This will trounce the Nintendo Switch as soon as Pokemon, Zelda, Mario Kart, and Smash Bros are released on Steam. Which is to say "never."

i know what you're saying and this wouldnt be out of the box, but wait till someone gets emulators running on it, within a year i'd say

Emulators already run on it out of the box.

> You can also install and use PC software, of course. Browse the web, watch streaming video, do your normal productivity stuff, install some other game stores, whatever.

https://www.steamdeck.com/en/hardware

But you can run emulators on all sorts of things. Hell, I first played through BoTW on a WiiU emulator on my PC. I still ended up buying a Switch and one of the first things I did with it was play BoTW again.

They'll run day 1, if it comes with the proper repos you just pacman install retroarch and you're emulating everything under the sun.

If Valve goes through with this and sticks to the device, it could become a serious competitor, though.

I think they're completely different audiences. Nintendo games aren't, and never were about cutting edge graphics or the latest tripple A games. They were always about family/kids oriented more casual games. Which is not to disparage them in any way. I like playing some nintendo games every now and then.

But my mom bought a Wii back in the days. For herself. My mom doesn't usually play video games. And she is most certainly not at all interested in playing Doom or Hades (just because they're shown prominently on the webpage). But she liked Wii Fit and bought a Wii.

I honstly think the subset of people who would buy a Steam Deck to avoid buying a switch is so small, it would not put a significant dent in nintendo's bottom line.

Agreed that they're different audiences. The deck is for people with existing steam libraries who don't feel like sitting down at a PC to play games.

The switch is for everyone else - way cheaper, unique games you won't find on a PC, etc. Plus, co-op. I recently spent 6+ hours at my friends house playing Super Mario 3D World Deluxe. They got one joycon, I got the other. In my college dorm, we have a switch dock attached to a monitor in the dorm lounge. Split the joycons, and 4 people can play smash or mario kart. I don't see the deck supporting these use cases.

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. The last time I played anything on Nintendo hardware was Mario Kart on a Nintendo64 (which was awesome!), so I missed quite a bit of evolution there.

Valve could try to create games that are more appealing to the typical Nintendo enthusiast, but I suspect the respective cultures are too different.

Nintendo has the best IP as a whole in the industry. Nobody has what they have. They also aren’t going down the crazy AAA shooters who will milk every skin or map pack penny from their users.

I doubt it. Nintendo hasn't dominated in hardware specs for several generations. They survive by primarily being developers of great games that just happen to only be available on their whatever-hardware-we-could-get-for-$250 platform.

I believe the Switch itself is evidence that Nintendo’s success is driven by strong IP, not strong hardware.

IMO Sega’s problem was started by having a confusing lineup of too many products. Then they fumbled the US Saturn launch and faced stiffer competition than before. Then the Dreamcast was a victim of the PS2 _also_ being a DVD player, which made it a much more compelling option in its early days.

In this case, Nintendo has a large and dedicated fanbase, hardware that they (IIRC) sell at a profit, and a truly enormous warchest. They’ll be fine.

No way. Nintendo's success isn't about the hardware specs, and characterizing the Switch as a "portable console" doesn't capture it well. It has first-class support for traditional "couch gaming".

The Steam Deck will be a great complement to traditional PCs for people who are already bought into that ecosystem. For people who aren't, the console offerings from Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft are similarly priced and have obvious advantages.

It has solid hardware for the price, but if I was forced to pick one I'd get a Switch, hardware specs don't matter that much.

This thing has many things working against it..

1. Games were designed for Windows, but are now running Linux--some are buggy or don't work

2. If they have controller support it isn't always 100%

3. That SSD will fill up in no time

4. With Switch you can get split screen multiplayer, not many PC games bother with that.

> That SSD will fill up in no time

So does the Switch's. That's why you get a fat microSD (which the Deck also supports.)

Switch "AAA" titles on cartridge weigh in about 10-15GB, and a LOT of the indie games(which apparently sell the best on Switch in a lot of cases, TMYK) are far smaller.

The switch internal storage is only moderately faster than loading off of cartridge or micro SD, which are both very close in read speed; ~100MB/s.

Taken holistically the Switch storage limitations mean games on the platform are basically targeting the micro SD specs.

The Steam deck's primary value proposition is playing your existing Steam(PC) library on a handheld. Games on PC have been targeting SSD speeds for a long time now. People will be used to SATA SSD or m.2 NVMe speeds. Customers buying the base model are NOT going to have a great experience with the terrible eMMC storage. Customers trying to run modern games off 120-160MB/s micro SD are NOT going to have a great experience either. Selling a PC gaming machine in 2021 with 2008 storage speeds is a recipe for disappointment.

I wouldn't count on the Switch going anywhere. PC gaming is a fairly small market compared to consoles these days.

Source? The console market (~45 billion) is larger than the PC market (~37 billion) [0], but I wouldn’t describe PC as ‘fairly small’. Maybe you have different data though?

[0] https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/newzoo-games-market-num...

The Switch has a hige game library with some interesting exclusive title. This machine only has a subset of compatible PC games, and the subset the make sense to be played on that hardware (I sure won't play Age on that).

Considering their immense success with the Switch so far, I think worrying about Sega seems miles away.

Raw spec peeping is something enthusiasts like to do, but I think they're a small chunk of the market.