Such a weird article from Nintendo Life trying to defend the Switch 2 over the Steam Deck. And it’s so cringe.
First let’s talk about the contention that the Switch 2 has better value because it’s comes with a dock.
Look, I can hook my Steam Deck up to my TV using a USB-C to HDMI adapter and use the Steam Deck itself as a controller. As for a dock itself, sure the official Steam Deck Docking Station costs C$109. However, I can buy a 3rd party docking station off Amazon for C$40. So that’s not much of an argument.
The Switch 2 has a bigger screen that runs at 1080P. That great. But the Steam Deck has an OLED panel which the Switch 2 does not.
In terms of performance, the Switch 2 probably has a better GPU. However, it lacks the Steam Deck’s CPU power. And it only has 12GB of RAM compared to the Steam Deck’s 16GB of RAM. Will games look better on Switch 2? Only if CPU and RAM don’t serve as bottlenecks.
The next thing: Switch 2 is supposedly better because a joy-con can act as a mouse. But they’re really grasping at straws here because I can use an actual Bluetooth mouse with the Steam Deck—one which is more ergonomic too. Oh, and unlike the Switch 2, I can also use a Bluetooth keyboard too with a Steam Deck.
Apparently, the Steam Deck’s touchpad so “too awkward” compared to the Switch 2’s mouse. But you don’t use a mouse in handheld mode—no one does. Touchpads, on the other hand, do work in handheld mode. And I find them much more suitable for FPS and RTS games than an analog joystick.
Now for the article’s final point: the Steam Deck can’t play Switch 2 games. This is actually the most legitimate point. However, it cuts both ways too. Switch 2 can’t play decades of PC games, all which are accessible on Steam Deck. And I should know because I’m able to run literally thousands of games on my Steam Deck—many which don’t even run on Windows anymore without lots of modding.
Can Switch 2 play F.E.A.R. without needing to jailbreak and emulate it? Nope—so in terms of game library, Steam Deck has the win.
But ultimately, this is a silly comparison because the Steam Deck is already three years old at the moment. Of course the Switch 2 will be able to do some things better than Steam Deck. It should—it’s the newer piece of hardware.
However, when the Steam Deck 2 comes out—probably next year—how will the Switch 2 compare? I don’t know, but it will likely have all the advantages that the Steam Deck still has but with giant generational leap in terms of performance.
Right now, if I wanted to, I could get a Lenovo Legion Go S. And it would be leagues better than a Switch 2. It has a AMD Ryzen Z2 Go APU, 32GB of RAM, and 1 TB of storage—which absolutely wrecks the Switch 2 in terms of raw performance.
But the reason I’m holding off is because I think the Steam Deck 2 will be even better.
This doesn’t even touch about many points that makes the Steam Deck just plain better. The games are cheaper. You don’t have to pay for online multiplayer. You have access to multiple storefronts like GOG or itch.io. You can use it as a PC in desktop mode. I can go on.
Now do I think the Switch 2 is totally lacking in value? No. If I had a young child, I’d probably get them a Switch 2 simply because it’s more kid friendly.
However, I’m a full grown man. As for my kid? She’s turning 12-years-old in a few weeks so I think she’ll do just fine with a Steam Deck.
About that RAM argument, Steam includes Chromium that can consume up to 1.5 or even 2 GB for some people depending on circumstances (I checked myself when I had the Deck, it used 1.5 in desktop mode). I assume the OS on Switch is much more optimized. I wish Valve switched to something else, something more native.
The Steam Deck touchpads are literally the ONLY modern touchpads I like. Every other mother touchpad is absolutely atrocious because they don’t give you anything like a vibration to tell you your mouse is moving and you actually get some level of confirmation you clicked. It feels like every other touchpad out there now, I swear, requires you to attempt to click on the left/right mouse button (completely integrated into the touchpad) about a billion times before it registers that you clicked once.
