I'm locking in my uninformed hot take.
This will sell ok and have a dedicated group of fans, but it will be abandoned very quickly. It'll be remembered somewhere between NVidia shield and PS Vita.
I believe the concept of Steam Deck is more desirable than the final product. It's very similar to Ouya in that sense. People want improvements to their current systems so they are propping up a device that maybe just maybe will push the industry in that direction. Regardless of what Switch 2 ends up being, I think it'll quickly kill most Steam Deck interest.
For pc players that genuinely don't care about Nintendo, I think it'll have a tough job convincing enough of them to jump aboard. Dedicated PC players who build expensive desktops may enjoy Steam Deck as a bonus but the lower spec hardware could get in the way. I personally would rather wait to get home and play most of my steam games at max settings on my computer.
The price and form factor however could be a dark horse. With smartphones and tablets being so versatile, there are millions of people who do not own PCs. Steam Deck could be an incredible way to onboard new people into the Steam ecosystem that have previously only gamed on consoles. A PS4/5 only gamer could buy a Steam Deck and get a serious amount of millage out of it. If Steam Deck ends up being successful, I'm almost sure it will be primarily because it's a super accessible pc with lots of publicity.
This will sell ok and have a dedicated group of fans, but it will be abandoned very quickly. It'll be remembered somewhere between NVidia shield and PS Vita.
I believe the concept of Steam Deck is more desirable than the final product. It's very similar to Ouya in that sense. People want improvements to their current systems so they are propping up a device that maybe just maybe will push the industry in that direction. Regardless of what Switch 2 ends up being, I think it'll quickly kill most Steam Deck interest.
For pc players that genuinely don't care about Nintendo, I think it'll have a tough job convincing enough of them to jump aboard. Dedicated PC players who build expensive desktops may enjoy Steam Deck as a bonus but the lower spec hardware could get in the way. I personally would rather wait to get home and play most of my steam games at max settings on my computer.
The price and form factor however could be a dark horse. With smartphones and tablets being so versatile, there are millions of people who do not own PCs. Steam Deck could be an incredible way to onboard new people into the Steam ecosystem that have previously only gamed on consoles. A PS4/5 only gamer could buy a Steam Deck and get a serious amount of millage out of it. If Steam Deck ends up being successful, I'm almost sure it will be primarily because it's a super accessible pc with lots of publicity.
