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Steam Deck: First Anniversary

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Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#111

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

mahmoudhossam wrote: post #79
cubefox wrote: post #75

> My wild guess is that there’s between 1 and 2 million units already shipped out there. While there was a lot of initial hype around the Steam Deck, it almost sounded as if it emerged as a serious Switch competitor. Unfortunately that didn't happen. Its sales are around an order of magnitude below the Switch, which sold 13.12 million units in its first year (and 122.5 million total). So despite its modest success, t…

Most of that year has been catching up to the orders they already got. My bet is that they can't make it at a big enough scale to sell directly to stores. This is Valve's first success at this whole console thing after all.

I’ve been casually hitting their website for a year. I can’t buy one even if I wanted to.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#112

Post by zaggynl »

diceduckmonk wrote: post #30

Has anyone used their Steam Deck with a projector and/or as home media machine (HTPC)? We bought a Chromecast while traveling abroad and took hours to setup Wi-Fi, login with various streaming accounts with arrow keys, then finally hit with regional lockouts (HBO not being available and Netflix having different catalogue). In the end, we just gave up and went to the movie theaters. It’d be great if we had a portable…

You can setup a VPN through desktop mode.

I've put together a howto for wireguard: https://zaggy.nl/nextcloud/s/yGW9SinMCoWcNZN

It's no turnkey solution, you can probably find an easier howto for popular VPN services and wireguard.

Personally I've been using the jellyfin client on my steam deck, which works well, add the dock and you have a home media machine.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#113

Post by hbn »

NineStarPoint wrote: post #87
a13o wrote: post #36

The next generation of gaming platforms is really going to be heated. We basically have two philosophies in the field now. The Switch and the Steam Deck sacrifice high end hardware for portability and versatility. The PS5 and XSX are about as portable as a LAN party, but can theoretically push 4k@120hz for the cost of a graphics card. Is there room for everyone next gen? Each of Valve, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo h…

It’s important to recognize that while the Steam deck is awesome, it’s sold 1 million compared to the 100 million of the Switch. Nintendo has massive name recognition and exclusives of course, but also price. The cheapest Steam Deck is 400 dollars, whereas the Switch is 300. For people who don’t already have big steam libraries and don’t care about open hardware, the Switch is where they’re going to go for a mobile c…

> The cheapest Steam Deck is 400 dollars, whereas the Switch is 300.

The Switch's entry price is actually $200 for the Switch Lite. I think it's even had small discounts on occasion too.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#114

Post by [deleted] »

raisin_churn wrote: post #59
herpdyderp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to play games on: a Windows desktop, a Mac laptop, a PS2, a Wii U, a Switch, a GameCube. Now I play all the same games and more on just the Steam Deck. If that isn't ultimate idk what is. Every single other gaming device in my house is toast now.

It's still not a target platform (either native Arch Linux or Proton) for very many games, so updates have broken a number of games that were previously rated "playable" or "verified", rendering them unplayable. TBF in every case I've heard of this happening, Valve has been quick to address it, so you may or may not consider that an issue. I don't game much these days, but when I do it's exclusively on my Linux deskt…

[deleted]

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#115

Post by Steltek »

NineStarPoint wrote: post #87
a13o wrote: post #36

The next generation of gaming platforms is really going to be heated. We basically have two philosophies in the field now. The Switch and the Steam Deck sacrifice high end hardware for portability and versatility. The PS5 and XSX are about as portable as a LAN party, but can theoretically push 4k@120hz for the cost of a graphics card. Is there room for everyone next gen? Each of Valve, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo h…

It’s important to recognize that while the Steam deck is awesome, it’s sold 1 million compared to the 100 million of the Switch. Nintendo has massive name recognition and exclusives of course, but also price. The cheapest Steam Deck is 400 dollars, whereas the Switch is 300. For people who don’t already have big steam libraries and don’t care about open hardware, the Switch is where they’re going to go for a mobile c…

Hasn't console gaming always outperformed PC gaming marketshare?

I'm not sure people even really compare costs for videogames. If they did, they'd notice that everytime you buy a new Nintendo system, you have to re-purchase all of your old games if you want to run them on the new platform. You don't have the same problem with PC games.

