Three years later, the Steam Deck has dominated handheld PC gaming
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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
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I'm with you, I have large hands but I'm a serious gamer. An hour in and I'm already feeling it's weight and feeling the fatigue. It's a very impressive device, but it doesn't suit me and my needs at all.
Bought an r36s and it's glorious. Playing all the classic SNES and PSX games I didn't play back in the day. Can grind in an RPG for hours one handed and it fits in my pocket. Bonus is that it's so cheap if it breaks or gets lost it's no big deal.
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They are, in almost every way, taking the console model approach. Updates when there is a significant generational leap and not just yearly updates because AMD made a slightly faster APU (though they did the switch to switch OLED thing but no one complained about that because they kept the LCD models for sale and the OLED really is nicer), selling at a loss (and making up for it in game sales) and of course, the ease of use that a console interface offers over a traditional PC interface.
Then they step it up beyond that by making it as open as possible (software/emulation, games from any source, it's really a PC) and making the hardware repairable (making parts available and easy to fix in the first place,) and of course, cheap games and practically every game you'd ever want.
What the other handheld PC companies are lacking is (with some exceptions) repairability, that console experience, and price. Us nerds that can do whatever with technology will do it, so a legion or an ally or a gpd will sell just fine to that demographic, especially for the frame rate chasers. But for most of the rest of people, they would just get a switch or a PS5 or Xbox because it's just plug in and game, and at least in the case of a Switch or Xbox S, the cost of entry is way lower than a PC, be it a gaming desktop/laptop, or even many of the handheld PC competitors. Yes you can build comparable cheap PCs to an Xbox or PS5, but that means building a PC, and most people don't want to do that (I'm not talking to you, I know you have a sweet rig.) Yes I know games on PC are usually cheaper especially Steam sales or key seller/bundle sites, but console gamers often don't consider that, and initial cost of entry is very important to non-enthusiast type people in any given hobby.
There's a reason why Nintendo consoles sell so well despite being behind the competition in raw horsepower. It's the console model (and in their case aggressive exclusivity of their famous IPs)
The things keeping Sony and Microsoft in the competition are basically the console ease of use, and their all you can eat subscriptions. Even they both realized that they can get more sales putting their games on PC, but that still means forking over MSRP for a single game, so those ps+ and gamepass subs are keeping them afloat at this point.
I'm a huge tech nerd and have been deep in related industries for over 20 years. I know how to do whatever I want with any pc hardware or software, I own a steam deck, and a rog ally, a proper beefy gaming desktop, a gaming laptop, a Switch, and a PS4. Despite all that, in the past 2 years, easily 90% of my gaming has been on the Steam Deck. It does everything I need it to and more, and it does it anywhere, anyhow. If I want to tweak and tinker with it I can, but more importantly, I can just PLAY GAMES with almost no friction. At home, on a break at work, at the airport waiting for my flight, cozy in bed, wherever, whenever, and fast, and easy.
The Steam Deck is the swiss army knife game device that childhood me always dreamed of, and now it exists. That is why it's outselling it's competition, and genuinely making PC gaming a viable thing for the masses. No it won't beat Nintendo anytime soon, but it's gaining steam on them and other consoles faster than any other attempt ever has before, and it will only get better.
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I'm sorry man but you are just plain wrong on this front. Try any games that are on Switch and compare them to whatever settings you need to get 30+ fps on a Steam Deck. A couple that come to mind would be The Witcher 3, and The Outer Worlds. The Switch versions of those games are absolutely abysmal to play, but on the Deck you can absolutely play both of them all the way through just fine. No one on the planet should expect a Steam Deck to hold up to a proper gaming rig or even a PS5 Pro, but to say it's worse than a Switch is just ignorance or a flat out lie.
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Both Euro and American truck sims run just fine on my Steam Deck. Not on max settings, mind, but it's good enough for the small screen.
