Valves the only one with a major digital store. Everyone else is making money off hardware margin and frequent hardware releases. I want a smaller one though. Pretty much a Switch 2 sized handheld. Maybe even smaller. Different levels of portability. Like I don’t need to be on a device that can run at 15-30w like current Steam Deck competitors when I’m just trying to play Persona 5 on an airplane. You can play that set at lowest TDP on a Steam Deck and hit 30fps
I mean everything’s price is out of control. But, other than that, yeah, I’m not surprised. It’s not surprising that massive companies just wouldn’t understand what made the Steam Deck great in the first place.
I still recommend it to most people. I still think it’s the best on the market. Because I still think that the more open nature of the device, its trackpads and that SteamOS are killer features.
#TuckFrump
Crys in Australian
Newer handhelds might have more power, but I still think the Deck is the best value for what it offers.
I would love to see a lower powered and low budget focused one. Powerful enough for locally running a web browser, normal Linux stuff like SSH and some low spec games like CDDA. Otherwise most games would be played by streaming it from your desktop.
There are loads and loads of really cheap Android-based emulator handhelds. The YouTuber TechDweeb does lots of reviews of these devices. These things have effectively spawned their own retro gaming ecosystem around them.
An alternative is to pick up a used New Nintendo 3DS (New being part of the name, distinguishing it from the original 3DS which is way less powerful). This device can be hacked to run many different emulators and play thousands of games. While the screens are not as good as the best Android handhelds, the form factor is ideally suited for running DS and 3DS games (which obviously run natively on the device) while still being great for older single-screen systems (the unused touch screen is excellent for emulator controls such as pause/resume and save/load state).
In that form factor/size are the android handhelds better screens worth the trade-off of what I assume is better build quality from Nintendo (I’ve never used a ds so I assume the build quality is better)
A used PS Vita would be better I feel. Similar size, and just as hackable (Emu4Vita). Except a Vita has:
- better screen
- Bluetooth audio (more and more headphones are Bluetooth)
- A functional sleep mode (the 3ds doesn’t go into sleep mode unless it’s a 3DS/DS game. So any emulator game just turns off the screen but still runs and drains the battery)
- A possibly standard connector (the 2000 series uses micro-USB)
The only advantage a 3DS has is that it has 3DS and DS games, but the Vita has PS Vita games, PSP games, and PSX games to its advantage.
My N3DS runs PSX games just fine via RetroArch.
The Bluetooth audio sounds really nice though.
I don’t know anything about the PSP or Vita libraries so I don’t know why I would want them. The DS and 3DS library is absolutely ginormous so that’s a big draw for me.
As for sleeping/power drain, I haven’t had too many issues since I turned the brightness down. I don’t have enough free time in a day to drain the whole battery and I plug it in to charge every night. Maybe the sleep issues with emulators have been fixed? I use RetroArch and it seems to work fine coming in and out of sleep.
What PSX games did you try? I tried Silent Hill and it was more of a sideshow than a game.
As for the power drain, I don’t always have time to charge every night and that’s when I see the problems. (Traveling and such)
Did you try it on a 3DS or a New 3DS? They look so similar and have such similar names that it’s easy to confuse them but the hardware difference is enormous.
Also when did you last try it? There’s been a ton of work put into the dynarec PSX core (I forget the exact name of the emulator. It’s basically an alphabet soup name) for RetroArch that’s made night and day performance improvements.
I can’t help much on the travelling bit. I’m actually surprised that a PS Vita would last multiple days of all-day gaming while travelling without being able to charge.
I have a N3DS. As for when I last tried, would have been 8 to 12 months ago max.
And the Vita doesn’t has multiple days of all day gaming, it has about the same amount of play time as the 3DS, but it can be left in sleep mode for much longer. After 2-3 days of being in sleep mode (normal, not an emulator), the 3DS battery is drained and i need to recharge it. The Vita can sit for a week or 2 and barely have lost any power.
PSP had an amazing library of games that I honestly miss and am glad to see some of them coming back soon in the way of spiritual successors.
Some of the tops for me were:
Monster hunter Cladun Dj max Patapon Loco roco Final fantasy dissidia Half minute hero Lumines Patchwork hero Holy invasion of privacy badman! What did I do to deserve this? Disgeae
Some of those definitely look like weird and creative games!
