I like how this article does not talk about the anti consumer practices engaged in by Nintendo, that might push some customers away from their consoles. /s Nintendo can disable your Switch 2 for piracy in the U.S., but not in Europe, as confirmed by its EULA. There is already a switch in my household, but the price along with the ability to remotely brick the device, is what made our household pass on the switch 2. We bought a second steam deck instead.
The average consumer does not care about this. The biggest reasons for people to not buy a Switch 2 are 1) people don’t have money and 2) lack of major first-party games. I waited months until I found a MKW bundle for $450 at a black Friday sale.
Once we get the next 3D Mario or Zelda, you can bet they will sell a lot of consoles.
Also steamdeck is amazing, and a lot of people who want a handheld just chose that one
steamdeck and switch 2 don’t address the same audience at all imo
I got a Switch because of handheld gaming and then I stopped using my Switch because I got a Deck, and my library became playable on it without having to rebuy them. And I can get cheaper games, bundles, and giveaways than on Nintendo to play on my Deck or PC. And if ARM support for steam frame makes its way to Android then I’ll be able to play those same Steam games on my phone too.
Not exactly, but overlap is significant. A bunch of people want Nintendo because they always did Nintendo and that’s all they know, a bunch of people know that switch is something that kids want and so they get one, sure. But a bunch of people want to play some games lying on a couch or riding a metro or sitting in a queue at a dentist, and those people will at least google what exists on the market. This is an overlapped audience, and for a lot of them steam deck will be the obviously better choice.
Since I’m one of the people who is on the fence about whether or not to pick up a Nintendo Switch 2 or to get myself an ROG Ally (I have $250 of gift cards for Target which don’t sell the Steam Deck) so that I can play steam games on a handheld. I heartily disagree.
And it’s Nintendo’s anti-consumer policies that is making me hesitate on the Switch 2.
They can if you install Linux on it and run a switch emu.
It already comes with Linux installed, and an emulator can be setup with five button presses and thirty seconds of waiting.
The base system is setup as immutable, but /home isn’t, so aur isn’t available out of the box, but flatpacks are for example
That’s pretty rad. I don’t have one to know the nuance.
I heard it was possible to install bazzite on the SteamDecks
SteamOS is an Arch Linux, basically, with some stuff pre-installed. The only big difference is that it’s installed in immutable mode, but even that is not a big deal
Don’t get me wrong, I love my Steam Deck but it’s an extension of Desktop build not a direct Switch competitor.
It’s not a direct competitor, but they occupy the same niche while being a vastly superior product.
I don’t think that’s had much of an impact when Nintendo sold more Switch 2s at launch than Valve has manufactured Steam Decks over its entire lifespan. The Steam Deck is still an enthusiast product for a niche crowd, and will likely never be in direct competition with the big three.
It’s a comparatively new product, but it’s not like it’s something unsuccessful. It’s attached to Steam, that everyone who ever had a computer knows about, and everyone has a couple of games there, it’s being talked about very positively everywhere, and they’re repeatedly gained positive reputation over pro-consumer practices they regularly employ, and they somehow evading being put on blast for the child gambling industry they operate.
They’re known among gamers, which is indeed niche crowd, but also a crowd that is important here. They don’t have the cultural grasp on humanity as Nintendo, or other two, but all of them shitting the bed constantly and publicly, while Valve is catching wins all over the place.
The real point here is that they don’t have the ability to manufacture at the scale of the big three. It literally can’t be in direct competition.
It’s not set in stone. They have money, they have demand. Scaling production is a bitch and a half, but it’s not impossible to do