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A comment on Valve Steam Deck. Parent comment

Re:Valve Steam Deck by TinkersW on Thursday July 15, 2021 @01:41PM (#27847522)
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.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Valve Steam Deck by whateveracct on Thursday July 15, 2021 @01:44PM (#27847575)
> 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.)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Valve Steam Deck by Rapzid on Monday July 19, 2021 @06:39PM (#27888100)
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.

[ Parent | on HN ]