Three years later, the Steam Deck has dominated handheld PC gaming
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It’s easy to dominate when you were only one in the market for so long time.
They're not, though. There's quite a few other offerings in this space, and the Steam Deck appears to outsell all of them combined.
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They got the formula right on this space:
- Linux, not Windows--Windows provides little that can't be done on Linux in this space
- AMD, not Intel--AMD just has better products at this level (any level at this point, really)
- 720p--going higher doesn't provide much at this size except suck battery life and requiring a more powerful GPU
- Price
Now, price is partially because Valve can afford to subsidize the cost and expect to make it up on Steam sales. I'd be remiss to ignore how they're making their money. Still, they're also able to have a good price because they didn't try to make it as powerful as it could be, but as powerful as it needed to be.
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Ummm... "controller support" does not mean what you think it does and it doesn't exclude touchpad use lmao
It means official full controller support with the default config. There are few games that provide official controller support over Steam Input in the first place, even fewer that have any touchpad custom inputs by default and I'm not even sure if there are any that are Steam Verified. At a glance it's... what, just Rimworld again? Maybe some first party stuff left over from the Steam Machines fiasco? Sims is only Playable. Civ VII, which you called out earlier, I suspect incorrectly, has official all-stick support, what with having launched on consoles day and date. I haven't checked it because I haven't bought it yet, so if I'm wrong let me know. Civ VI doesn't have default controller support, but it's only Playable as well. In fact, if you have a list of verified games with touchpad default support I'd love to see it. I'm genuinely curious.
Look, you get to live in this very specific alternate reality where the only difference is people love dual touchpads as a main input system. That's fine, you're not hurting anybody. I get hung up on it because blatant misrepresentations on social media are fairly upsetting these days and because I'm still not over having had to use the dumb touchpads on the Vive for a couple of years back there.
But man, is it exhausting to watch it act as a proxy of some much more important crap in real time.
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It means official full controller support with the default config. There are few games that provide official controller support over Steam Input in the first place, even fewer that have any touchpad custom inputs by default and I'm not even sure if there are any that are Steam Verified. At a glance it's... what, just Rimworld again? Maybe some first party stuff left over from the Steam Machines fiasco? Sims is only Playable. Civ VII, which you called out earlier, I suspect incorrectly, has official all-stick support, what with having launched on consoles day and date. I haven't checked it because I haven't bought it yet, so if I'm wrong let me know. Civ VI doesn't have default controller support, but it's only Playable as well. In fact, if you have a list of verified games with touchpad default support I'd love to see it. I'm genuinely curious.
Look, you get to live in this very specific alternate reality where the only difference is people love dual touchpads as a main input system. That's fine, you're not hurting anybody. I get hung up on it because blatant misrepresentations on social media are fairly upsetting these days and because I'm still not over having had to use the dumb touchpads on the Vive for a couple of years back there.
But man, is it exhausting to watch it act as a proxy of some much more important crap in real time.
"Touchpads bad! I did homework and it factually said so!! Stop having fun!!!"
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They're not, though. There's quite a few other offerings in this space, and the Steam Deck appears to outsell all of them combined.
Use a competitor like the ASUS ROG for 30 minutes and you’ll understand why the SteamDeck is king.
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The ease of use of the Steam Deck cannot be overstated. Yes you can tinker with it a bunch but if you just want to play your games, you download and play. The windows handhelds will never be as easy since windows is just crap for this (and MS is not interested in improving).
100% agree
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I almost always plug mine into my dock and run it with a controller lol, rarely use it as an actual handheld
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"Touchpads bad! I did homework and it factually said so!! Stop having fun!!!"
Hah. Man, you were fuming about that one for a while, huh?
I said at the very tippy top of this thread that
I know some people swear by them, I just don't think they're worth the space they take up as a pointer device
and later
People who like these do tend to be loud and proud about it, so they stand out more
It's no surprise that there are people swearing by them loudly and proudly. In fact, there are more people doing that than the opposite, because most people just... you know, ignore the whole thing altogether and haven't through about the Steam Controller in a decade.
The reason I was pulling quotes for you is that you denied the touchpad reception in the OG Controller was mixed and that Valve was presenting them as a stick substitute, which was demonstrably incorrect.
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Now that it has been three years, while I'd like to have one, I feel like I'll just wait until whatever the next version is - even if that means waiting another year or so.
I don't need one, particularly, and I don't want to be caught at the tail end of this hardware.
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Hah. Man, you were fuming about that one for a while, huh?
I said at the very tippy top of this thread that
I know some people swear by them, I just don't think they're worth the space they take up as a pointer device
and later
People who like these do tend to be loud and proud about it, so they stand out more
It's no surprise that there are people swearing by them loudly and proudly. In fact, there are more people doing that than the opposite, because most people just... you know, ignore the whole thing altogether and haven't through about the Steam Controller in a decade.
The reason I was pulling quotes for you is that you denied the touchpad reception in the OG Controller was mixed and that Valve was presenting them as a stick substitute, which was demonstrably incorrect.
What was I "fuming" about...? Wdym?
"Everyone around me says they have positive experiences with the touchpads! They're the ones that are wrong and I am right, because... the real people just ignore them and don't post about it!!!"
Lmao. Yeah, I'm the one in an alternate reality here...