I’m not too fond of the post-6 Final Fantasy games, mostly for their looks, so Dissidia doesn’t appeal to me. I do really like Final Fantasy Tactics though I can play it on my N3DS (along with FFTA and A2).
My friend has been begging me to get into the Fire Emblem series and when I do that will be a big rabbit hole. I also want to play the Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton games (which really take advantage of the DS hardware).
If you like VN style games, I’d recommend “Hotel Dusk: Room 215” and “Last Window: The Secret of Cape West”. (Same genre as Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright). Both are on the DS, and each takes advantage of the hardware as well.
So essentially a Steam Link/Moonlight thin client? Yeah, I like the idea of that.
You want a linux psp, a media device that had a web browser too. The psp was som far ahead of its time.
I think a budget android handheld could work well for game streaming. TechDweeb and Retro Game Corps newest videos show android handhelds that cost less than 100€.
The android console did not do do well. I mean it made a lot of money, but died not last long after release.
With google looking at locking down Android and preventing you from installing things on it I would rather not
I care less about power and more about silence. I would pay double for a Steam Deck that doesn’t sound like a hair dryer when I try to play Baldur’s Gate 3 on low.
That’s kinda about power though. Think about going up a pulling a trailer up a hill with a vehicle that has a small engine versus a bigger one.
The small engine vehicle might make the hill, but it’s going up gear lower, rev higher, and probably heat up a bit.
The bigger vehicle will handle the hill and load with more grace, but may also use more fuel in everyday situations or cost more.
BG3 is kinda stretching the Deck’s engine (APU), and the fans are running like made to compensate for the heat running at 100% for longer periods. I’ve a few games that stretch the Deck’s capabilities so for those I just stream from my more powerful PC
Thats only Part of it, the others are efficence, Formfaktor and weight. Make it 2-5cm thicker and its now nearly silent
I think even 1cm would be enough. Take a look at the ifixit steamdeck heatsink replacement guide to see how small the heatsink is.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Deck+Heatsink+Replacement/148904
I was thinking about a bigger fan. Diddnt someone bolt a pc fan on? Dont remember, but that was my tought tiny fan replacing with Silent 80-140 and the noise is gone.
Once again Valve proves they actually understand what people want; a relatively cheap and effective system that lets people play the games they want to play
Dude it’s my favorite PC in a very very long time. I will definitely be installing Linux on my laptop at some point soon.
Well people also want HL3, and here we are…
The hype train for hl3 is so off the rails that valve can’t release it. It would never live up to the hype, so it’s a pretty sound decision not to make it.
They should make the game where, after the opening credits, it just says “There, we did it. Fuck off” and then rolls end credits.
Two things massively help Valve:
Steam is a goddamned money printing machine, they are the most profitable software company per capita, per employee… possibly bar none.
Also… they’re not publically traded.
They do not have investors constantly forcing maximization of short term profits at the cost of literally everything else.
… So they can afford to … not price gauge everyone.
… So they can afford to … not price gauge everyone.
They must be too busy enabling children gambling on hats
Also… they’re not publically traded.
They do not have investors constantly forcing maximization of short term profits at the cost of literally everything else.
I fantasize about the idea of starting private companies for things currently dominated by public companies, with the sole idea of not being greedy and shitty.
Probably the biggest advantage they have is that they can sell devices at cost or even at a loss and still profit from increased Steam game sales, like how other console makers operate.
3rd parties can’t compete with that. Not even close. If there’s no profit from the device itself, there’s no motivation to make it. And apart from the hardware cost, they also need to pay for the R&D and corporate maintenance. They can’t compete with the Steam Deck. If they made an exact Steam Deck clone, they’d have to make it, idk ~$40 more to make a profit, but no one would buy it because the Steam Deck is the same for less. They have to give it slightly higher specs to give it a niche. That might take hardware cost up to $500 and then charge $150 more to make up for the distributor fees and then $100 to make it actually profitable. But at that point, they’ve already lost most budget and casual gamers, they might as well aim at whales and enthusiasts and make profits $300. If a $950 device sells half as well as a $750 device, it’s still more profitable.
