Steam Deck Won’t Survive 2025 Without A Significant Upgrade
www.forbes.com
When it launched in 2022, Valve's Steam Deck was peerless. Less than 3 years later, the competition is poised to leapfrog it. What can Valve do to stay relevant?

I personally have a huge backlog of games I’m happily playing through on the deck. And, having been burnt a few times (Cyberpunk, No Mans Sky …), I very rarely buy new full priced games anyway (better to wait for a discount and some patches!)

But according to this rather clickbate article …

In the last month alone, we’ve seen three disappointing examples of games that are too demanding for the Deck. Star Wars Outlaws is unplayable on Low settings, even with FSR set to “Ultra Performance.” Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 can’t reach a steady 30fps at the lowest quality setting. And based on the demo, Final Fantasy 16 is unplayable without FSR and Frame Generation, and afflicted with stuttering and horrible frame pacing with those scaling features enabled.

  • DumbAceDragon@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Still the only handheld PC that doesn’t come with a dogshit OS and an abysmal battery life. The deck doesn’t do well despite its low specs and alternative OS, it does well because of them.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      The fact that the OS is replaceable sealed the deal for me. Then the marketing page is claiming they will make parts available for DIY repairs? Incredible.

      If I am being honest, I prefer the Switch form factor with the dumb little controllers. I like it so much that I could maybe accept its lesser performance. But it is locked down, centralized store, some subscription bullshit…

      I’ve found a Steam Deck fits really comfortably in the hands. I can settle for having an additional wireless controller to play it from afar.

      • moonpiedumplings@programming.dev
        0·
        2 months ago

        If I am being honest, I prefer the Switch form factor with the dumb little controllers

        Android phone + Telescopic gamepad + winlator might be what you want…

        (Or you can use one of the switch emulators on android…)

      • sylver_dragon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 months ago

        The fact that the OS is replaceable sealed the deal for me.

        And the default OS isn’t locked down and doesn’t try to prevent you from doing other stuff with it. What you want to do isn’t in the Steam interface? Switch over to desktop mode and you have full access to the underlying OS.

        My only complaint with the Steamdeck is that I find using the touchpad on the right side for long gaming sessions hurts my hands. I 3d printed some grips which help; but, I think my hands just don’t like the orientation. Still love my deck though.