Also, if the joycons for switch 2 are anywhere near as uncomfortable to hold for extended periods of time like they are for me with regular switch, I guarantee my hand would start hurting after a couple minutes of the, probably gonna be as responsive as a dead man to a cannonball to the face, mouse mode. The premise of turning what could be one of the worst controller designs I’ve ever seen into a mouse makes my hands bleed in pain without having to ever hold one.
Yep, and a wireless VR headset for your home gaming PC has steamdeck beat. So steamdeck only has value if you don’t already have a gaming computer. Or if you need to play on a bus and couldn’t handle added latency in the game you plan on playing.
In a VR headset, you have a 4k screen, or more than one, or a triple-wide 5760x1080 screen, or anything else you want, at 120hz. And you don’t have to look down at your hands to play it or hold your hands up. Virtual desktop is about 6ms latency for your own desktop(s) in your house, and about double that for your own desktop from someone else’s house or business. But tethered to a cell connection, latency can start to get out of hand. Or if you want to stream your computer from half-way around the world. Still useable, but it does limit the types of games you can play at that point.
But, having said that. I’m probably still gonna get a Switch 2. I still like Nintendo first-party games, and I don’t plan on stealing them.
And I still have a Steamdeck, I just rarely find a use for it.
Edit: also you can do perfect 3D monitors in a VR headset. Not to mention also VR…
You don’t get nauseous using them as a steamdeck upgrade. And Quest 2 sold more units than steamdeck(5x as many). That’s just one VR headset. Full day comfort is a 100$ mod.
With no subscription, just simply uploading from my GBA/DS/3DS/Switch to my Steamdeck… Nintendo for reasons completely lost to me refuses to allow that. Like, wth are they even doing over there to not have solved that issue day 1 on the switch.
Are you honestly asking why Nintendo doesn’t allow you to simply bypass purchasing their console? Really? Why do you think?
The trade-off of losing online features when emulating Nintendo games has never really felt that bad mostly because Nintendo’s online capabilities have always been total ass.
Nintendo for reasons completely lost to me refuses to allow that.
Because consoles are a net loss in terms of R&D, production, shipping, warranty claims for when they almost always fucked something on the first or second version, etc etc etc. Locking people into the platform means you make all your money on game sales, even 3rd party, indie, and asset flip shovelware makes Nintendo money. It’s the “Walled Garden” method, Apple is shit hot at this. They make an everloving fuck tonne of money from their app store. Even free apps have to pay to have the app hosted on the store servers, and in app purchases are subject to a percentage cut for Apple.
The fact that having digital backups of games/music/media you have purchased is perfectly legal in more than a couple countries, as is emulating, is a thorn in these sociopathic cancers of megacorpic greed’s paw. That’s why Ubisoft is pushing for widespread legal acknowledgement of “game purchases are actually just paying to be granted a revokable for any reason or no reason at all licence.” That’s (partly) why Nintendo is so very aggressive in their litigation of anyone who attempts to make a highly functioning emulator for one of their systems, often with games running better with higher resolution and more options for QoL things. Because instead of trying to sell to as many different systems as possible, they want literally all the money, and they refuse the idea that the little money sacks who buy their shit might actually be legally allowed to run back up copies of their purchases on hardware that wasn’t sold by them. Refuse the idea that the money sacks have rights or deserve to pay for something and actually own it.
I can imagine a dystopian future, where only few hardcopies/offline copies of literature survive. All art/media is only available on the cloud, which is constantly changed as per the agenda of the day.
All communication has to go through the cloud for authenticated. The police state is constantly scanning people if they have any sort of external storage device. USB ports are banned from being manufactured. Radio is banned.
Few people, the rebels, hoard the last bit of art and music in the form of LPs/cassettes,/canvas but it’s shared among people like contraband.
Gamers still can’t grasp that the Nintendo switch is for 6-12 year olds who wants to play Mario cart. And is marketed at their parents and grandparents.
