5 ms·

I wonder who will be the target for these devices, because a great part of portable consoles strategy was: to be a gateway for kids to buy into the "big-boy" co

I wonder who will be the target for these devices, because a great part of portable consoles strategy was: to be a gateway for kids to buy into the "big-boy" consoles down the line. Basically win their hearts and trust early, so they can become loyal throughout their life. So these devices had to check some boxes, one of the main factors being the price. These devices had to be cheaper then regular consoles (among other things) - though they shared the same kind of price strategy between each other: sell almost as cost (or at loss in case of the PS3), to make up later with game sales. Nintendo blurred that line into one device with the Switch, but they still check the box of the device being affordable. With that said, there were already some approaches to Nintendo Switch like hardware for the PC market, some with waaaay better performance then the switch (with both intel or AMD socs), yet they are failing in what I believe is crucial for these devices: price. They are expensive. I'm not saying they aren't wonderful pieces of engineering, but clearly they aren't meant to even compete on the same level. They can't sell at cost/loss, because they can't make it up with licensing or their own IP, so they have to make money on the hardware itself. Therefore I always assume these devices are for a very particular small set of gaming enthusiasts who are found of the idea of playing PC games on the go (even with limited battery life), and are willing to pay more then a full fledged console for this experience. I'm curious to see how Valve will tackle this, or if they are fine with that (which they seemed to be in other hardware releases).

txdv 5y ago
Slap steam on it and take the Steam cut?
- libertine 5y ago
  That's the tricky part, if these devices aren't locked to a proprietary OS/marketplace, users can shop around and you're basically helping your competitors while taking all the losses.
  - easton 5y ago
    If it's running SteamOS (and it will be, even if there's Windows compatibility Valve probably doesn't want to pay for licenses), it might as well be locked to Steam for 90% of people. Epic's launcher doesn't have a Linux version (since they've claimed as have many other developers that the Linux community is 1% of users and 90% of complaints due to distro differences), nor does EA, Ubisoft, etc. They could port it, but by time they had something user friendly and working (which may be difficult since you probably won't get more than Steam Big Picture which doesn't have support for installing non-Steam applications at the moment) Valve would've sold a boatload of these and a bunch of Steam games. Edit: not to mention anti-cheat, which is a whole other kettle of fish when you have to integrate into a entirely other kernel with different plumbing. Valve's anti-cheat doesn't rely on kernel modules or a ton of client side software at all, so they have a cross-platform advantage there too.
    - SirLotsaLocks 5y ago
      Yeah this is where valve's investment into Linux would potentially pay off. Any platform they make could run Linux and work really well while basically all of steam's competitors either haven't done anything for Linux or have actively avoided/worked against it.
    - libertine 5y ago
      Let's assume the SteamOS would make this device 100% locked to Valve's ecosystem, which would give Valve the ability to sell these devices at cost (by charging fee's on games sold). Let's set the price on the same ballpark of the current consoles prices. What would make people choose this platform over Windows, PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo? This is where IP comes to play, and why Valve shouldn't have dropped the ball with their game development investments, and they would have exclusive games to get the ball rolling.
  - biryani_chicken 5y ago
    What percentage of the PC gaming market does steam have? Even if competitors like Gog and Epic get in the console, it won't change the percentages that much.
viraptor 5y ago
They could still do the "game sales will offset hardware" idea, right? They could offer a platform locked down to Steam. Sure, it will be hacked at some point, but it's not a comfortable general-use device, so they can expect most people to actually buy games to play on it.
jsnell 5y ago
The way I'd see this working is if it's not for playing games locally at all. Just boot straight into Big Picture, and allow for streaming games either from your local network via Steam Link or from a Steam cloud streaming service that gets announced together with this. I think you could hit a really attractive price point for a a device like that, and it seems like a compelling device for Steam's existing user base. At least for me, I think it'd mean tossing the Switch into the junk drawer. Targeting it for playing games locally just makes no sense. It's either going to be too expensive to have any real market, or too slow to run the stuff modern PC gamers want to run. Either way, it'll be a niche device that Valve shouldn't waste their time with (PC manufacturers will do it anyway). But nobody is making a dedicated portable streaming device as far as I know, and it seems like something that'd fit really well with a streaming service.
- libertine 5y ago
  I think I agree with you pretty much on everything. >But nobody is making a dedicated portable streaming device as far as I know, and it seems like something that'd fit really well with a streaming service. NVIDIA kind of did it with the NVIDIA Shield some years ago, and I think they're still supporting it.
  - jsnell 5y ago
    My recollection is that the original Shield was marketed as much for playing (Android) games locally as for streaming, and had a much more powerful GPU and CPU than contemporary mobile phones did. That's kind of losing the advantage of it being dedicated to streaming, which is that you could really cut down on the BOM.
    - libertine 5y ago
      Streaming is still in a awkward position, both user experience wise, the cost of the streaming games (with data caps), and the competitive aspect of some games. People get blown away by the amount of data used by NVIDIA solution, Google Stadia is pretty much dead... It's hard to say if streaming would be the win condition.
Eric_WVGG 5y ago
Mine is probably a niche use case, but I will absolutely jump on one of these simply due to my lack of storage space. I live in a 450 square foot loft. I don’t have space for a tv here, so consoles were out of the question until the Switch came along. There is no room in my life — literally — for a gaming PC, but if they can cram that into another Switch? Sign me up. It’ll be a big draw for university students in dorms as well.
- the_player 5y ago
  Take a look at the GPD devices in that case, they might suit your exact need if you're ok with the price they're asking.
- drzaiusapelord 5y ago
  Also, I don't feel people talk about this much but gaming desktops tend to be noisy, ugly, and/or gaudy on top of taking up lots room. I'd love to just get rid of this box but I don't care enough about games to buy a gaming laptop, which just only slightly solves the ugly/gaudy problem for me. I'd love to just stream going forward and never have to put together another PC or buy another expensive video card again and having the ability to do this on a handheld sounds very tempting!
  - schmorptron 5y ago
    If you take some time to plan it out and pay attention to thermals, you can absolutely make a relatively unassuming Micro-ATX build nowadays, and just have a sleek small(er) black box sitting there.
  - ThatMedicIsASpy 5y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/ Noise is never an issue when you dont use stock coolers. Undervolting current gen gpus reduces a lot of noise and heat. A ps5 takes up more space than a PC. No need for 2.5/3.5" drives gives you a lot of room to get rid of ;)
aranelsurion 5y ago
> yet they are failing in what I believe is crucial for these devices: price. IMO Before coming to price, none of the Switch-likes are good products for the broader market. They lack the UX, polish, brand, games, and pretty much everything that makes Nintendo consoles such a big success. I wouldn't compare the experience of playing Super Mario Odyssey on Switch and some old game on a janky emulator or some AA game on 20fps and broken UI. Even if they had the same price tag, I wouldn't expect something like Aya Neo to eat into Nintendo's market share. Only a fully developed platform can do that.
- libertine 5y ago
  Actually I wasn't mentioning the android devices, or the ones dedicated to be emulation machines, but kind of a "newish" win10 machines where you can install pretty much what ever you want (from PC games to emulators), but come at a high price tag (600€++). Everyone has to start somewhere, and history has shown that pricing was a major factor for the success of consoles (besides ofc IP, distribution, branding). You have great examples, like Gameboy VS Gamegear or Playstation VS Sega Saturn.
fragileone 5y ago
Thing is whilst the device might be comparatively expensive to the Switch, the games will be able to be played for the entire lifetime of the Steam online store and on multiple platforms (SteamPal itself, laptops, desktops, any device with SteamLink, cloud gaming like GeForce NOW, any future devices etc).
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
> ...to be a gateway for kids to buy into the "big-boy" consoles Game consoles are like vinyl record players. Despite the huge nostalgia market in a demographic with lots of disposable income and lots of potential free time due to a looming retirement, to "kids these days" it's already a legacy format that's dead from any practical perspective.

