Is There A Market For The Steam Deck?
Valve recently announced their portable gaming solution to gamers around the globe. It was inevitable to immediately compare it to the Nintendo Switch in terms of form-factor and general hardware specifications. Most people dubbed the Steam Deck "what the Switch Pro should've been", and at a $399 starting price tag, the idea made sense.
In terms of specifications, the Steam Deck offers different storage capacity solutions, at different price tags. NVMe is the latest storage technology being used in the industry so it makes perfect sense to use it on the Steam Deck, however, the entry level Deck uses a eMMC solution which is often found in mobiles or tablets. Comparing both, NVMe is a better yet pricier solution because of the faster data transfer. The Nintendo switch offers a 32GB internal storage with the expandable option through micro SDHC or SDXC (faster speeds) up to 2TB. Quite interesting if you intend to go all-digital.
Here is where Valve starts segmenting their own Steam Deck market. A 64GB eMMC solution only makes sense if you intent to build a light storage library with games like Terraria, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, etc. In other words, light platformers, or indie games that do not require massive storage and has undemanding hardware specs. If that is your intention with the Steam Deck, then it will set you back $399.
If you want to build a more robust library with heftier games, then the next step might be for you. At $529 you can opt for the 256GB Steam Deck with the NVMe storage inside. GPU demanding games are usually bigger in size than your regular platformer, hence the need for more storage.
Now, if you seek to have a few AAA experiences, then you might need the 512GB option for $649. Here is where we talk about GPU and CPU power. How does the Steam Deck stands in terms of frame rate, and overall stability? How much does the battery life lasts when playing these games?
The Steam Deck offers an 800p resolution screen, so it's not quite Full HD gaming, even less 4K. However they offer a dock (Yes! A dock like the Nintendo Switch) which you can plug into a 4K TV. Valve has not said much about what the dock can do in terms of enhancing performance (frame rate, and stability) of the console, but we know it has USB ports, a LAN port, USB-C, and of course an HDMI port.
The Steam Deck comes with a custom APU (Accelerated Processing Unit), which is an AMD solution that integrates both the CPU (processor), and the GPU (graphics card) into a single SoC (System on a Chip); in this case it is the Zen 2 + RDNA 2 respectively. At 720p you will run AAA games at a decent 30 to 60 frames per second with medium or low settings. This is an educated guess, based on similar tier hardware, since no proper benchmark on the Steam Deck has been done.
To give you an idea about the battery life. Valve says the Steam Deck can last 7 to 8 hours depending on the games you play. Games that demand more GPU drain the battery faster; for example, playing Portal 2 at 60 fps will drain your battery in 4 hours, if you half the frame rate, in 6 hours. We can see that battery duration is heavily influenced on what games you play and at what level of settings run them.
Is there a market for a console like this? We have seen many similar form-factor alternatives that try to reach a PC gaming market. Nintendo is out of the question due to the first party games, which are their core strength. Besides, some of the platformers you find on Steam have already been released on the Switch (Cuphead, Hollow Knight, etc.)
Perhaps Valve will profit from the Silicon Draught that we have been suffering since 2020. If they manage to supply the demand, then we can see some healthy numbers in sales for the Steam Deck (do not compare it with the Switch this time). Valve also said that they took preemptive measures against scalpers to avoid the disaster that the PS5 and Nvidia's RTX 3000 series launch were.
Steam Deck will find its market, but it won't be as huge as the Nintendo Switch which offers a bang-for-the-buck alternative with a decent enough hardware and an amazing library that keeps growing (although many are ports). Games like Stardew Valley are a perfect example on why the Steam Deck can work; considering you can cross-save in your Steam Account (PC and Steam Deck); throw some great RPGs like The Witcher, Skyrim, Terraria, and more in the mix, and you will have a good enough reason to acquire a Steam Deck.
What are your thoughts on the Steam Deck? Are you planning to buy one? Should Nintendo have done something similar with a revised version of the Switch?
Let me know in the comments down below.
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