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What people miss about Steam Deck's "loss" to Nintendo (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
202 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It’s silly to compare Switch 2 sales to Steam Deck sales.

The Switch 2 is a locked-down, vertically integrated platform. There are no ROG Switch 2s. No Lenovo Switch 2s. No Switch laptops or tower PCs with discrete GPUs. If you want to play Mario Kart World, your only option is to buy a Switch 2. Period.

Steam Deck, by contrast, isn’t a platform. It’s just one hardware option—one entry point into the sprawling, open ecosystem known as PC gaming.

Every year, around 245 million PCs are shipped globally. If even 20–25% of those are gaming-focused, that’s 49–61 million gaming PCs annually. Steam Deck is a sliver of that. So of course it won’t outsell a console that’s the only gateway to a major IP.

But that’s exactly the point.

PC gaming is too decentralized for any single device to dominate. The last “PC” that did was the Commodore 64, which sold 12.5–17 million units over 12 years because it was a self-contained platform, unlike modern Windows, Mac, or Linux machines.

That the Steam Deck has sold 4 million units despite competing with every other gaming PC in existence is remarkable. It didn’t just sell—it legitimized a category. Handheld PC gaming is now a thing. That’s why Lenovo, ASUS, and MSI have followed. Even Microsoft is getting in, optimizing Windows for handhelds—something they would never have done if the Steam Deck didn't hold their feet to the fire.

So no, Steam Deck didn’t outsell the Switch 2. It didn’t need to.

It won by changing the landscape.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are actually thousands of games that run on Steam Deck with no additional configuration that aren't even available on Switch, and conservatively, hundreds of those are extremely popular. Plus a lot of Switch's library is on Steam Deck, where it tends to be a better version of the game for one reason or another, not the least of which is free online play.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's exactly the problem... there are thousands of games but nothing stands out the way Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon do on a Nintendo platform.

I still look from time to time on my Deck. I picked up Borderlands 2 the other day because it was free.

But what I usually see browsing are a bunch of games I can already play on other systems, plus porn games, anime games, and anime porn games.

There really isn't one game that stands out on the Deck.

Vampire Survivors?
macOS, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

En Garde? PC Exclusive, decent game, but limited and a little boring if I'm being honest.

https://youtu.be/MfUmgmMp964

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

You have a fanboy perspective here. The Steam Deck's ecosystem is hardware agnostic, and to a large extent, Steam agnostic. No one game needs to "stand out" on the Steam Deck when it plays almost every video game that exists besides the ones Nintendo makes. Out of the sample size of "almost every video game", there's a high chance that there are many that are important to you and not made by Nintendo.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

almost every video game that exists besides the ones Nintendo makes.

Well, legally. Practically, you can play almost every video game Nintendo ever made on the Steam Deck. And with better visuals in many cases, to boot.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Blood, Baldur’s Gate, Septerra Core, and Nosferatu: Wrath of Malachi have all been PC exclusives for decades now.

Seriously, I got lots of great PC classics to recommend to you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I can't imagine a point and click RPG like Baldur's Gate or Fallout 1 and 2 being remotely playable on a Steam Deck. You pretty much have to have a Mouse and Keyboard for them. The Glide Pads will only get you so far.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Actually, I’ve played a lot of point & click games on the Steam Deck. Older titles are often better because they’re entirely mouse driven.

Grim Fandango, Divine Divinity, Disciples—all are good.

If you want to know the worst games to play on Steam Deck, it’s those text adventure games that were popular in the 70s and 80s.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Mouse-based games are pretty easy to set up. It's keyboard-heavy games that can be difficult.