txdv 5y ago

Slap steam on it and take the Steam cut?

libertine 5y ago
That's the tricky part, if these devices aren't locked to a proprietary OS/marketplace, users can shop around and you're basically helping your competitors while taking all the losses.
- easton 5y ago
  If it's running SteamOS (and it will be, even if there's Windows compatibility Valve probably doesn't want to pay for licenses), it might as well be locked to Steam for 90% of people. Epic's launcher doesn't have a Linux version (since they've claimed as have many other developers that the Linux community is 1% of users and 90% of complaints due to distro differences), nor does EA, Ubisoft, etc. They could port it, but by time they had something user friendly and working (which may be difficult since you probably won't get more than Steam Big Picture which doesn't have support for installing non-Steam applications at the moment) Valve would've sold a boatload of these and a bunch of Steam games. Edit: not to mention anti-cheat, which is a whole other kettle of fish when you have to integrate into a entirely other kernel with different plumbing. Valve's anti-cheat doesn't rely on kernel modules or a ton of client side software at all, so they have a cross-platform advantage there too.
  - SirLotsaLocks 5y ago
    Yeah this is where valve's investment into Linux would potentially pay off. Any platform they make could run Linux and work really well while basically all of steam's competitors either haven't done anything for Linux or have actively avoided/worked against it.
  - libertine 5y ago
    Let's assume the SteamOS would make this device 100% locked to Valve's ecosystem, which would give Valve the ability to sell these devices at cost (by charging fee's on games sold). Let's set the price on the same ballpark of the current consoles prices. What would make people choose this platform over Windows, PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo? This is where IP comes to play, and why Valve shouldn't have dropped the ball with their game development investments, and they would have exclusive games to get the ball rolling.
- biryani_chicken 5y ago
  What percentage of the PC gaming market does steam have? Even if competitors like Gog and Epic get in the console, it won't change the percentages that much.

