I think you could hit a really attractive price point for a a device like that, and it seems like a compelling device for Steam's existing user base. At least for me, I think it'd mean tossing the Switch into the junk drawer.
Targeting it for playing games locally just makes no sense. It's either going to be too expensive to have any real market, or too slow to run the stuff modern PC gamers want to run. Either way, it'll be a niche device that Valve shouldn't waste their time with (PC manufacturers will do it anyway). But nobody is making a dedicated portable streaming device as far as I know, and it seems like something that'd fit really well with a streaming service.
How could this hypothetical device possibly be better than an iPhone 12 Pro Max, Note, Galaxy S, etc?
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08BRX3RT3/
the Steam Link android app lets you stream any of your games to your phone like this already. With a little more setup you can stream Wii games to your phone through Moonlight from CEMU and run them at 1440p60, while the Switch can barely do 720p30.
On the local streaming front, I've struggled to do in-home streaming in a comfortable way with anything but a hardwired network between the PCs streaming. Maybe this will be different if they optimize it for wireless streaming, but on laptop wifi -> desktop ethernet I found it to be fairly high latency and lossy.
>But nobody is making a dedicated portable streaming device as far as I know, and it seems like something that'd fit really well with a streaming service.
NVIDIA kind of did it with the NVIDIA Shield some years ago, and I think they're still supporting it.
Shield no longer receives updates. GeForce NOW still runs on it, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSWCJxS0-HA
Shield TV, the Android TV-powered settop box that most people nowadays call "Nvidia Shield", is still supported going back to the first version in 2015.
People get blown away by the amount of data used by NVIDIA solution, Google Stadia is pretty much dead...
It's hard to say if streaming would be the win condition.
I live in a 450 square foot loft. I don’t have space for a tv here, so consoles were out of the question until the Switch came along. There is no room in my life — literally — for a gaming PC, but if they can cram that into another Switch? Sign me up.
It’ll be a big draw for university students in dorms as well.
Noise is never an issue when you dont use stock coolers. Undervolting current gen gpus reduces a lot of noise and heat. A ps5 takes up more space than a PC.
No need for 2.5/3.5" drives gives you a lot of room to get rid of ;)
IMO Before coming to price, none of the Switch-likes are good products for the broader market. They lack the UX, polish, brand, games, and pretty much everything that makes Nintendo consoles such a big success.
I wouldn't compare the experience of playing Super Mario Odyssey on Switch and some old game on a janky emulator or some AA game on 20fps and broken UI.
Even if they had the same price tag, I wouldn't expect something like Aya Neo to eat into Nintendo's market share. Only a fully developed platform can do that.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and history has shown that pricing was a major factor for the success of consoles (besides ofc IP, distribution, branding).
You have great examples, like Gameboy VS Gamegear or Playstation VS Sega Saturn.
Game consoles are like vinyl record players. Despite the huge nostalgia market in a demographic with lots of disposable income and lots of potential free time due to a looming retirement, to "kids these days" it's already a legacy format that's dead from any practical perspective.
Edit: not to mention anti-cheat, which is a whole other kettle of fish when you have to integrate into a entirely other kernel with different plumbing. Valve's anti-cheat doesn't rely on kernel modules or a ton of client side software at all, so they have a cross-platform advantage there too.
What would make people choose this platform over Windows, PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo?
This is where IP comes to play, and why Valve shouldn't have dropped the ball with their game development investments, and they would have exclusive games to get the ball rolling.
Basically win their hearts and trust early, so they can become loyal throughout their life.
So these devices had to check some boxes, one of the main factors being the price.
These devices had to be cheaper then regular consoles (among other things) - though they shared the same kind of price strategy between each other: sell almost as cost (or at loss in case of the PS3), to make up later with game sales.
Nintendo blurred that line into one device with the Switch, but they still check the box of the device being affordable.
With that said, there were already some approaches to Nintendo Switch like hardware for the PC market, some with waaaay better performance then the switch (with both intel or AMD socs), yet they are failing in what I believe is crucial for these devices: price.
They are expensive.
I'm not saying they aren't wonderful pieces of engineering, but clearly they aren't meant to even compete on the same level. They can't sell at cost/loss, because they can't make it up with licensing or their own IP, so they have to make money on the hardware itself.
Therefore I always assume these devices are for a very particular small set of gaming enthusiasts who are found of the idea of playing PC games on the go (even with limited battery life), and are willing to pay more then a full fledged console for this experience.
I'm curious to see how Valve will tackle this, or if they are fine with that (which they seemed to be in other hardware releases).