| Soundwave said:
Actually tons of companies get a "pass". The OG Steam Deck's display wasn't anything special and only 720p ... was there a bunch of crying about that? No, there wasn't. OLED displays even in high end devices (especially tablet size devices) is actually not still common even now. Where is the OLED display on the $900 ROG Ally X? Not there. Virtually none of these expensive PC hybrids have an OLED display. Legion Go? Nope LCD. If OLED is only a "little more expensive maybe" then how come the Steam Deck OLED is a whopping $150 more? Was there a ton of crying about Steam Deck OLED carrying such a premium in pricing? Nope. Like I saw some people trying to push faux outrage over the Switch 2 screen "only being about 450 nits". So you mean like about the same as a ROG Ally? They convientantly of course didn't mention that part. A lot of these whiny babies on the internet would've shit their pants if the Switch 2 was $600 if Nintendo went that route as the Steam Deck OLED is. A XBox Series S is WIRED to a freaking power outlet and is not even remotely close to being portable. There isn't a hardware on the market that gives Switch 2 performance in a hybrid form factor with an 8 inch screen for $450 right now. This isn't some cheapo POS that Nintendo just farted out, yes you can get better performance perhaps from a ROG Ally X, but that's $900 freaking dollars and also far bulkier and less portable than a Switch 2 to boot. There's a lot of selective outrage around the Switch 2 in part because a lot of the whiny minority of the deep recesses of the internet has gotten burned trying to down talk the system (Switch 1 also) and gotten slapped in the face by it's overwhelming market success. There's also the hipster doofus "know it all gamer" who thinks they know everything about Nintendo when they actually don't even understand Nintendo has a completely different board of directors today from 10-15 years ago. But these genius' think they know everything about Nintendo and make guarantees about things, and when it turns out actually some of that isn't true at all they also take offense and then double down on other dumb opinions. You're dealing with a mish mash of these folks who also don't understand they are a tiny, tiny minority (zero self awareness). Like where are all these devices then with better than Steam Deck performance, with an 8 inch OLED display, wireless controllers, TV dock included for even $500? There's nothing and there's definitely nothing remotely as portable as the Switch 2 either, those other devices need double, triple the thickness to generate their performance, if you wanted a form factor about the same, you'd probably have to pay double+ on top of that. |
It's disingenuous to imply that the cost of the OLED SD is $150 more solely due to the screen. For that premium you also get a way better battery life, double the storage, better wifi & a slightly more performant chip on a more efficient process.
And I think we will see a backlash if there isn't at least an OLED variant of the SD2 when it arrives.
The other handheld PCs sell in such comparatively small numbers that the comparisons aren't particularly useful.
They don't benefit from economy of scale that S2 and to a lesser extent SD do & they also have to make a profit at sale, whereas S2 & SD can rely on recurring revenue from software sales.
There's also an economy of scale gulf between Switch vs Steam Deck. Steam Deck has only sold around 4m units of which only around 1.4m are OLED.
So if Valve can deliver a price point of $549 which includes an OLED of which they've currently only sold 1.4m, surely S2, which is likely to hit 100m+ can do the same for $100 bucks less purely through the discounts enjoyed when ordering at those exponentially higher volumes? Oh, and let's not forget for that price point, compared to S2, Valve are also including more ram, better wifi, double the storage, miles better battery life & a chipset that's in the same ballpark (undocked)...
I think a reason that these comparisons are also scewed is that for some reason the competition are all on AMD. I'm no expert but I'm guessing it's due to these other devices selling so little that Nvidia just aren't interested...
Purely by going with a newer process Nvidia could easily trounce the performance of S2, why that's not happening does seem odd to me - maybe that's a direction they'll explore, or again, maybe it's just not worth the effort for such a huge company & such a niche sector.