I'm finding that even 10+ year old PC games are still enjoyable today. Maybe more so than originally because my own hardware has advanced and I can pump up the graphics quite a bit. My back catalog of games in Steam isn't something you get from traditional console makers.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#116

Post by kibwen »

Kukumber wrote: post #70
a13o wrote: post #36

The next generation of gaming platforms is really going to be heated. We basically have two philosophies in the field now. The Switch and the Steam Deck sacrifice high end hardware for portability and versatility. The PS5 and XSX are about as portable as a LAN party, but can theoretically push 4k@120hz for the cost of a graphics card. Is there room for everyone next gen? Each of Valve, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo h…

Both Nintendo/Sony sold ~3x more than Microsoft last month Steam Deck numbers are nothing compared to what these 3 are selling, if i remember correctly, it was 1 million reservations total for a whole year, that sounds like a flop to my book when you compare with the 3 existing players I think next gen we'll see Sony getting back into the handheld market, Nintendo coming up with a second version, and Microsoft coming…

> that sounds like a flop to my book

It would be a flop for a traditional console, but the Steam Deck isn't a console, it's a PC. The reason that consoles need massive sales is because consoles have a limited repertoire of games (at best, they might be backwards-compatible with the previous-generation console), so they need large sales to demonstrate an install base and convince developers to make games for the platform. But if you're compatible with PC software, you don't care about that. Valve doesn't need to entice anyone to make PC games; the install base for the Steam Deck is the entire PC market. And with the help of emulators, a PC has access to multiple orders of magnitude more games than any existing console.

So the metric for success for the Steam Deck isn't to compare it to a console, rather it's to compare it to other specific PC form factors (e.g. a specific model of laptop).

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#117

Post by hyperpl »

Would anyone recommend this for purely retro emulation via retroarch? I currently have an Anbernic RG353M which is nice but I'd prefer to have a fully customizable device that is developer friendly.

Can anyone speak to the ergonomics of the dpad and buttons for unforgiving games like some fighting games and platformers? I also suspect the size and weight might prove prohibitive for portability compared to a much smaller retro device?

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#118

Post by ElectricalUnion »

Razengan wrote: post #2

Ultimate? umm.. I almost purchased one as a Christmas gift for myself, but after doing some research I decided to spend the money on PS5 games instead: • The Deck's screen is not OLED, which is pretty dumb in 2023, especially when they have a "nano-texture" option for glare reduction; why not also provide an OLED option?? • By default it's Linux, and runs Windows games via Proton, resulting in some weird emulation bu…

> • The Deck's screen is not OLED, which is pretty dumb in 2023, especially when they have a "nano-texture" option for glare reduction; why not also provide an OLED option??

OLED is very power hungry and gets hot - the Steam Deck is already battery life and thermal constrained without it. Like the Switch, they would need to make the controls further from the screen, making it even bulkier.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#119

Post by Dayshine »

willis936 wrote: post #77
manmal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked into Moonlight? Nvidia is sunsetting GeForce Experience which would be a convenient streaming server, but Sunshine seems to be almost on par now, latency wise. So you‘d run Sunshine on your host machine, and Moonlight on the Steam Deck. I’ve seen people report a minimal input lag of just 1 frame @ 4k60 (with most recent Sunshine versions, there was a big leap recently) but haven’t tried it myself yet.…

That login ability is nice. I usually have to use a second remote channel. Does Moonlight handle controllers and surround sound well?

Not GP, but I use virtualhere to forward my steam controller over LAN to my desktop. Moonlight handles controllers fine, but it's forwarding button presses, not forwarding the USB device. This rarely makes a difference unless you're using peripherals that need software.

Re: Steam Deck: First Anniversary

#120

Post by exitb »

BoorishBears wrote: post #85
exitb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the OP carries the monitor with them, but it's just an option at home. Kind of like you can plug Switch at home and get a TV-based console - you can plug the Deck and get a computer.

I'm pretty sure they carry a monitor. Portable monitors are a thing

Oh yeah, saw their comment now, that it's a portable monitor. But I guess the point still stands - this could be a sole computer for many people, if they just attach it to a regular desktop setup.
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