So, I apparently cant express this opinion without getting downvoted on reddit, and I know this is a little outside of my normal subject matter on here, but I did want to discuss the steam deck a bit.
So...the steam deck is basically a handheld gaming PC. And that's cool. I like the idea of the steam deck, if that makes any sense at all, but I don't like the reality of the steam deck. As such, I'm going to explain why.
Background
So, I've been around the block for a while, I've seen other things like the steam deck for a while now. My original handheld that started my gaming obsession as a kid was a fricking game gear. And that thing was awesome in some ways, but there are reasons it eventually lost its console war to the game boy. And a lot of those flaws are in the steam deck as well, and I'll discuss them when I get to the steam deck's flaws.
A bit more recently, but still ages ago at this point, I acquired the first generation of AMD APU laptops. I remember when the "Llano" laptops came out and I bought one for around $380, which is about what a baseline steam deck costs. And it was kind of cool at the time. I could run new games, including skyrim, battlefield 3, and minecraft on the thing. Keep in mind this was in 2011, so this was impressive as heck. I played tons of COD on it, tons of team fortress 2, counter strike, fallout and skyrim, you name it on the thing.
But...then over time it collected dust. The fact was, despite being able to be JUST enough to run modern releases at the time, games had since gotten significantly more demanding, with it not able to run newer titles at all just a year or two later. I mean, yeah, it's cool, oh wow, a cheap gaming PC that can barely run modern games at 30 FPS 720p with compromises. But as time went on, it just collected dust, and considering the other issues with a laptop form factor (some of which is transferrable to the steam deck), I just lost interest in it over time. And I never did replace the laptop. Why? Because it wasnt worth the money to do so. Originally I was considering it, but once i got android tablets and went in that direction, I hadnt been back since. With all of that said, when I look at the steam deck, I kind of see a combination of the game gear and the steam deck, and also a bunch of additional flaws as well. That said, let's discuss why I don't like the steam deck.
1) Size/portability
Okay so....this thing is HUGE. Like, it's bigger than the game gear, and that wasn't that portable. it's more portable than my old laptop, but when I imagine going out with me and having something portable to take with me, I just can't see me lugging this around. A tablet in a bag, sure. The razer handheld I just bought instead of the steam deck? Yeah. The fact is, if I were to buy a portable device, I'd want something that I can actually game on the go on. The steam deck just isn't that device. It's too big, it's painful to carry around, and to get into point two which is related to this:
2) Battery life
The battery life is trash. Like....if you go full throttle on the thing and use it to its full capabilities, playing a game at like 30 FPS 720p like cyberpunk 2077, it's gonna only last like an hour 20 minutes. So...the thing's portability is also limited by the fact that it uses so much power it just dies quickly if you push it. These kinds of issues are the kinds that also plagued the game gear when I was a kid. I took it on vacation and it was good in the car and in the hotel room, but out in public? Nah. It's big, it's bulky, and then the thing only lasts for like 2-4 hours. This is even BIGGER, MORE BULKY, and lasts more like....1.3 hours.
And people can go, but you know you can play less demanding games on it, right? Okay, but let's consider the specs. The CPU is a quad core AMD APU that is basically like a ryzen 3100 with worse clock speeds....and a GPU is on par with like, say, the PS4 GPU so like a HD 7870 or a GTX 760/960. So that said, this thing will be pushed with any game from 2013 onward. Sure, I've heard people say it's great for low end games like cuphead or the binding of isaac, but what if I don't want to play those? I'll get to that more later, but you see the issues with the thing? it has battery life that is...on par with my old laptop when it was new. Like 2 hours full throttle and maybe like 4 or something when doing lighter stuff (apparently up to 3-12 with the OLED version, 2-8 with LCD), and yeah, it's just like...okay. It's not that portable.
So...that said, between these two points, and probably a few more points on this list, I'm not gonna wanna take this thing out of my house. Meaning it's not that portable. So let's consider IN my house next...
3) I wouldn't really wanna use it in my house either...
