Steam Deck Update

I’ve now had my Steam deck for a few months. It’s an incredible device with just three flaws. Middling battery life, a mediocre screen, and bad Wi-Fi. I’m sure this will get fixed in the Steam Deck v2. It’s really amazing to be able to play a 2022 AAA game release at high fidelity on a handheld.

It absolutely smokes the Nintendo Switch. In fact, as it’s only 1280x800, it can play even AAA games at medium to high settings. The brilliance is that thanks to cloud saves, I can play a game on my desktop at 4k, and then continue playing on the Steam Deck. The Nintendo Switch can both play on the go and on your TV, but as it is far less powerful than modern consoles/PCs, you’re stuck with 1080p or even less while docked. With the Deck I get the best of both worlds. I can use my beefy PC at home, but still have a portable option.

The main thing I’m noticing is that I now want to purchase all cross platform games on the PC. In the past I’d purchase indie games on the Switch, and AAA games on the PS5. Now I purchase them all on Steam. I used to only buy PC games on Steam, but now I’m buying console games on Steam too. I’m all-in on Steam. I can play more or less my entire Steam library on this thing, from 20 year old games to 2022 AAA releases. And, if history is any indication, games I purchase today will very likely be playable on a PC 10 years from now. Who needs a remaster when new hardware will enable you to replay your existing games at higher resolution in the future for free!