Steam Deck - SteamOS, Zen2 4C/8T, RDNA2 1.0-1.6 TF, 16 GB LPDDR5 88 GB/s, starting at $399 [2021-12]

The confirmation of extra bandwidth is a welcome addition. Many AAA games in the last generation transitioned to using deferred rendering which ultimately prevented compatibility with the Switch ...

 

Well, that has nothing to do with typical home console AAA games not being released on Switch. Market demand for those titles on Switch just isn't strong.

 

You sure ? the new id games hit the switch and sell very well. Doom 2016 , wolfenstien , Doom eternal they are all popular and sell. Control is apparently now a cloud based game on the switch and things like outer worlds and the witcher all ended up on the console.

I don't think the average consumer will run out and buy a steam deck vs a switch. But I think there will be a lot of switch owners who want a better experiance than what the switch can offer

Even switch exclusive games have issues running on the outdated hardware



and here is doom eternal


The switch un docked runs this game between 360p to 612p and has 30fps is not stable in hand held. But a device like the aya neo of which the steam deck should at least be comparable if not faster is able to run it with a 90% dynamic resolution of 720p and it runs between 30 and 60fps with high graphics preset which if you watch the digital foundry footage of the switch it runs no where near those settings. It wont even run in xbox one settings.

There are a ton of gamers out there who want mobile experiances that are better than what the switch can offer and are willing to spend $400 or more to get it.

 

One real example I can give you is when Capcom had to make a forward renderer in the RE Engine for the Switch because they couldn't use their default deferred renderer for developing Monster Hunter like they did with their previous games on the RE Engine ...

 

They sold decently but nowhere near the sales number of other versions. I am sure there will be some efforts to bring those AAA titles on Switch, but most will not bother.

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/27...n-estimated-81000-units-first-week-at-retail/

Performance difference between PS/Xbox and Switch should be the bigger hurdle than the difference in a renderer. If Nintendo console market behaved the same way like PS/Xbox market, then developers would have made an effort regardless of the difficulty of porting them.

 

Right but they are also by far the worse ports of it. It shows that there is a fan base for them. Perhaps if switch could run them better there would be more demand ?

 

Possibly, but wouldn't be enough. Gamecube pretty much proved and was a catalyst for Nintendo to move different direction from Sony/MS.

 

I'm not talking for nintendo. I'm talking for steam deck and the amount of people who may have bought doom for a mobile device that could run it half way decent. I bought doom for my pc because it runs on there at higher than 320p

 

Not sure if the Steam Deck is a good representation of what could have been if Switch offered better performance, because overwhelming majority of Switch buyers didn't buy the Switch for playing portable versions of AAA games.
Steam Deck may kickstart the demand for mobile versions of AAA games, but that probably wouldn't happen with Switch even if it offered better performance.

 

Android Authority made a Switch OLED vs. Steam Deck poll:

https://www.androidauthority.com/nintendo-switch-oled-steam-deck-poll-results-1646541/





I'm not sure if this is a super fair comparison, because I'm guessing most of the people who wanted to buy a Switch have already bought one.


EDIT: Perhaps a more telling poll is the one made at Nintendolife.
It's a Nintendo fan-site where the Deck takes the clear lead.

 

What did the majority of switch buyers purchase them for ? I know i purchased it to play portable versions of AAA games. I could have just bought breath of the wild on my wii u but I purchased my switch and breath of the wild and that was the only game I had until mario oddessy




DF made a 75 minute video on the steam deck

 

Most people buy into Nintendo consoles in general for the exclusives.

https://switchweekly.com/survey2021#games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_Switch_video_games

The first non exclusive in that top 43 list is Among Us at #19. Followed by Minecraft #29, and Enter the Gungeon and Thief Simulator at $43. Even the most popular multiplats seem to not be the ones you'd typically associate with the PC audience.

Honestly ever since in the N64 it's almost been that the Nintendo market just differs. While the ever since the PS3/Xbox 360 generation those console audiences and the PC audience (well not exactly, at least the PC gaming audience that aligns with hardware interest) started to converge more.

Swinging back to that PC gaming comment, the PC audience does have some rather divergent groups as well. Which has always made what is "PC gaming" hard to pin down. The hardware enthusiast crowd does have some commonality not necessarily shared for instance.

 

Well, for OLED version of the device that has the exact same spec that already sold 85m LTD vs brand new shiny device from the PC gaming juggernaut, Poll isn't looking that bad for the switch lol.

 

You act like selling 3-7m as a third party isn't a big deal. Even then this is a dubious list as it even says that only nintendo really shares their own numbers. Some games on there like Enter the Gungeon hasn't been updated since march 2019...

Back to PC the great thing about the steam deck is that it can play the divergent groups. It can play indies even better than tripple a. You can even play mmos or rts on it. It can sell to the entire pc space

 

Steam Deck is exactly what I want from a portable device, that will be able to play a lot more of what comes to steam than my laptop so I'll bite since there is probably never going to be another handheld PlayStation and Nintendo has no interest in anything but older hardware, whatever is enough to deal with their art pipeline. What we think of and speculate about as Switch Pro with a beefier Tegra class SoC with more cpu/gpu/ram/faster i/o, DLSS, etc., is probably the Switch 2 for 2023/24 or whenever. Nintendo threw a fit over Bloomberg's recent article because it puts Nintendo in a bad light, but I don't believe for an instant that Bloomberg was wrong on Switch OLED,

 

Nothing new, except they mention their performance target is 720p/30fps

 

ugh that would make the chunky bezels even chonkier. they should target 800p

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-says-...rqaTpowkZH6IpM0H7e97icobPACLruy05DpbfrDjW8ylE

Valve says it hasn't found a game Steam Deck can't handle

 

Its a great addition to pc gaming i think.