I hear some people saying "ah but you dont get it, sometimes you just wanna sit down on the couch and do some gaming"....okay...well....first of all, I have a gaming desktop that does everything I want and then some in my house, and it's multiple times stronger than a steam deck. As I said, the thing is equivalent to like a mid range gaming PC from the mid 2010s. Which is impressive for the form factor, but again, remember that laptop? There's a reason it collects dust.
The fact is, IN my house, if I wanted to do something in another room, I could just use a steam link. I bought one of those when steam liquidated its stock of them, and I literally can run an ethernet cable across my house to where it's at and play that.
And in theory, I can even use steam link over wifi. It sucked when i tried it on my tablet, but i did it on that 2011 laptop back in the day. Wasnt a great experience but it worked at least. And given I just bought an android handheld instead of a steam deck that's marketed at doing just that, yeah....I can do that better.
But beyond that, it's not just that, there are other reasons I wouldnt wanna use it in my house either.
4) Game compatibility is spotty
So this is a big elephant in the room with the thing, but this thing does NOT run windows. It runs steam OS, which is a linux distro basically. And a lot of games dont work out of the box. And sadly, a lot of the games most impacted are....precisely the kinds of games I'd wanna play. You see, I do a lot of online shooters, and they DONT WORK WITH THIS THING WELL AT ALL. A lot of them lack compatibility because they gotta run stuff through proton and wine and that doesnt play well with an anti cheat very well. Not to mention, the idea of playing a competitive FPS with a controller is just...no.
Offline stuff, sure, but not that. So the games I'd wanna play most just arent that playable on the thing.
Not to mention, a lot of new games have other issues. Do you think you can run starfield smoothly on the thing? No, not really. People have tried, it seems to get like 20 FPS. It runs worse than OG skyrim did on my 2011 laptop. Battlefield 2042, even if it didnt have the anti cheat issues, is also unplayable.Like people tried to get it working on windows on it and it just runs...bad. It's not powerful enough. And again, i did run BF3 which was new back in the day on my laptop. So...yeah. This thing is already limited there.
But but, you say, you can run older and less demanding games. Okay, but what's the point? Fallout 3, NV, Skyrim, FO4 would all run great on the thing. Sure. But the amount of titles I'd want to regularly play isn't worth it.
And let's not ignore a very glaring flaw that I maybe should've put up above with the portability stuff.
5) Limited storage
The promise of the steam deck is being able to bring your PC library on the go. But let's do some math. The base model is $400 and has 256 GB in it. It originally had a 64 GB model which was recently liquidated on sale for $300, and a 512 LCD version it phased out for $340. I did kind of consider stuff like that steam deck, and also the baseline rog ally for $350 back over black friday, but i couldn't justify it, for all of the reasons I'm mentioning (if anything, the rog ally has even MORE problems with it, like being weaker, having worse battery life, getting you banned from COD because it doesnt play well with anti cheat, frying its own SD card slot due to a design flaw, etc.) and more. But one thing that really bugs me is the storage space.
When I bought that 2011 laptop, I had 500 GB of storage in it. Actually like 400something because windows, but you get the idea. But here's the thing. Games were SMALL back then. Skyrim was like 8 GB. Battlefield 3 I think was like 30 with DLC and that was HUGE. I remember when Rage 1 came out in 2011 and everyone freaked since it was 20 GB. So you can ACTUALLY stick a library of games on 0.5-1TB back then.
Not these days. Let me go over the size of some games I'd want to play:
Halo infinite: 73 GB
Halo MCC: 126 GB
Just cause 3: 51 GB
Just cause 4: 61 GB
Far cry 5: 66 GB
Far Cry 6: 51 GB
Fallout 4: 97 GB
Deathloop: 31 GB
Call of Duty (incompatible): 221 GB
Battlefield 2042: 93 GB
Ark survival evolved: 139 GB
Tiny tina's wonderlands: 49 GB
You get the idea. Admittedly older games are smaller, but yeah. The base model is 256 GB. That's only enough for like 2-5 games. So much for bringing an entire library whereever i go. And yes, you can put an SD card on it. But then you are paying $90 more for a 1 TB SD card.