Yeah and that’s why they priced it so much higher than the previous version. Switch 1 has shown that parents are willing to pay a ridiculous price just so they can get the Switch for Christmas. I bet most of the people who bought a Switch from a scalper was a parent.
The switch and switch 2 are better than all handheld PCs at present for one simple reason: it’s much simpler to obtain and use for the average consumer. That’s it. Average consumers don’t give a shit about teraflops and fps as long as it’s easy to use and still looks good.
You should give some of them a try. Nintendo is a shitty company sometimes, but some of their games speak for themselves - stuff like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Mario Kart 8 DX, Ring Fit Adventure, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Earthbound, etc. are all legendary for a reason.
I’ve gotten thousands of hours of play out of every Nintendo system I’ve ever owned (including the WiiU), because the games are just that damn good.
That said I love the Steam Deck as well, but it scratches a different itch. It has a much bigger library of awesome games, and it’s less restrictive than Nintendo’s walled garden approach to gaming.
TLDR; Steam Deck is great, but Switch 2 will be great as well. Gamers win with both choices.
i’m blown away that the switch 2 is so beefy. nintendo has been the “lower spec consoles but AMAZING first party games” company for as long as i can remember.
Okay, so I gotta admit, that article about the Switch 2 being not-so-bad actually convinced me. They’re right, it’s awesome for parties and two-player gaming on the go. I didn’t realize the hardware could do 3.2 teraflops docked (1.6 undocked)—the Deck only does 1.6!
Yeah, games are pricey, but I think Nintendo delivers good entertainment value.
The article makes a point out of mentioning that you wont be able to emulate switch 2 games on the deck due to hardware performance and emulation overhead.
Maybe 5 years into the future, but not now.
Also interested in any link suggestions for controllers that are as compact as switch joycons. Would be awesome for social gaming on the go.
-1: The comparison comes from price point and the fact that both systems are handheld play anywhere systems with docking capability for couch play.
-2: There are already arguably better spec’s handhelds in this category that would outperform both these systems, but the cost of them is largely a deciding factor and it comes with some tradeoffs that include OS (since these are windows only handhelds with the exception of the Legion Go S, meaning that if you don’t want windows you have to go to the added trouble of installing something like Bazzite).
-3: We know that just about every handheld on the market has some tradeoffs. The Legion Go has a beautiful screen and joycon-like detachable controllers. But it’s also heavier than the switch, and the steam deck and arguably less comfortable to hold for some. We know the the original ROG Ally had a bunch of problems including the fact that it would destroy its own SD card slot and potentially any SD card installed in it. It’s newest iteration is great (lots of fixes, better GPU/CPU, larger SDD, better battery life, better ergonomics, fixed SD card slot etc), however it’s also close to $1000. The Legion Go S has different storage capacities depending on which OS you chose at launch. Even now there’s different variants that give different performance at different price points (Z1 extreme vs Z2 Go). The Switch OG lacks emulation for a lot of newer games (Wii and DS games specifically). Those games are coming probably but they are available on other handhelds with just a little bit of extra work.
-4: Ease of play and ease of emulation are things people who aren’t buying these devices to tinker want. So the Switch 2 wins there. Just buy the subscription and you can emulate quite a lot of their gaming library with more to come.
-5: Expecting a publication largely catering to the fans of Nintendo to offer up its competition as the better bargain for the money is just… Silly. It doesn’t make sense.
The switch 2 doesn’t add enough things to the table to make me want to spend $450+ to buy it. It’s launch titles are not particularly compelling for me, and when you add their anti-emulation litigation to the pile and DCMA abuse, I just don’t feel like it’s something I’m currently willing to buy. On top of that there’s lots of accessibility improvements I would love to see including joycon styles for 2D platformers that include a real D pad, GameCube style Joycons, or even just Joycons that would allow those with partial impairment or disability to have greater access to their gaming library. There’s a lot of unexplored territory for the design and execution of this product that doesn’t include better graphics or being able to play cyberpunk 2077 and I think people forget that. Can you get such things on a steam deck? Yeah. Probably. But not natively docked to the system in handheld mode.
