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Comment on Three years later, the Steam Deck has dominated handheld PC gaming

A year and a half ago, I was looking for a handheld gaming device. I narrowed my search down to the SteamDeck and the Switch. In the end, I picked the Switch as I’ve had much more fun and entertainment with the Nintnedo environment vs the PC gaming world. I really, really want to love the SteamDeck and its abilities but it’s just not happening for me yet. Can someone sell me?

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Romkslrqusz@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’ve had a Switch since it launched. For the most part, it collected dust - it saw use around certain major game releases and that’s it.

My Steam Deck has completely displaced my high end (well, for 2021) gaming PC - anything that doesn’t run well natively is easily streamed over the network from that PC. I can hang out in the living room watching TV with my partner.

The emulation capabilities have allowed me to conveniently tap back into my entire childhood of gaming, even extending into some titles that I had missed.

The biggest thing has been having access to the entire PC gaming content library. Sales, free Epic games, Amazon Prime Gaming - it’s all there. It’s a far better value proposition than the Switch.

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smeg@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The Steam Deck can behave like a Switch; if you want to stick to just Steam games with a big ✅ verified icon then it will probably be a similar experience, just with a different library of games (and better sales).

The Steam Deck can also be a full PC; you can plug in keyboard, mouse, screens, whatever, and use it to replace your laptop/desktop if you really want.

The middle ground is that the Steam Deck can be an incredibly versatile gaming machine. I can play the verified Steam games, I can usually play the non-verified games, I can install Heroic/Lutris and install all my free Epic/GOG/Amazon games with minimal tinkering, I can install emulators and run all my old Nintendo games at better resolutions and frame rates, and if I really feel like tinkering then I can install whatever else I want and try to get it working, but I always have all the reliable games to fall back on if I can’t!

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bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
You can play those Switch games plus a ton of other games on the Deck. Apart from technical capability there are 0 restrictions on what you can do with your Deck. You can play Steam games, GOG games, Epic games, Nintendo games, PlayStation games, Commodore 64 games, Arcade games, etc.

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Zedd00@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I have a couple of uses for my steamdeck. The vast majority of the time it sits in my living room. I use it while I’m watching TV with my wife. The ability to pick it up, resume whatever I’m playing right where I left off is great.

The other use is when I’m traveling. It’s smaller than a laptop, desktop mode is a fully functional Linux operating system, and it connects to any hdmi port with a small dock. That means I can use it to game, and connect it to the TV in the hotel room and watch whatever I want.

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nycki@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The thing that sold me on the Steam Deck: mods. Mods for minecraft, mods for skyrim, mods for stardew valley, mods for SteamOS itself. I can customize it like no other console, and I don’t even need to hack it first.

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