Obi has been harassing me for a switch, which i am totally averse to, i can’t stand nintendo. Never have.
But i have been tentatively considering buying him a steam deck, as i have a massive library, games are cheaper and he already plays them all to death (hes got something ridiculous like 500 hours in just cause 3) and just curious what the compatibility is like with most stuff…
Also, the base model is on offer at the moment but I’m not sure whether to get that or the OLED one for him.
I bought the base LCD model a few weeks ago for a little bit over 300 €. It’s amazing.
Setup was a little finicky. It seems to get stuck during initial installation quite often. Rebooting the device did seem to help as well as separating wifi frequencies (2.4 / 5 Ghz) to different networks. I also had to troubleshoot some missing stuff in desktop mode.
That said, the support and possibilities of this thing are amazing.
I don’t regret getting the LCD version. I’ve never had a direct comparision to the OLED but for the price you can’t do much wrong.
My colleague has one and we bought one for the company because it is an awesome demo/showcase device for our plugins to take on conventions.
Going with Valve’s philosophy, it is probably the most open and free (as in free speech) of all the handheld consoles. You can even run Windows on it (but please don’t). Very easy to install other operating systems on, very hackable (in the sense of, you can run any kind of software on it that runs on x86_64 architecture).
Are you familiar with protondb? It lists how well games run on proton and on the steam deck.
I don’t have a steam deck but… I have an ASUS Rog Ally X
I got it for camping trips and those occasional week long business trips. Works good, I get good use out of it when I’m away from the house for long periods of time.
I chose the Ally over the Steam deck simply for more platforms support.
Asus does an Xbox version of the Ally X now as well.
I’ve had a Steam Deck for a while now, LCD 512GB model. I LOVE that thing. I play it on the train whenever I go to the office or any travel really.
It’s amazing to be able to suspend it, then just turn it on and continue playing. The battery will drain over a few days when suspended though.
Almost every game just works on the Steam Deck.
I still look games up on ProtonDB but it is very rare to have something not work out of the box.
There are 3 categories of exceptions:
online games that have turned off Linux support on purpose in their anitcheat. Screw them.
old games may need some fiddling (OG Crysis did). Not much more than on Windows 10, where it also didn’t work out of the box. Many old games work better on Proton/SteamOS than on Windows 11.
some obscure games just use weird functions or whatever and don’t work well. Laat I checked, CMANO or Dangerous Waters had issues.
However, these are rare cases I have come across over almost 2 years of constant gaming. The vast majority of games just works out of the box
I just want to say again that the Deck is amazing. It can do so much.
I’ve played
Pc games:
Death Stranding
MGS V
Forza Horizon 4
Dirt Rally 2
Mass Effect Legendary Edition (did require an internet connection for a bit during startup but could continue?playing without, on the train)
Mud Runner
Skald
Jedi Fallen Order
Very old pc games:
Red Faction Guerrilla Steam Edition (Obi would LOVE this one) (the only game ever with great destruction physics)
Dangerous Waters (yes, the 2006 one!) (Battery lasts forever on this one, great game in case of severe delays)
And any emulation you can think of. I played a few PS1 (MGS 1) and PSP games for a bit but have so many great PC games to play through that I haven’t gotten around to them again.
FWIW, if he wants Mario Kart or Zelda, you can emulate that too.
The games you generally can’t play are big modern online games like Fortnite, but I can’t imagine you’d want Obi playing that anyways. Or yourself, for that matter
Absolutely no limits. You can access the desktop from the main menu and then it’s just a linux SteamOS pc that can do anything with no limits. I have standalone DCS running on mine. No Steam involvement whatsoever.
edit to add: That’s just to install anything. it can be run straight after starting the device. No need to menu dance. It’ll show up your steam library as like a fake game the same way you can add any software currently in steam (add non-steam game)
If it was me who’s playing I might try it and ditch the switch2, but I don’t want to spend time learning to emulate stuff (although it can be fun, we are playing PS3 games on PC after the old PS3 died) and then possibly still not have it running quite smoothly on the deck, all for a game I’m not really interested in.
I have enough on my plate already, I need something that an 8 year old can start and run and have fun in without me, out of the box.
Together we’ve had 3 so far. I pre-ordered the OG deck and got it early on. Then my wife got one two years ago, bought it from a good friend who just got the OLED. Gifted my LCD deck to family and treated myself to the OLED as well
I absolutely love this device, easy to fix due to all the manuals and parts, easy to tinker with as well. And it does much better with older games then windows itself actually does!
FWIW, we’ve had a Switch for maybe 7 or 8 years and it’s been a huge hit with our three girls. Our youngest are 12, who have played online with their cousins, who are up to their sophomore year in college. So, it has relevance for a wide age range. Mario Party, Animal Crossing, Undertale, Delta Rune, PIKUNIKU, Smash Brothers, and Poke Mon are some of the games they like. Games tend to be expensive ($60). They play it much more than our PS4, probably because there are more shooters and assassin’s creed type game on it.
Not making an argument for one or the other. Just adding more data.
