Three years later, the Steam Deck has dominated handheld PC gaming
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Hah. You're overestimating the potential of 90s gaming devices. No game console, handheld or not, had sold a hundred million units. Hell, the Game Boy didn't crack into the hundreds until the Game Boy Color came around, and it was certainly the first.
Anyway, mild exaggeration aside, I get what you're aiming for, but I guess my question is why people read that positioning on Valve devices in the first place. There's no obvious indication that Valve is any less ambitious than any other first party, or any reason why they would be. They went to AMD and comissioned a custom APU at scale, just like Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft are doing. The only differentiating factor is they built the thing on top of a mostly usable pre-existing OS (which I suppose Microsoft also does, but hey). If anything their entire call to fame was to "consolize" Linux for SteamOS, which they'd been trying to do for a while anyway.
I agree that their goal is to set up an ecosystem that works for them, but I find it surprising that people assume they're disinterested in hardware sales. If I had to guess I'd say it's because they refuse to market too hard outside their own ecosystem, so their branding feels different than the more in-your-face releases of Sony, MS or Nintendo products and people assume that's because they're intrinsically or intentionally smaller, which I don't think is true. I do think that image is projected on purpose, though.
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GPDwin for example?
I always wanted a mini laptop basically as big as my current phone but actually mobile.
Sadly I didnt have enough F-U money
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Chords, button combos and controller layers can be combined into surprisingly complex setups.
Ah yes, complex and hard-to-remember controller mappings, so much easier than: put thumb on pad -> make selection. Great point lmao. No one is saying that you can't rig up solutions for controller, just that they are difficult to use and less payable than just using the touchpad. This very thing is probably what is driving you away from playing these games on Deck back to your computer or keyboard-lapboard gadget thing.
Probably too complex, unless you like playing Steam Input more than you like playing your game, but definitely very capable of doing as much as the left pad.
I agree 100%
Which, by the way, can be mapped to a radial menu and that's about it
You underestimate how powerful Steam Input is, weirdly. Lmao
what RTSs do you play on the Deck or the Steam Controller?
Manor Lords. Total War games are great too. Civilization is turn based but still the same input mechanics and is much better on the TV due to the touchpads. Management games have all the same input mechanics as RTS but different gameplay, the obvious example is Rimworld, but also things like Zoo Tycoon and Cities: Skylines. All of these are totally playable, and several I, personally, prefer on the couch
“don’t force games that aren’t fun on a controller to be on a controller”
except they are fun and 100% playable, thanks to the touchpads. This is just what we actually disagree on, and MANY people agree with me here and use the Steam Deck to play these games, it isn't some obscure or niche opinion, and its a major discriminator between the Steam Deck and other handhelds that are lacking in these input features
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I love when my hands get dominated
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When you are competing with PCs and home consoles. <30fps is slow in my opinion. Or. Turn the graphics super low and get maybe ~40?
The CPU/GPU is subpar
The ram is okay for most games, but soon 32 will be the new required standard.
The ssd makes apple seem generous...I'm not bashing on it, I enjoy the steam deck, but if someone were to say they want to buy one right now I'd suggest waiting for legion go s or "the next steam deck" a few years from now. Unless valve cuts the cost of the steam deck by at least $100 each model, it's not worth it anymore. There are dozens of better handhelds that you can install steam os on instead.
Note. I do also realize the steam deck community is hardcore shilly and everything I said will be read but not actually enter a brain and just passed off. Which is fine. Like I said I like the steam deck overall.
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I mean, "MANY" in relation to, say, how many people would show up to someone's birthday party. Not "MANY" as in "the size of a videogame audience". We kinda know that for a fact. For reference, Steam does show the most played games on Deck. The first game with no official controller support shows up at 79. It's The Sims 4. For what it's worth, the two most used Steam Input configs do use the trackpads, but they just map the right one as a mouse and have the left one mapped to four directional functions. If your argument for the dual trackpads was simplicity, let me tell you, both of these configs are complete spaghetti, so I don't think that holds much water.
Rimworld is in there, suprisingly, in the 80s. Made me count all the way there, they should really put numbers on that list. Those seem to be the sole two mouse-driven entries. There are no RTS games, tycoon games or city builders that I can see.
In any case, you're right that we agree on whether playing strategy games on a touchpad is fun. It really is not.