And yes, there are more expensive OLED models with 512 GB to 1 TB but still, you go through that like crazy. I have like 5 TB of storage in my gaming PC. And it's mostly full of just games.
And keep in mind for a while the cheap steam deck was 64 GB. I'm strugglign with 64 GB on my android tablet. Because games like COD mobile want like 12 the last i checked. One of the reasons i bought the razer handheld instead. Like, in an android environment, 128 GB + a SD card can go a long way, but on PC....it's nothing. Heck, COD itself could use up almost half of a rog ally's 512 GB.
So yeah. I just can't justify that.
6) Do I really wanna play PC games with a controller?
I mean, most PC games are made for keyboard and mouse. Dont get me wrong a lot of games technically work with a controller, but the real question of if I'd wanna use one with them is debatable. Maybe single player games but definitely not multiplayer. This goes back to point 3 and the whole "i wouldnt wanna use this in my house either" thing. And if i was gonna do it, i could just stream to an android device with a controller. Which is...again, a reason I opted for the razer edge handheld instead. Even then, I plan to mostly game either on PC or through steam link to my dedicated streaming device and use KBM there. And even there, competitive PC games arent great because latency.
7) Intermittent internet on the go
So say you take your steam deck with you outside of the house despite all I said above. Okay, Better stick to online games because a lot of places dont have wifi. And even if you did get wifi, imagine the game you wanna play gets hit with a 50 GB patch when you go online. Are you really gonna wanna download a patch over public wifi? Me neither. Again, not the end of the world with android since updates are small and a lot of games dont need updating and you can fit more on an android device for more mileage, but yeah it's just...why this?
8) "but but you can play old games!"
Okay well if you wanted to play old games it kinda defeats the point of the device. A lot of the games people on steam deck often talk about playing also have mobile ports. Like stardew valley or hades or celeste or whatever, not that I'd even wanna play those. I feel like the only thing im missing with the steam deck are gen 7 console ports because gen 8 games have the size problem. So stuff like, again, fallout, skyrim, stuff like that.
Conclusion
The fact is, when you actually whittle down the logistics of the idea, it actually just comes off as problematic. And that's how I approach politics. I dont advocate for ideas...unless I can figure out a plan to implement those ideas into reality. The steam deck is a great idea, a great concept. A portable gaming PC you can take everywhere. But then when I think about the logistics of actually using such a device, I just can't justify it. Not only is it expensive (which i didn't count against it, but maybe I should have, its $400 for a base model and up to $700 for thew 1 TB oled...might as well buy an entry level gaming laptop at that price), but it's also extremely bulky, limited to being tethered to a power source for more than an hour or three of game play, the storage doesnt get you many games, many games id wanna run aren't compatble with it, many of them i wouldnt wanna play on the go anyway, so when you really come down to it, what's the point?
I've had devices like this before. I said at the beginning of this the game boy beat the game gear for a reason. The reasons primarily came down to portability. Game boy was actually portable. Game gear was bulky and had the same power issues. And this thing is like my old laptop. Same portability issues, same barely running games at 30 FPS, and then you gotta consider the storage thing in the modern era of 50-100 GB games, you gotta consider how well games work without internet. And yeah.
if I want a portable gaming device, I want something portable. I could buy a switch for nintendo games for instance. I could use my 3DS a friend gave me. I can use an android tablet, which has been my go to for the past decade. Heck, instead of a steam deck, I bought a razer edge handheld for half the price of a steam deck, and I know it's capable of doing most of what I'd wanna do.
So maybe I dont got fallout or skyrim on the go. But do I need them on the go? Would I wanna play games that in depth on the go? Like, most PC games arent even made for portability in mind. They're meant to be played with you sitting in the same spot for hours.
Mobile games are made for "on the go". Games made for portable systems through the ages are made for "on the go." And gaming systems that are successful normally at least can handle 3 hours of battery life on full load, with up to 6-10 for lighter stuff. Heck older stuff like the DS regularly lasted 6-10.
So it's like...I like the IDEA of this device. I don't like the REALITY of this debate. i don't like the logistics of this device. And yeah, I just wanted to write about it and this is the place where I post stuff I wanna write about.
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