvidia card as a minimum, have rootkit anti cheat, or is still exclusive to yet un-emulated console.
There are limits as to what runs well on the Deck and what does not run well.
When I got my Steam Deck I was asking around to see what the “must have” game is with the caveat that I already have a Switch, Xbox Series X and PS5. So what’s a must have game on the Deck that I can’t already play?
. . .
The answer I got back was “Well, emulation, piracy, and streaming from the Xbox and PS5.”
There really isn’t a killer app on the Deck, and that’s fine. I bought mine to better explore the Steam ecosystem as I had no gaming PC at the time.
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There are millions upon millions of Mario, Link, and Pokemon fans.
There are not millions and millions of… what’s the killer Steam Deck game again? Oh, right, there isn’t one.
If Valve came out with Half Life 3, made it Steam exclusive and a pack in with the Deck, then it would start putting up Nintendo numbers.
Very doubtful tbh. You can look at HL: Alyx as an example. It sold well I’m sure, but not Nintendo level. As much as people like to belly ache about VR being too hard to get into, it’s truly no more expensive than a Steam Deck if you actually bother to take more than 2 seconds to legitimately look into it.
I played Alyx on a mobile 1060 and a $300 headset and while it wasn’t top of the line, it was still perfectly playable. I imagine most gamers these days have at least that, but Alyx absolutely did not sell like hot cakes. And I doubt the Steam Deck would either, even for HL3.
I don’t think it would help SD sales much, either (and everyone would just play HL3 modded to run on regular PCs anyway if that happened), but Alyx is a bad comparison because the barrier to entry for VR is much higher than pretty much any other platform. It’s not only expensive, but requires a large amount of room, which not everyone has to dedicate exclusively to games.
Eh, I literally played Alyx on a gaming laptop with a 1060 in front of my dining room table in no more than a 3x3 cube with a $300 headset. That is not a very high barrier to entry for existing pc gamers at least. A Steam Deck exclusive may fare a little better since it’s a self contained console, but I doubt it would do that much better if VR was enough to discourage people tbh
That’s good that you were able to do that with that specific game, but would all VR games work in that space? After all, you wouldn’t be getting it to play one game.
I mean, I played most of my library in that space. I ‘S’ ranked plenty of Beat Saber maps on Hard. Played Space Pirate Trainer a few times. The Lab. Phasmophobia. Etc. You can genuinely easily play most VR games seated if you really wanted to, even if it’s not as nice as having standing room
I needed more room to not hit things when I used it, but I am pretty clumsy. Must be a skill issue.
Do you mean the millions of available games on PC? That easily far outweighs the switch.
Oh wait, and you can play switch games on PC too.
What was your point again?
That’s exactly the problem… there are thousands of games but nothing stands out the way Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon do on a Nintendo platform.
I still look from time to time on my Deck. I picked up Borderlands 2 the other day because it was free.
But what I usually see browsing are a bunch of games I can already play on other systems, plus porn games, anime games, and anime porn games.
There really isn’t one game that stands out on the Deck.
Vampire Survivors?
macOS, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
En Garde? PC Exclusive, decent game, but limited and a little boring if I’m being honest.
https://youtu.be/MfUmgmMp964
There are actually thousands of games that run on Steam Deck with no additional configuration that aren’t even available on Switch, and conservatively, hundreds of those are extremely popular. Plus a lot of Switch’s library is on Steam Deck, where it tends to be a better version of the game for one reason or another, not the least of which is free online play.
That’s exactly the problem… there are thousands of games but nothing stands out the way Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon do on a Nintendo platform.
I still look from time to time on my Deck. I picked up Borderlands 2 the other day because it was free.
But what I usually see browsing are a bunch of games I can already play on other systems, plus porn games, anime games, and anime porn games.
There really isn’t one game that stands out on the Deck.
Vampire Survivors?
macOS, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
En Garde? PC Exclusive, decent game, but limited and a little boring if I’m being honest.
https://youtu.be/MfUmgmMp964
Blood, Baldur’s Gate, Septerra Core, and Nosferatu: Wrath of Malachi have all been PC exclusives for decades now.
Seriously, I got lots of great PC classics to recommend to you.
I can’t imagine a point and click RPG like Baldur’s Gate or Fallout 1 and 2 being remotely playable on a Steam Deck. You pretty much have to have a Mouse and Keyboard for them. The Glide Pads will only get you so far.
Mouse-based games are pretty easy to set up. It’s keyboard-heavy games that can be difficult.
Actually, I’ve played a lot of point & click games on the Steam Deck. Older titles are often better because they’re entirely mouse driven.
Grim Fandango, Divine Divinity, Disciples—all are good.
If you want to know the worst games to play on Steam Deck, it’s those text adventure games that were popular in the 70s and 80s.
You have a fanboy perspective here. The Steam Deck’s ecosystem is hardware agnostic, and to a large extent, Steam agnostic. No one game needs to “stand out” on the Steam Deck when it plays almost every video game that exists besides the ones Nintendo makes. Out of the sample size of “almost every video game”, there’s a high chance that there are many that are important to you and not made by Nintendo.
Heh. There’s been way more Steam Deck/PC gaming fanboyism in here than Nintendo fanboyism. By calling someone out as a fanboy, then defending something, then ending your post with an attempted “drop the mic” moment, you’re kinda being a hypocrite.
The conversation is about Switch 2 compared to a Steam Deck. Defending an open marketplace without outdated concepts like console exclusives doesn’t make me a fanboy for one of the two subjects in this conversation, nor does it make me a hypocrite.
