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Comment on Gaming handheld prices are out of control, except for the Steam Deck

This is just... not true?

The Deck ranges from 420 to 680. The Legion Go S is 520, right in the middle of that. The Z1 Extreme ROG Ally is 670, right in line with the top of the line Deck (and noticeably more powerful). The Switch 2 is 470, on the cheaper side and also a fair bit beefier.

This article is arguing that having next-gen chips in boutique devices for 1K is a) a new development, and b) a bad thing. It is neither.

Before the Deck went mass market with PC handhelds they would routinely be a lot more expensive. The original Ayaneo was between 800 and 900 in 2021. The Pro model went up to 1200.

I want those things to exist. I want GPD to cram a Strix Halo into a handheld with a removable battery. I want Ayaneo to build a dual screen clamshell. I want them to make a dumb console that spits out its buttons so you can flip them around. I want vertical handhelds. All that kooky weirdness is experimenting with new form factors and parts in ways that will move the segment forward. Without Ayaneo, Odin or GPD being dumb enough to cram a laptop into a handheld there'd be no Steam Deck in the first place.

Let the people who like weird hardware dump a grand or two into those weird things and that's how you eventually get a comfortably priced for-the-rest-of-us thing from Valve or Asus that takes the ideas from those that work.

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Mynameisallen@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Mudman here with the most salient point and better written then my “fuck off if you don’t want those devices you don’t have to buy them” but also the used market for those devices is way weirder, I grabbed a Z1 extreme Ally for $250, I’m also for sure ordering a Ayn Thor at 10 tonight, but I enjoy playing with weird hardware more than I do the games tbh

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- MudMan@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I choose to read that as a genuine compliment.
  
  And yeah, man, these weird devices are being sold to weird people who like them for what they are. Which also means when the next weird thing comes out those weirdos are likely to get upsold and resell older stuff. All of these things are going to be fantastic Youtube videos from retro hardware people in the 2070s, assuming we avoid going full Mad Max Idiocracy that long.
  
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  - Mynameisallen@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It was, I read that like a beautifully worded rebuttal
    
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squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Total agreement.

It sucks when a device category dies and disappears. Most people might not care, but those who do really do, and it sucks when you can’t upgrade to what you want anymore.

I’m not a handheld guy, but for me, it’s phones with keyboards.

So if there’s somebody making boutique devices for niche audiences, more power to them!

Handheld gaming PCs are really not necessary devices, so if you can’t afford a high-end one, get a cheap one. And if you can’t afford that, stick a gamepad on your phone and boot up a switch emulator or winlator.

Leave people their niche hobbies!

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fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
And Steam sales subsidize the deck, too.

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- MudMan@fedia.io ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Sure. Maybe? The Deck isn't that expensive, and despite being relatively limited runs it definitely has some benefits from scale. For one it's a custom APU, so you have to assume there's a specific deal with AMD.
  
  Valve is certainly a first party that benefits from software sales primarily, so it makes sense for them to go to some lengths to invest in bringing people over, but I'm not sure that they are actively subsidizing the Deck, the price seems pretty reasonable. I'm sure they don't make a ton of money from it, though, so they definitely get to thin those margins up a LOT compared with the pure hardware manufacturers, let alone with the tiny companies making handhelds one at a time.
  
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  - fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Fair enough, Gabe has even said they don’t have a tie-in ratio, just that pricing was both painful and a test. Thin margins is the conclusion I came to as well, but knowing they expected to expand game sales with it, too.
    
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rmuk@feddit.uk ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I completely agree. I passed over the Steam Deck and went for the MSI Claw 8 instead. I was willing to pay the extra for a waaaay better CPU/GPU combo and - the killer feature IMHO - not one, but two Thunderbolt ports. Long term, this means I can expect a longer life out of my MSI than the Steam Deck is likely to get, but also means when the GPU does start to chug I can connect an eGPU to it’s dock.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean I don’t rate the Steam Deck - I really, really do - and it’s level of capability and price-point will act as a stabalising point for the wider industry, but I paid more for a better device and got my money’s worth.

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- MudMan@fedia.io ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You went for an Intel handheld? I salute you, sir, that's a deep cut.
  
  As one of the five people on the planet who owns an Intel GPU I firmly believe we are in a very exclusive club that will one day do wonders for hardware archaeology.
  
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  - rmuk@feddit.uk ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    We had a bunch of laptops at work with ARC GPUs in them. The vendor supplied one of them as test units saying they were ideal as portable 8K video editing machines, to which I replied - in exactly these words - “oh, fuck off”. But then we tested them and they’re honestly excellent and run a lot cooIer and longer than the AMD/Intel+Nvidia equivalents. I had to apologise. I got to test the Claw side-by-side with the Steam Deck playing RDR2 and Forza Horizon 5 and that sealed the deal. And when the ARC GPU does start groaning then, like I said, it’s eGPU time. The ARC is probably never going to bother the top-tier GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, but for portable and, I dare say, midrange desktop gaming it’s ideal.
    
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