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Valve Steam Deck

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351–360 of 1001 posts

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#351

I try Proton a few times a year and the experience is almost always disappointing; I'm not even a hardcore gamer, so mostly playing 2-3 year old games which I'd expect good experience with. However, if they ramp up investment and actually make Proton viable for the majority of titles, this is very bad news for Microsoft / Windows.

> make Proton viable for the majority of titles

Protondb[1], which collects user reports, says:

    18,811 games reported
    15,261 games work
which is about 81% - a bit more than a simple majority.

1: https://www.protondb.com/

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Valve but it seems like they create these hardware projects to occasionally remind platform owners like microsoft/playstation/nintendo that they can't completely abuse their users and software devs (Win10 store lock-in, etc) and retain all of them. Valve just wants to protect steam and credible hardware platform competition is how they do it. I don't think they have any real plans to produce and support hardwa…

And yet it looks like you cannot use the Steam Deck without logging into a Steam account. Looks like we are trading in one lock-in for another.

The ign preview suggests otherwise:

https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-hands-on-impressions...

> This flexibility means you can do pretty much anything on the Steam Deck that you can do with a regular PC. Connect a mouse and keyboard? Yep. Alt-Tab out of your games to a browser or video? Sure. Load third-party programs or even other game stores like Origin, uPlay, or Epic Games Store? No problem. You could even wipe Steam OS entirely and install a fresh version of Windows if you want – but the default Steam OS is smooth and efficient at getting you into your games, so I imagine most people won’t want or need to go that far. The point is, you can if you’d like to.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#353
post #44

There’s obviously a lot of people who like playing games in a more mobile format, as evidenced by the huge popularity of the Switch Lite / mobile gaming. Giving the PC games market access to that form factor seems, on its face, like an extremely good move. But we’ve seen products like this before — the NVIDIA Shield, for one. Pretty cool piece of tech, but didn’t exactly start a revolution. I guess the question becom…

Personally I find a lot of these devices backwards minded. I'd much rather just shell out for a service like Stadia (if the catalogue was larger) and turn my actual mobile device into something capable of playing pc titles. Especially if the implementation is platform agnostic like Stadia. Gaming devices of all stripes have become expensive enough that I'm more than happy to see cloud gaming takeover and leave hardwa…

Playing PC games on a cell phone is painful. You can't even see half the game because your thumbs always obscure the screen to operate the touch controls.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#355
post #135

From the FAQ [0]: - What OS is Steam Deck running? SteamOS 3.0, a new version of SteamOS based on Arch Linux. - Will people be able to install Windows, or other 3rd party content? Yes. Steam Deck is a PC, and players will be able to install whatever they like, including other OSes. [0]: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/faq

This is an amazing bit of kit for the price, and it's just a normal PC running Arch Linux! I hardly ever even play video games these days, but I'm absolutely buying one of these just to have a nice little portable PC.

I have both Steam on a PC (Windows) and a Nintendo Switch and I mostly use the Switch for gaming for the convenience, although it sucks to see the price difference on so many titles. So, great news!

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#356
post #219

For those of us with older eyes, I am skeptical -- the screen is pretty small for the amount of detail PC games often want to display.

somewhat off topic, but i'm 45 and just recently got my first pair of prescription reading glasses -- a game changer!

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#357
To me, someone whose gaming experience rounds down to "never", but who's casually interested in maybe playing some games, this looks very appealing. Switch form-factor but it runs PC games? I don't need to carry around a tower with me and sit in front of a desk and disconnect my peripherals from my other computer? Sounds great!

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#358

I do find intriguing Valve continues to be a private company. Unlike the rush start up these days have to do an IPO.

It seems that IPOs are sometimes the only way for investors and founders to cash out, or get a return on their investments, even if the companies themselves are unprofitable or unsustainable.

I don't know about their investors, but I assume they aren't pushing for an IPO because Valve works well and is profitable as it is.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#359
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m super excited to see that they’ve chosen Arch as a base for SteamOS. I understand fully why they originally chose Ubuntu, but I feel like Arch actually hits a lot of sweet spots for consumer use cases and could be adapted for such use quite effectively. (To be fair, I feel similarly about Gentoo, which was similarly adapted for ChromeOS quite successfully.)

I'm required as an Arch user to also reply and say I'm an arch user, and approve this message.

I use Arch btw

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#360

I really wonder what the point of this is. Mobile gaming is a meme at this point. It's a thing but phones and tables have it well catered too. We don't need another mobile gaming thing that will surely be in the bargain bin in as couple years.

> Mobile gaming is a meme at this point

I can't take your post seriously, but just for posterity:

- The lifetime-to-date sales figure now stands at 84.59 million Switch units shipped worldwide since its launch in 2017

- Game sales for the year also spiked by 37 percent, selling 230.88 million units compared to 168.72 million units in the previous fiscal year

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/22422451/nintendo-annual-e...

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