Edit: more realistic numbers
The Steam Deck is not sold at a loss. The initial pricing for the 64 GB unit was barely profitable, but this quickly changed with production ramping up.
This was confirmed by Valve themselves in an interview that happened months after Gabe’s famous comments about the pricing.
So yes, Valve profits from the games too, but that’s not used to subsidize the Steam Deck’s price.
Could there be an argument about the R&D costs not being factored in there? So for companies that can’t compete, its literally a skill issue.
Yep, this is a good explanation of more of the nitty gritty of it in more granular detail!
When you can afford to eat some of the cost… or… you don’t have shareholders telling you not to do that… well, then you get good ole ‘how capitalism is supposed to work! ™’.
Problem of course being that uh, you can just chase the luxury market for greater profit margins, stop making shit for the poors… this can work well in the short/medium term, but in the long run… if everyone does that…
… then you destroy your customer base, and the entire economy, and probably yourself.
And that’s not even getting into how companies have their own version of ‘keeping up with the joneses’… its called going into massive debt to fund an expansion because your competitor just did that… and then going into more debt to finance a stock buyback… but hey nbd, companies can fail and go bankrupt, no problem, everyone other than those helming the ship get fucked, they get golden parachutes.
Sure would be neat if we maybe had some other kind of system idk
I honestly don’t understand why most companies aren’t private instead of public. Like which founder looks forward to answering to investors when they could just be answerable to themselves and their employees and maybe board, like are they looking for a massive exit payout by going public or to raise funds to become a bigger company, but I argue if you are making enough to be profitable why chase being bigger
Because public companies get a huge infusion of cash from their IPO.
This makes them a much bigger fish in the pond.
Big fish eats the little fish.
Grow or die.
The kind of core problem with a market based economy is that markets almost always tend toward consolidation over time… and you have to have a well maintained set of regulators and laws to keep up with industries to keep this in check.
But those corps tend to have so much money and influence that they just buy the government via outright bribes/corruption and PR campaigns to dupe the masses into supporting politicians and policies that will be corpo friendly.
In short… most companies actually are private. 9/10 new business fail in a year or two, largely because they cant compete in a world dominated by a small number of very well known, very big fish.
…
Like uh, think of this.
Stock Exchanges?
Those aren’t government entities. Those are companies, private companies.
A really good strategy for a marketplace economy… is to literally be the marketplace, the platform.
Thats why basically every large game publisher either is trying to or tried to be their own content platform.
Mostly this hasn’t worked at all, but uh take Roblox, thats pretty wildy successful as more of a platform for games, than a specific game.
Its garrysmod but executed with uh… better business strategy (massively barring all the pedo problems but hey thats the cost of doing business apparently!).
The super uber game that all AAA game publishers keep trying to build and mostly failing at is a persistent world of some kind that allows for it to be its own contained ecosystem for new dlc, new cosmetics… the game isnt even fundamentally important, its the ability to have the game recieve constant inflows of money.
Gacha games exemplify this amazingly well, and they’ve been, by $$$ transaction volume, larger than more conventional games for a decade now… there is little pure monetary incentive to make a high quality game when the market keeps proving basically low quality slop that looks pretty, and can be microminetized, is an extremely effective business model.
Its basically just designing a video game as an addictive drug.
You don’t want to be profitable. You want to be rich
I think the big difference is that they seem to be optimizing for customer satisfaction where others are not.
My favorite example I use often is how the Steam Deck comes with a case. It’s free and there’s not even an option to not get it. They know you need one, they include it. The Switch doesn’t come with a case. They know you need one but they don’t care. You’ll buy one if you want it bad enough and that’s more revenue.
It’s just a different type of optimization.
I’m still amazed that the Lenovo Legion Go costs almost $300 more than the SD but does not come with a case.
To be fair, Steam makes money from the games, Lenovo do not
I have a switch that never left the house, definitely not needed.
I have a switch
I’m sorry for your lo$$.
Yeah its pretty shit, only want it for mario kart, odyssey and super mario bros.
Wonder was ass, absolutely the worst I have ever played of those games.
