Steam deck won't kill Switch might hurt Switch oled but not normal Switch.

[Kakadu18]

Alistair said:

IcaroRibeiro said:

Standard Switch won't be hurt in any way 

Steam Deck isn't a mass market product, the copies are limited. Even if every game in the world wake up tomorrow suddenly decide Switch is overpriced what can anyone possible do? Wait 2 years until Valve has established their production line (if ever)?

Switch by all means still the only handheld in the console market. It's a monopoly, it can't be challenged anytime soon. Up to Switch 2, then maybe, maybe Nintendo can face a degradation in hardware and software sales, as gamers will have an option to play indies and third parties somewhere else

Until there no chance 

Wrong. "Won't be hurt in any way" is too strong. It changes Switch buyer's expectations, that alone will lead to lower sales. More people will wait for the Switch 2, or avoid buying the Switch OLED, or just hold on if their Switch breaks etc. Not every Switch buyer is interested in a Steam Deck, that is not how it works.

The Steam Deck addresses a different audience, is more expensive, has a shorter battery life, is heavier and storage is limited unless you buy the extra expensive model and even then games take more space than on the Switch because they won't be optimised for the Steam Deck. Also the Switch is generally more convenient because you don't need to do stuff like install Windows and you know exactly that all games available are able to run on the system, what isn't necessarily the case with the Steam Deck.

The most powerfull handheld was always the least selling. The Steam Deck having high specs doesn't mean anything. It's been said over and over again: the Atari Lynx and Game Gear were destroyed by the Game Boy, the PSP sold just over half of what the DS sold, the Vita was destroyed by the 3DS. It's always "OMG we have the highest specs!" and then they fail. Same with home consoles except for the PS4.

Handheld gamers don't care about specs.

It won't have any impact on the Switch whatsoever.

Last edited by Kakadu18 - on 17 July 2021