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PC - Steam Deck looks awful - View Post

Mummelmann on 08 February 2022
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Conina said:
Mummelmann said:

And we haven't even mentioned the storage issue, these won't be taking physical discs of any kind so internal storage will fill up incredibly fast. The 64GB model is a joke, modern games are often huge, and buying extra storage in the form of SD cards or other solutions is an extra expense for the consumer.

microSD cards are pretty cheap these days, less than 10 cents per GB... f.e. 400 GB for less than €40, 512 GB for less than €50.

And the games seem to load faster from a microSD on Steam deck than the same games from HDD on PS4/Pro or Xbox One/S/X.

You can even hotswap microSD cards on the Steam Deck, so you don't have to reboot the device like on Switch.

Also there are many great games that should run fine on Steam Deck which are a lot smaller than 10 GB.

Absolutely, SD card are quite cheap compared to 3-5 years ago, but it's still an added cost put on the consumer. And, seeing as storage has gotten cheaper; what exactly is the price incentive for the two top tier models whose only advantage seem to be more storage (and longer battery life due to more efficient storage)? Why the big hike in price? Charging 250$ more for a machine which only increases storage and has longer battery life, that's quite the increase, and as I said it reminds me of Apple pricing (iPad is notorious for price hiking only for more storage). Yes, they are faster storage units, but how much does 4000Mbit speed matter on simple games? With the native resolutions being as low as they are and frame rates needing capping to not kill the batteries, how will this ever be utilized properly even in more advanced games?

As for smaller games functioning well on the Steam Deck; that's also a fair point, but that leads us straight into "why not get a decent laptop instead?". Simpler and smaller games run fine on most modern laptops, which also come with more storage and functionality out of the box. Especially when approaching the 500-650$ range in price.

Once more; I could very well be wrong, it won't be the first time. But from my understanding of the PC market, Steam as a service and the overall direction and sheer breadth of the industry already, I just cannot see a demographic for the Steam Deck. I'm not one to make poor comparisons, but I remember that Stadia was also sold specifically on promises of ease of use and lower cost.

PS: As Captain_Yuri mentioned, it's all mostly speculation right now, only the market will show what's what, and that's fine by me.