Both systems have pros and cons. This article isn’t bashing on the Steam Deck at all, just making the case for what the Switch 2 has going for it.
They say up front that this article is a response to the frankly obnoxious amount of “my gaming platform can beat up your gaming platform” circlejerking that has been going around - which you’re kinda perpetuating.
The Deck does not “obliterate” the Switch 2, and a headline like that makes you part of the problem.
I dislike a lot of things about the Switch 2, but one thing I give them is that now it has arguments to win in several fields to the Deck (which it should be fucking given lol) and I thought Steam Deck users would be a bit less loud… But I think I was wrong… Regardless I eagerly hope for a Steam Deck 2, and hopefully I’ll be able to get it officially in Mexico ffs.
For me it does. But I know that’s not objective fact. Just my subjective opinion.
The truth is, if what you want is “newest Nintendo games”, well, the Switch 2 is amazing.
I adjusted my mindset on games years ago. There are lots of games that I’d love to play, but because they aren’t on PC, I don’t play them. Because I already have more games than I could ever play. Hype and FOMO are powerful drugs, ones that I’m not immune to. But I am at least resistant to them.
The Steam Deck is a much better product from a value standpoint, a console will never be able to compare to a PC. So it’s kind of pointless to compare them in this regard.
The only reason, personally, to buy a Switch is for the joy-con games, like games to play with friends and family. Like you would with the Wii ( checks notes, almost 19 years ago…). For an actual handheld gaming device, obviously the Deck is the better choice.
Exactly. I personally do all my gaming on a desktop and have no desire for “mobile” gaming, but I’m super excited to get a Switch 2 just for introducing my very young kids to Split-screen Mario kart with that joycon wheel
That’s a point I didn’t even think of my sticks were not as smooth bought new ones opened up the back of the unit and about 30 mins of work had them swapped out and calibrated. Try doing that on joycon drift.
I’ve owned a Steam Deck for a while now, it’s pretty much as fussy as you want it to be. You can boot it up, download your games and be off to the races in minutes as easily as with any other console and you never have to see the Linux desktop. At the other end of the spectrum you can really get into the weeds with customisation and tinkering if that’s what you want, and the OS won’t get in your way. You can even replace it entirely.
IMO Valve have nailed usability while still treating their customers like adults with the Steam Deck and its an attitude that I hope we see more going forward.
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About that RAM argument, Steam includes Chromium that can consume up to 1.5 or even 2 GB for some people depending on circumstances (I checked myself when I had the Deck, it used 1.5 in desktop mode). I assume the OS on Switch is much more optimized. I wish Valve switched to something else, something more native.
you can install whatever browser you want though? on the swith I have never even thought of browsing the internet even if it had a usable browser
They are talking about the browser the steam client itself uses
Chromium as CFE I mean, not the browser. It consumes RAM and even CPU at all times, and Steam doesn’t work without it.
Not relying on CFE should been considered even more critical for handheld devices, as switching to more native solutions will save the battery time.
When is the video game community going to understand there’s no such thing as “better”. The whole “this vs that” or “us vs them” just needs to stop.
Valve is definitely a more ethical company but all the console crusading also gets tiresome
I mean, I also never take a gaming article seriously if it has the word “obliterate” in it.
Yes, we all know handhelds peaked with the DS (I am totally biased).
Biased, but absolutely right.
Based*
Nothing beats the DS Lite’s 15 hour battery life
Outstanding even in today’s days!
Before Steam Deck maybe.
Or maybe not.
There’s one objective metric: money.
PC games can be had for cheaper.
But how else are they going to convince simple minded people that can’t do any critical thinking?
I literally purchased Rog Ally X as a response to how shitty switch 2 felt. I then installed Bazzite os on it.
