I think I have not seen one of these around here so I figured I would make one. I have been reading a lot about the Steam Deck and I think that there is a lot of good discussion that can follow it's reveal.

So, one of the first things I thought of asking was: do you want one? How hyped are you? This is the first question and poll to follow but, as others have done in the past, the polls might be changed/updated in the future.

The other one thing I'm interested in knowing from you guys is the overall expectations about what it is gonna be capable of delivering. Yeah, the specs are insane for the price and I am drooling all over them, but what has made the Switch such an intriguing experience for me is how tightly executed it has been so far. It's level of optimization is insane and to have seen all those amazing ports happening is mind blowing. And, so far, I don't know how the optimization, if any, is going to favor the Deck. It's a PC, albeit a portable one, and the PC versions of games tend to favor high end machines, even if the games are incredibly customizable in the platform. Is this an opportunity for PC devs to start taking lower ending machines into account and deliver experiences for those with not much compromise? I for one need to see the games running on the Deck before I make up my mind, because there could also be compatibility issues (if Windows is not installed), and the battery life might turn me off (heck, my OG vanilla Switch is still capable of some long Monster Hunter sessions before needing more juice). If those turn up to be at least solid this should be a month one buy for me and might make me skip the OLED Switch or even delay my buying of a Switch 2.

Let's discuss!

I pre-ordered the 512GB model!



It's set to come in December as I pre-ordered with in the first few minutes of it going live so I will be part of the initial batch. Hopefully it will arrive before Christmas. Personally, I like the idea of playing PC games on the go and while laptops are great, they need a desk and typically a plug where as the Steam Deck should be a proper but granted heavy handheld. I am curious to see how it feels to hold in my hands. The problem with many PC handhelds is that they are flat in the back where as the Steam Deck actually has places to grip similar to a regular controller. Overall I am very hyped to see what this portable PC can do.

Nice, congrats on the pre-purchase. I too am super hyped to see and feel how the games run on it and if it's comfortable enough. Hope it gets before the timeline so you can have a blast during Christmas! :)

I'm very curious to see what it can do and as a tech gadget it looks awesome. However I've tried handheld gaming before and it simply can't hold my attention if I'm not stuck on a plane with nothing else to do. I would play with it for 10 minutes, then never use it again. I'll stick to (stationary) gaming laptops, suits me fine.

I do hope it becomes a success as that means more development in low power (and thus low heat) PC components.

I look forward to the Youtube clips of people playing Switch games via emulation...

I guess the question is should Steam Deck be added to VGChartz tracking? Atop current numbers, or 1:1 vs Switch OLED?

Yeah, you raise an interesting point. It's a PC, but aimed at gaming, so it should get tracked. 

That's one thing I'm very interested in. Look forward to future developments in this area. 

Apparently you may be able to upgrade the storage yourself:

7:31



https://youtu.be/bt98ciSgVzY?t=451

You would void the warranty though.

I want one, but I'm going to wait till next year, when the thing is more in stock. I also want to upgrade the storage size as well.

One thing I will say that I am excited about is being able to play some of my switch games on the Steam Deck at a higher fps. Now I am not trying to make this a Switch vs Steam Deck thing as this is more of a complaint against the devs of the game. But I did buy Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity at launch and that game has major frame rate problems. It runs at 15-25 fps sometimes going down to 9 fps at times during fight scenes and can rarely maintain 30 fps. Now it's not really the fault of the Switch per say as the devs clearly don't know how to optimize very well. But that is one of the things that made me stop playing this game even though I bought it.

Luckily, the new Yuzu early access build is looking to be pretty excellent! Can't wait to give this a try on the Steam Deck!