I had a first gen and bought it at a discount (10% for Newsletter sign up I immediately cancelled after ordering hah). Iirc it cost me about 350€ which was still a lot but compared to what’s going on now…
Gifted it to my mother for the grandkids because I bought a steamdeck and never used the switch again.
Don’t forget battery life. Most of those systems get some pretty awful battery life, or are comically large.
the two things that made the game boy a success: “good enough” system with a great battery life all for a great price
its partly windows, and partly 8 core AMD CCDs that handhelds dont need.
Lenovo was given a holy ball (Z2 go cpu, basically 4c/8t zen 3 cpu and 12 rdna 2 cu cores (as apposed to the zen 2 and 8 cu rdna2 the steam deck has) and if they priced it at 600 tops and go down from there. it would be extremely competitive.
lenovo is basically like nah, 750$ it is. and i think its the reverse (starts at 600 and goes up)
They have advantage of being able to sell at almost cost because they make so much on game sales. Like the other console vendors.
Actually kind of unfair business practice.
Ironically, leveraging this kind of tactic is what allowed Google, Amazon and Apple and Microsoft to become as huge as they did, as fast as they did.
Got a whole bunch of lines of business that can functionally subsidize other ventures, so they can make a push for market share.
But of course this doesn’t take too long to turn your whole economy into oligopoly, and thus your society into oligarchy… at best.
I… I think Gabe really just isn’t as fundamentally awful of a person as most other tech company heads.
Yeah, he’s got a yacht, but he could be so, so much fucking worse…
I mean that’s just how consoles are, except Valve does let you just use it as a normal pc so you can use other stores if you want to. Still an advantage to them
This is just… not true?
The Deck ranges from 420 to 680. The Legion Go S is 520, right in the middle of that. The Z1 Extreme ROG Ally is 670, right in line with the top of the line Deck (and noticeably more powerful). The Switch 2 is 470, on the cheaper side and also a fair bit beefier.
This article is arguing that having next-gen chips in boutique devices for 1K is a) a new development, and b) a bad thing. It is neither.
Before the Deck went mass market with PC handhelds they would routinely be a lot more expensive. The original Ayaneo was between 800 and 900 in 2021. The Pro model went up to 1200.
I want those things to exist. I want GPD to cram a Strix Halo into a handheld with a removable battery. I want Ayaneo to build a dual screen clamshell. I want Odin to slap a Xbox controller around an iPad. I want them to make a dumb console that spits out its buttons so you can flip them around. I want vertical handhelds. All that kooky weirdness is experimenting with new form factors and parts in ways that will move the segment forward. Without Ayaneo, Odin or GPD being dumb enough to cram a laptop into a handheld there’d be no Steam Deck in the first place.
Let the people who like weird hardware dump a grand or two into those weird things and that’s how you eventually get a comfortably priced for-the-rest-of-us device from Valve or Asus that takes the ideas from those that work.
And Steam sales subsidize the deck, too.
Sure. Maybe? The Deck isn’t that expensive, and despite being relatively limited runs it definitely has some benefits from scale. For one it’s a custom APU, so you have to assume there’s a specific deal with AMD.
Valve is certainly a first party that benefits from software sales primarily, so it makes sense for them to go to some lengths to invest in bringing people over, but I’m not sure that they are actively subsidizing the Deck, the price seems pretty reasonable. I’m sure they don’t make a ton of money from it, though, so they definitely get to thin those margins up a LOT compared with the pure hardware manufacturers, let alone with the tiny companies making handhelds one at a time.
I completely agree. I passed over the Steam Deck and went for the MSI Claw 8 instead. I was willing to pay the extra for a waaaay better CPU/GPU combo and - the killer feature IMHO - not one, but two Thunderbolt ports. Long term, this means I can expect a longer life out of my MSI than the Steam Deck is likely to get, but also means when the GPU does start to chug I can connect an eGPU to it’s dock.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean I don’t rate the Steam Deck - I really, really do - and it’s level of capability and price-point will act as a stabalising point for the wider industry, but I paid more for a better device and got my money’s worth.
You went for an Intel handheld? I salute you, sir, that’s a deep cut.
As one of the five people on the planet who own an Intel GPU I firmly believe we are in a very exclusive club that will one day do wonders for hardware archaeology.