The Steam Deck touchpads are literally the ONLY modern touchpads I like. Every other mother touchpad is absolutely atrocious because they don’t give you anything like a vibration to tell you your mouse is moving and you actually get some level of confirmation you clicked. It feels like every other touchpad out there now, I swear, requires you to attempt to click on the left/right mouse button (completely integrated into the touchpad) about a billion times before it registers that you clicked once.
Also, if the joycons for switch 2 are anywhere near as uncomfortable to hold for extended periods of time like they are for me with regular switch, I guarantee my hand would start hurting after a couple minutes of the, probably gonna be as responsive as a dead man to a cannonball to the face, mouse mode. The premise of turning what could be one of the worst controller designs I’ve ever seen into a mouse makes my hands bleed in pain without having to ever hold one.
Yeah that’s crazy, the touchpads on the Steam Deck are really good…
Yep, and a wireless VR headset for your home gaming PC has steamdeck beat. So steamdeck only has value if you don’t already have a gaming computer. Or if you need to play on a bus and couldn’t handle added latency in the game you plan on playing.
In a VR headset, you have a 4k screen, or more than one, or a triple-wide 5760x1080 screen, or anything else you want, at 120hz. And you don’t have to look down at your hands to play it or hold your hands up. Virtual desktop is about 6ms latency for your own desktop(s) in your house, and about double that for your own desktop from someone else’s house or business. But tethered to a cell connection, latency can start to get out of hand. Or if you want to stream your computer from half-way around the world. Still useable, but it does limit the types of games you can play at that point.
But, having said that. I’m probably still gonna get a Switch 2. I still like Nintendo first-party games, and I don’t plan on stealing them.
And I still have a Steamdeck, I just rarely find a use for it.
Edit: also you can do perfect 3D monitors in a VR headset. Not to mention also VR…
VR headsets are still niche, and a lot of people find them uncomfortable for long sessions and/or get nauseous using them.
You don’t get nauseous using them as a steamdeck upgrade. And Quest 2 sold more units than steamdeck(5x as many). That’s just one VR headset. Full day comfort is a 100$ mod.
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Are you honestly asking why Nintendo doesn’t allow you to simply bypass purchasing their console? Really? Why do you think?
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Can you play online with your friends?
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The trade-off of losing online features when emulating Nintendo games has never really felt that bad mostly because Nintendo’s online capabilities have always been total ass.
I hope this sentiment changes with Mario Kart World… I mean, I wouldn’t still pay for NSO anyway, but they should really focus in improving this.
Because consoles are a net loss in terms of R&D, production, shipping, warranty claims for when they almost always fucked something on the first or second version, etc etc etc. Locking people into the platform means you make all your money on game sales, even 3rd party, indie, and asset flip shovelware makes Nintendo money. It’s the “Walled Garden” method, Apple is shit hot at this. They make an everloving fuck tonne of money from their app store. Even free apps have to pay to have the app hosted on the store servers, and in app purchases are subject to a percentage cut for Apple.
The fact that having digital backups of games/music/media you have purchased is perfectly legal in more than a couple countries, as is emulating, is a thorn in these sociopathic cancers of megacorpic greed’s paw. That’s why Ubisoft is pushing for widespread legal acknowledgement of “game purchases are actually just paying to be granted a revokable for any reason or no reason at all licence.” That’s (partly) why Nintendo is so very aggressive in their litigation of anyone who attempts to make a highly functioning emulator for one of their systems, often with games running better with higher resolution and more options for QoL things. Because instead of trying to sell to as many different systems as possible, they want literally all the money, and they refuse the idea that the little money sacks who buy their shit might actually be legally allowed to run back up copies of their purchases on hardware that wasn’t sold by them. Refuse the idea that the money sacks have rights or deserve to pay for something and actually own it.
You will own nothing, and you will be happy.