It most certainly does. People don’t seems to get it’s not WHAT you defend that makes you a fanboy, but HOW you defend it.
You’re entitled to your opinion, I suppose.
Well, legally. Practically, you can play almost every video game Nintendo ever made on the Steam Deck. And with better visuals in many cases, to boot.
Exclusives are a bad thing. The fact that you’re asking to be fed the same regurgitated ip slop gives them the idea that maybe, $80 games are underpriced. Maybe they can bump that up to a base $90, $100 for physical. Nintendo keeps exclusives out of greed, worse than even Sony. There shouldn’t be exclusives. Ridiculous.
Exclusives are good for the company making them, but they are anti-consumer. I’d be open to buying Switch games if they were available on PC. But I’m not buying a whole separate piece of hardware (complete with various accessories) so that I can play whatever exclusives that I’m interested in. I’ll just pass on it.
Exclusives are a good thing if you want to justify a $400 hardware purchase. :) “What can I play here that I can’t play elsewhere?”
If you can play it elsewhere, why blow $400?
Well for one thing, playing online games (that aren’t F2P) on PC does not require me to pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of using my own internet connection that I already pay for. That is the most odd subscription to have to pay for - doubly so on Switch where most games of their FP games are ironically P2P, last I’d heard.
I also like being on an open platform where my games will generally continue to follow me as I upgrade. The only one who actually holds even somewhat of a candle to this is Microsoft with their Xbox backwards compatibility program, but there are no guarantees with that. If I had to pick up the PC I used in 2007 to play Portal, I’d be pretty upset given how hardware degrades over time (especially in the realm of handhelds - ie batteries). If I want to play the Nintendo Wii version of Animal Crossing however on an official supported Nintendo console, I’d have to buy another Wii given that when I moved out I didn’t steal the Wii from my other siblings who were still growing up. Thankfully I can emulate it on PC (such as my Steam Deck), but I wouldn’t want to gamble on emulation being possible, similar to Xbox’s BC program.
The money spent on the hardware in the PC ecosystem also go further than just playing games. I work from home, and am able to use that same hardware to do my job. Funnily enough, I thought I was going to end up having to dock my deck to do a shift due to a failing drive - meanwhile I can’t even open Spotify on a Switch to listen to some music. If I even tried that on a NS2, Nintendo wants to permanently brick the entire device, no thanks.
So no, I don’t need a “Haha! I can have this game and you can’t!” to justify a hardware purchase. There are plenty of reasons for me to justify my purchase of PC hardware that won’t just be used to harm me.
You’re the perfect consumer, bud.
I just like good games, I’m platform agnostic.
Oh no you don’t. Your baptism is scheduled for next Tuesday. Don’t be late or the water will be cold.
If you want to play it, then you can buy any console. This creates competition, hopefully decreasing or at least maintaining prices for consumers.
For example, games like Jedi Survivor. Very popular. Not an exclusive. You can play it on Xbox, Playstation, PC, whatever. If all games weren’t exclusives and could be played on anything, then the only reason to buy or not buy a console would be the console performance and company behavior. This would definitely increase game sales and availability as well.
Novel interactions and consistency remain a factor, though.
Xbox is essentially straight and standard, but Nintendo and Sony games often make use of controller features (gyroscope, touch, IR sensors) which, while not exactly widely utilized, allow for interesting methods of interacting with games that are not typically found on multiplatform releases that mostly support only features common between all platforms.
And with that in mind, you can safely make some of those novel interactions into core features of first party games when you can safely assume everyone is using the same input devices and has the same hardware.
This is basically a very minor nitpicky consideration, but as an example, gyroscopic aiming was born out of first-party games. If you’ve played a game with gyro aiming, it’s very cool and nice to have, but it will never become a standard part of most third-party games if only a subset of users have hardware capable of supporting it.
The gyroscope and touchpad of the PS5 controller have actually been really useful for setting up games designed for M+K on the TV via my Steam Deck. Kind of funny, since those features go completely unused by me on the console it was designed for.
I’m almost entirely an Xbox user, I do have a decent amount on pc and switch. Thanks for your perspective.
I spent a few grand on my gaming PC. I can play those games on other hardware, but the hardware I bought plays those games the way I want to play them. The same goes for a Steam Deck compared to any other handheld gaming device.
It’s not what I can play, it’s how I can play it. The Steam Deck is a super convenient way to play thousands of games either portably or on the TV without lugging a laptop or PC tower around. If you always just play games on PC at a desk, there’s no reason to get a Steam Deck and it wasn’t made for people who play that way.
The killer Steam Deck game is absolute choice. Oddly enough you can play many Switch games and older on the Deck.
that anyone would even have the thought of “killer steam deck game” amazes me. It’s just a pc. You can run literally every game in existence that doesn’t require a top of the line nvidia card as a minimum, have rootkit anti cheat, or is still exclusive to yet un-emulated console.
There are limits as to what runs well on the Deck and what does not run well.
When I got my Steam Deck I was asking around to see what the “must have” game is with the caveat that I already have a Switch, Xbox Series X and PS5. So what’s a must have game on the Deck that I can’t already play?
. . .
The answer I got back was “Well, emulation, piracy, and streaming from the Xbox and PS5.”
There really isn’t a killer app on the Deck, and that’s fine. I bought mine to better explore the Steam ecosystem as I had no gaming PC at the time.
Pretty great that they sold 4m of this device without any exclusive tbh. It’s not even their main income.
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