We had a bunch of laptops at work with ARC GPUs in them. The vendor supplied one of them as test units saying they were ideal as portable 8K video editing machines, to which I replied - in exactly these words - “oh, fuck off”. But then we tested them and they’re honestly excellent and run a lot cooIer and longer than the AMD/Intel+Nvidia equivalents. I had to apologise. I got to test the Claw side-by-side with the Steam Deck playing RDR2 and Forza Horizon 5 and that sealed the deal. And when the ARC GPU does start groaning then, like I said, it’s eGPU time. The ARC is probably never going to bother the top-tier GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, but for portable and, I dare say, midrange desktop gaming it’s ideal.
Mudman here with the most salient point and better written then my “fuck off if you don’t want those devices you don’t have to buy them” but also the used market for those devices is way weirder, I grabbed a Z1 extreme Ally for $250, I’m also for sure ordering a Ayn Thor at 10 tonight, but I enjoy playing with weird hardware more than I do the games tbh
I choose to read that as a genuine compliment.
And yeah, man, these weird devices are being sold to weird people who like them for what they are. Which also means when the next weird thing comes out those weirdos are likely to get upsold and resell older stuff. All of these things are going to be fantastic eBay haul Youtube videos from retro hardware people in the 2070s, assuming we avoid going full Mad Max Idiocracy that long.
It was, I read that like a beautifully worded rebuttal. And yeah once you’re really in that subculture you kind of learn to buy and sell and it mostly washes out as a free hobby. I buy a handful of lower end shit on Aliexpress during a sale, get to try stuff out, put Cfw on it and sell for a small profit, I then use those profits to buy other shit
Total agreement.
It sucks when a device category dies and disappears. Most people might not care, but those who do really do, and it sucks when you can’t upgrade to what you want anymore.
I’m not a handheld guy, but for me, it’s phones with keyboards.
So if there’s somebody making boutique devices for niche audiences, more power to them!
Handheld gaming PCs are really not necessary devices, so if you can’t afford a high-end one, get a cheap one. And if you can’t afford that, stick a gamepad on your phone and boot up a switch emulator or winlator.
Leave people their niche hobbies!
I don’t really know what demographic you’re chasing if you’re going after people wanting top of the line specs on a handheld.
The only companies that can really compete with Valve for scale are MAYBE Asus. And if they just release approximately the same SKU as Valve or one with minor updates they can maybe get some market share but… why would you not buy the Valve one in that case?
So we instead get a case where they leverage something closer to their gaming laptops SKU… and the price goes up a lot. Although, to be clear, 1k for a “gaming laptop” is actually a REALLY good price… which is why gaming laptops are a stupid purchase.
And that mostly just leaves the Aya Neos and GPDs of the world. They more or less paved the way for Valve but they just can’t produce (and import) at scale to compete so you mostly get niche SKUs that specifically target a type of gaming (often emulation) or come with keyboards everyone hates and so forth.
Which sucks because I really would like there to be competition to encourage Valve to keep pushing the envelope… and Valve would likely like it so they don’t have to release a new gameboy every other year.
I find this train of thought weird, because these are all niche devices.
It’s strange to hear that there’s no demographic for boutique handhelds at the same time any mention that the Switch sold an order of magnitude more than the Deck gets a dozen responses that the Deck is “experimental” or “a first try” or “not competing directly”.
And hey, all that’s true. The Deck will never move 150 million consoles or sell 5 million in a week. There’s value in limited run hardware that does things that aren’t mainstream propositions alongside the “let’s get every kid to get one of these from their grandma” devices.
They probably fear that Nintendo already has that market secured.
@etchinghillside @Fubarberry I guess if your device is not really scaleable, the only way to make any money is shoot for the top end.
Steam has the platform to recoup the hardware costs. They are selling PC-based consoles, while the rest is selling handheld-shaped PCs.
The joke is you n all of them - I’m an adult and I enjoy coming home and playing PC games on my PC with its large gaming PC monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
I’m glad you all love your handhelds, but I’m good without one.
Well, this sure is an useless comment
I have a gaming pc monitor, keyboard, and trackball (no reason to debase myself and use a mouse) all on my Steam deck. And if I want to take my Steam deck with me to work, I can do that too.
USB-C docking station mater race.