I can imagine a dystopian future, where only few hardcopies/offline copies of literature survive. All art/media is only available on the cloud, which is constantly changed as per the agenda of the day. All communication has to go through the cloud for authenticated. The police state is constantly scanning people if they have any sort of external storage device. USB ports are banned from being manufactured. Radio is banned. Few people, the rebels, hoard the last bit of art and music in the form of LPs/cassettes,/canvas but it’s shared among people like contraband.
This can be an awesome movie :P
Yeah… that’s… depressingly accurate for the way things are going.
I don’t think these systems are comparable. They serve different markets.
Gamers still can’t grasp that the Nintendo switch is for 6-12 year olds who wants to play Mario cart. And is marketed at their parents and grandparents.
You are seriously underestimating Nintendo’s demographic. So many adults are their customers.
They are that’s true, but it’s because their parents bought it for them when they were young.
Yeah and that’s why they priced it so much higher than the previous version. Switch 1 has shown that parents are willing to pay a ridiculous price just so they can get the Switch for Christmas. I bet most of the people who bought a Switch from a scalper was a parent.
The switch and switch 2 are better than all handheld PCs at present for one simple reason: it’s much simpler to obtain and use for the average consumer. That’s it. Average consumers don’t give a shit about teraflops and fps as long as it’s easy to use and still looks good.
Except I couldn’t give a fuck about Nintendo games. Never played ‘em and probably won’t ever want to either.
Said the not average consumer. Proving my point for me
You should give some of them a try. Nintendo is a shitty company sometimes, but some of their games speak for themselves - stuff like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Mario Kart 8 DX, Ring Fit Adventure, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Earthbound, etc. are all legendary for a reason.
I’ve gotten thousands of hours of play out of every Nintendo system I’ve ever owned (including the WiiU), because the games are just that damn good.
That said I love the Steam Deck as well, but it scratches a different itch. It has a much bigger library of awesome games, and it’s less restrictive than Nintendo’s walled garden approach to gaming.
TLDR; Steam Deck is great, but Switch 2 will be great as well. Gamers win with both choices.
Idk if id include ring fit adventure in that list but yeah
Also don’t need fuckin anchor arms to carry it around
If only other handheld games consoles (that aren’t “retro” ones) tꝏk lightweightedness into consideration !
ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏk
i’m blown away that the switch 2 is so beefy. nintendo has been the “lower spec consoles but AMAZING first party games” company for as long as i can remember.
Okay, so I gotta admit, that article about the Switch 2 being not-so-bad actually convinced me. They’re right, it’s awesome for parties and two-player gaming on the go. I didn’t realize the hardware could do 3.2 teraflops docked (1.6 undocked)—the Deck only does 1.6!
Yeah, games are pricey, but I think Nintendo delivers good entertainment value.
You could achieve the exact same with a steam Deck with emulation and buying a few more controllers
The article makes a point out of mentioning that you wont be able to emulate switch 2 games on the deck due to hardware performance and emulation overhead.
Maybe 5 years into the future, but not now.
Also interested in any link suggestions for controllers that are as compact as switch joycons. Would be awesome for social gaming on the go.
I’m just going to point out some things.
-1: The comparison comes from price point and the fact that both systems are handheld play anywhere systems with docking capability for couch play.
-2: There are already arguably better spec’s handhelds in this category that would outperform both these systems, but the cost of them is largely a deciding factor and it comes with some tradeoffs that include OS (since these are windows only handhelds with the exception of the Legion Go S, meaning that if you don’t want windows you have to go to the added trouble of installing something like Bazzite).
-3: We know that just about every handheld on the market has some tradeoffs. The Legion Go has a beautiful screen and joycon-like detachable controllers. But it’s also heavier than the switch, and the steam deck and arguably less comfortable to hold for some. We know the the original ROG Ally had a bunch of problems including the fact that it would destroy its own SD card slot and potentially any SD card installed in it. It’s newest iteration is great (lots of fixes, better GPU/CPU, larger SDD, better battery life, better ergonomics, fixed SD card slot etc), however it’s also close to $1000. The Legion Go S has different storage capacities depending on which OS you chose at launch. Even now there’s different variants that give different performance at different price points (Z1 extreme vs Z2 Go). The Switch OG lacks emulation for a lot of newer games (Wii and DS games specifically). Those games are coming probably but they are available on other handhelds with just a little bit of extra work.