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It’s easy to dominate when you were only one in the market for so long time.
Handheld PCs have been on the market for 20 years. Comparable to steam deck (x86_64) at least since 2016 GPD Win
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It is still a mystery to why no one ever created software that can automatically pull videogame input config files and rebind for other layouts. I guess it is somewhat niche. At the same time, input config files are all pretty similar and it sounds fairly straightforward as a project.
Lutris has an option to switch to US QWERTY. Also doesn't take much effort to do manually but it's buggy with X.org (sometimes it insists on keeping the previous layout for no reason).
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Steam deck is awesome.
With the Desktop mode, a monitor, mouse, and keyboard it's also just a computer.
Its been awesome playing games on it then flipping on my VPN and downloading movies and stuff that I can then watch on it.
The future is now
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Handheld PCs have been on the market for 20 years. Comparable to steam deck (x86_64) at least since 2016 GPD Win
Dingdingding, right answer here!
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Lutris has an option to switch to US QWERTY. Also doesn't take much effort to do manually but it's buggy with X.org (sometimes it insists on keeping the previous layout for no reason).
It's not really ever an issue to rebind keys manually, it's just time consuming. The point of auto-rebind would be time saving for nonstandard keyboard users.
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They got the formula right on this space:
- Linux, not Windows--Windows provides little that can't be done on Linux in this space
- AMD, not Intel--AMD just has better products at this level (any level at this point, really)
- 720p--going higher doesn't provide much at this size except suck battery life and requiring a more powerful GPU
- Price
Now, price is partially because Valve can afford to subsidize the cost and expect to make it up on Steam sales. I'd be remiss to ignore how they're making their money. Still, they're also able to have a good price because they didn't try to make it as powerful as it could be, but as powerful as it needed to be.
I wonder how many people, like me, who really use their Steam Deck as a Pirate Deck.
If I see a game I like on Steam Store I simply go to STEAMRlP and grab it pre-installed. Then I run it through Wine/Proton. Installing dependencies is very easy, thanks to Wine-/Protontricks.
Now, some games I do buy afterwards. KCD2 is one example. The Last Flame another. When I know that I enjoy it, I know what I get for my money, then I can make the decision to buy it.
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My understanding is that Libre Office is the closest to actually being a good replacement to Excel. Having used Libre Office's Excel equivalent, it does not feel good to use (then again, neither did Excel).
I'm not sure if we'll ever be able to replace the Microsoft office suite - Microsoft owns the rights to those softwares' workflow paradigms IIRC, and people who have been taught those workflows are not going to abandon them. I mean, we've not even managed to move away from the staggered qwerty layout that was established for typewriters in the 1870's. I think the only options are for schools to either adopt new paradigms (using opensource software as teaching tools) over mass adoption in industry.
Try ONLYOFFICE, it's FOSS and looks very much like modern Office Suit yet more modern looking than Libre Office
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Here's hoping that Linux becomes good enough within a couple years from now.
I jumped head first into Linux without any prior knowledge a year-ish ago, I went and chose what seemed to be a simple distro (Debian) and later found out it’s one of the more difficult distros out there (also most native packages are outdated) and some how made it work day to day.
Basically every game on steam is essentially Linux compatible and a good handful of popular anti-cheats have partnered with Valve to ensure proper compatibility.
Now the problem is, game producers (like Ubisoft & EA) have been pushing this rhetoric that Linux users are all cheaters & hackers and intentionally prevent users from connecting to their servers or even launching the games.
If you're a gamer like me, go with Bazzite. You will not regret it.
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I wonder how many people, like me, who really use their Steam Deck as a Pirate Deck.
If I see a game I like on Steam Store I simply go to STEAMRlP and grab it pre-installed. Then I run it through Wine/Proton. Installing dependencies is very easy, thanks to Wine-/Protontricks.
Now, some games I do buy afterwards. KCD2 is one example. The Last Flame another. When I know that I enjoy it, I know what I get for my money, then I can make the decision to buy it.
I’d guess not many. We’re a bit more Linux/tech savvy here but most users would hear “Wine/Proton” alone and freak out. I bring up my terminal and people somehow think I’m “hacking”. With all the convenience with buying and playing games on Steam, their model works (even on PC, with competing platforms and unlimited piracy potential).
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Now that it has been three years, while I'd like to have one, I feel like I'll just wait until whatever the next version is - even if that means waiting another year or so.
I don't need one, particularly, and I don't want to be caught at the tail end of this hardware.
I was on the fence of asking for one for my birthday late last year for exactly this reason.
What tipped me over was that I took a look at my Steam library and realized I literally have hundreds of indie and AA games that I've never played or have less than 4 hours in that I always meant to go back to.
And that was it, I decided the Steam Deck was going to be my indie gaming experince platform. It has been amazing at doing this, and I've been chewing threw my indie game library like crazy, and have picked up so many more that I'm loving gaming again! I can see myself keeping the current steam deck around and will be used regularly for at least the next 5 years.If you're looking for a portable machine that'll tackle most modern & higher end games, either look at the alternative SteamOS portables or wait for the next Steam Deck (the touch screen, D-Pad, Sticks, and dual touch pad make it the best choice for best I out options for game compatibility).
However, if you want a great machine for indies, AA, older AAA titles, and console EMU, the current hardware is amazing and worth the price