By the way, you do realize your counter to the radial menu thing was a screenshot of a radial menu, right? The fact that it's using squares doesn't change how that works (except for how a grid layout actually fits fewer things than a radial menu, but that's neither here nor there).
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Are you kidding me? Steam Deck is so big and clunky. Don't even get me started on the piss poor ergonomics and the thing is fucking heavy as shit too!
I love it because it's open source, but it's shortcomings really leave a lot to be desired in my opinion.
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I trimmed the bushes around it so it looks bigger.
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I mean... for any game in the top 500 on Steam Deck... That sure would be one hell of a birthday party. You must have no concept of how big of a number 4 million is and how many people are playing these games on Deck...
Do you just not know what a radial menu is? The grid layout fits as many things as you configure it to, and the layout and arrangement of squares are fully configurable, which can be more useful and contextual than a radial menu... you should really watch that video I linked above, especially if you have time to spend counting games in the steam list lmao
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So you're comparing a handheld system with full on desktops and consoles... No need to figure the "discussion" then.
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Granblue Relink is just about closing that top 100 and has about 650 players right now. That's not on Deck, that's across all of Steam.
That's a big birthday party, but not an all-timer.
I know what a radial menu is. The menu you sent is a nine square grid, which is a neutral spot surrounded by eight directional inputs. So a radial menu.
You can make other menus, but you just happened to send me a radial menu, specifically. Which I suspect was chosen there because, like I said, the small touchpad at best suits a radial menu or a directional menu.
And the point isn't that controller-first games are more popular, it's that mouse-first games are quite unpopular. Several big mouse-first games are in the overall most played list but not on the Deck list. Others appear lower. DOTA 2, for one, which is at the top of the overall and nowhere to be seen on the Deck top 100.
And yeah, when somebody argues something iffy in an online discussion I'm the kind of person to go and check. I don't mind being wrong that much, but I do want to know.
Homework.
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Granblue Relink is just about closing that top 100 and has about 650 players right now. That’s not on Deck, that’s across all of Steam.
So a completely different measure than what is used for ranking Great on Steam Deck games...?
Comparison to concurrent users just isn't valid...it’s that mouse-first games are quite unpopular
Evidence needed.
I don't mind being wrong that much
That's certainly convenient for you lol
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I’m not implying they are uninterested in hardware sales. It’s that the model is different.
Current Nintendo does not care about an ecosystem. Each console/handheld the release has its slate of games they want to sell an average of per unit. They want to get as many units in as many households as possible and sell 6-8 years of games for that hardware with little library between hardware releases. The switch 2 is the first departure from this tbh unless you count the Wii-u/wii which is valid but nuanced. This style best emulates all console/handheld releases pre-Gen 6 consoles.
Current iteration at Microsoft and Sony and valve is buy-in into an ecosystem that extends beyond singular hardware. Backwards compatibility, for instance. They want you gaming on multiple devices buying all games through their stores with your designated account that spans systems.
It’s a very different business model then what game gear et al were attempting.
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Truck simulator
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It's a different measure because Valve does not disclose full install counts at all, let alone per hardware type, but it does provide concurrent users. I work with what I have. In any case, the top of the list is in the hundreds of thousands of concurrent users, so that does show that the top 100 on Deck does run the gamut until fairly low in usage. That's not a surprise, gaming is very winner-takes-all right now, particularly on PC. Steam user counts drop VERY quickly, so your argument that the top 500 is all huge is not accurate.
As for Civ VII, I was going off the last top 100 list, which is yearly and thus covering a period before the Civ VII launch, but Civ VI was actually there and I missed it. It shows up at 37. That's now 3% of the list that is mouse driven. I stand corrected. You're still wrong.
By the way, speaking of using different metrics, "trending" games aren't built on absolute numbers, so top played and trending don't line up at all. I'm assuming Civ VII will make the cut on Deck whenever it does get counted on absolute usage, though.
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Bro also fucking hates it when his Toyota corolla can't keep up with a Ferrari. He gets the car enthusiasts market can be shilly though.
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Makes invalid comparisons based on incompatible measures and draws incorrect conclusions
You're still wrong.
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That's just, like, your opinion, man.
I think it's perfectly sized. No need for change. And the OLED model is noticeably more lightweight than the original LCD model, so the newer one isn't too heavy.
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None of the measure are incompatible, none of the conclusions are incorrect and you're still wrong.
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Alrighty, then! If you say so
continues enjoying keyboard and mouse games on Steam Deck like most users, as Valve intended