-4: Ease of play and ease of emulation are things people who aren’t buying these devices to tinker want. So the Switch 2 wins there. Just buy the subscription and you can emulate quite a lot of their gaming library with more to come.
-5: Expecting a publication largely catering to the fans of Nintendo to offer up its competition as the better bargain for the money is just… Silly. It doesn’t make sense.
The switch 2 doesn’t add enough things to the table to make me want to spend $450+ to buy it. It’s launch titles are not particularly compelling for me, and when you add their anti-emulation litigation to the pile and DCMA abuse, I just don’t feel like it’s something I’m currently willing to buy. On top of that there’s lots of accessibility improvements I would love to see including joycon styles for 2D platformers that include a real D pad, GameCube style Joycons, or even just Joycons that would allow those with partial impairment or disability to have greater access to their gaming library. There’s a lot of unexplored territory for the design and execution of this product that doesn’t include better graphics or being able to play cyberpunk 2077 and I think people forget that. Can you get such things on a steam deck? Yeah. Probably. But not natively docked to the system in handheld mode.
Both systems have pros and cons. This article isn’t bashing on the Steam Deck at all, just making the case for what the Switch 2 has going for it.
They say up front that this article is a response to the frankly obnoxious amount of “my gaming platform can beat up your gaming platform” circlejerking that has been going around - which you’re kinda perpetuating.
The Deck does not “obliterate” the Switch 2, and a headline like that makes you part of the problem.
I dislike a lot of things about the Switch 2, but one thing I give them is that now it has arguments to win in several fields to the Deck (which it should be fucking given lol) and I thought Steam Deck users would be a bit less loud… But I think I was wrong… Regardless I eagerly hope for a Steam Deck 2, and hopefully I’ll be able to get it officially in Mexico ffs.
For me it does. But I know that’s not objective fact. Just my subjective opinion.
The truth is, if what you want is “newest Nintendo games”, well, the Switch 2 is amazing.
I adjusted my mindset on games years ago. There are lots of games that I’d love to play, but because they aren’t on PC, I don’t play them. Because I already have more games than I could ever play. Hype and FOMO are powerful drugs, ones that I’m not immune to. But I am at least resistant to them.
The Steam Deck is a much better product from a value standpoint, a console will never be able to compare to a PC. So it’s kind of pointless to compare them in this regard.
The only reason, personally, to buy a Switch is for the joy-con games, like games to play with friends and family. Like you would with the Wii ( checks notes, almost 19 years ago…). For an actual handheld gaming device, obviously the Deck is the better choice.
Exactly. I personally do all my gaming on a desktop and have no desire for “mobile” gaming, but I’m super excited to get a Switch 2 just for introducing my very young kids to Split-screen Mario kart with that joycon wheel
That’s a point I didn’t even think of my sticks were not as smooth bought new ones opened up the back of the unit and about 30 mins of work had them swapped out and calibrated. Try doing that on joycon drift.
my steam deck can play switch and nintendo games and steam games checkmate
Different markets, with some overlap.
The Switch is liked by people who just want to play games with minimal fuss.
Steam deck is as plug’n’play as it gets. With direct steam game purchase you just play.
Where do you see more fuss?
I’ve owned a Steam Deck for a while now, it’s pretty much as fussy as you want it to be. You can boot it up, download your games and be off to the races in minutes as easily as with any other console and you never have to see the Linux desktop. At the other end of the spectrum you can really get into the weeds with customisation and tinkering if that’s what you want, and the OS won’t get in your way. You can even replace it entirely.
IMO Valve have nailed usability while still treating their customers like adults with the Steam Deck and its an attitude that I hope we see more going forward.