viraptor 5y ago

They could still do the "game sales will offset hardware" idea, right? They could offer a platform locked down to Steam. Sure, it will be hacked at some point, but it's not a comfortable general-use device, so they can expect most people to actually buy games to play on it.

jsnell 5y ago

The way I'd see this working is if it's not for playing games locally at all. Just boot straight into Big Picture, and allow for streaming games either from your local network via Steam Link or from a Steam cloud streaming service that gets announced together with this. I think you could hit a really attractive price point for a a device like that, and it seems like a compelling device for Steam's existing user base. At least for me, I think it'd mean tossing the Switch into the junk drawer. Targeting it for playing games locally just makes no sense. It's either going to be too expensive to have any real market, or too slow to run the stuff modern PC gamers want to run. Either way, it'll be a niche device that Valve shouldn't waste their time with (PC manufacturers will do it anyway). But nobody is making a dedicated portable streaming device as far as I know, and it seems like something that'd fit really well with a streaming service.

libertine 5y ago
I think I agree with you pretty much on everything. >But nobody is making a dedicated portable streaming device as far as I know, and it seems like something that'd fit really well with a streaming service. NVIDIA kind of did it with the NVIDIA Shield some years ago, and I think they're still supporting it.
- jsnell 5y ago
  My recollection is that the original Shield was marketed as much for playing (Android) games locally as for streaming, and had a much more powerful GPU and CPU than contemporary mobile phones did. That's kind of losing the advantage of it being dedicated to streaming, which is that you could really cut down on the BOM.
  - libertine 5y ago
    Streaming is still in a awkward position, both user experience wise, the cost of the streaming games (with data caps), and the competitive aspect of some games. People get blown away by the amount of data used by NVIDIA solution, Google Stadia is pretty much dead... It's hard to say if streaming would be the win condition.

Eric_WVGG 5y ago

Mine is probably a niche use case, but I will absolutely jump on one of these simply due to my lack of storage space. I live in a 450 square foot loft. I don’t have space for a tv here, so consoles were out of the question until the Switch came along. There is no room in my life — literally — for a gaming PC, but if they can cram that into another Switch? Sign me up. It’ll be a big draw for university students in dorms as well.

the_player 5y ago
Take a look at the GPD devices in that case, they might suit your exact need if you're ok with the price they're asking.
drzaiusapelord 5y ago
Also, I don't feel people talk about this much but gaming desktops tend to be noisy, ugly, and/or gaudy on top of taking up lots room. I'd love to just get rid of this box but I don't care enough about games to buy a gaming laptop, which just only slightly solves the ugly/gaudy problem for me. I'd love to just stream going forward and never have to put together another PC or buy another expensive video card again and having the ability to do this on a handheld sounds very tempting!
- schmorptron 5y ago
  If you take some time to plan it out and pay attention to thermals, you can absolutely make a relatively unassuming Micro-ATX build nowadays, and just have a sleek small(er) black box sitting there.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 5y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/ Noise is never an issue when you dont use stock coolers. Undervolting current gen gpus reduces a lot of noise and heat. A ps5 takes up more space than a PC. No need for 2.5/3.5" drives gives you a lot of room to get rid of ;)

aranelsurion 5y ago

> yet they are failing in what I believe is crucial for these devices: price. IMO Before coming to price, none of the Switch-likes are good products for the broader market. They lack the UX, polish, brand, games, and pretty much everything that makes Nintendo consoles such a big success. I wouldn't compare the experience of playing Super Mario Odyssey on Switch and some old game on a janky emulator or some AA game on 20fps and broken UI. Even if they had the same price tag, I wouldn't expect something like Aya Neo to eat into Nintendo's market share. Only a fully developed platform can do that.

libertine 5y ago
Actually I wasn't mentioning the android devices, or the ones dedicated to be emulation machines, but kind of a "newish" win10 machines where you can install pretty much what ever you want (from PC games to emulators), but come at a high price tag (600€++). Everyone has to start somewhere, and history has shown that pricing was a major factor for the success of consoles (besides ofc IP, distribution, branding). You have great examples, like Gameboy VS Gamegear or Playstation VS Sega Saturn.

fragileone 5y ago

Thing is whilst the device might be comparatively expensive to the Switch, the games will be able to be played for the entire lifetime of the Steam online store and on multiple platforms (SteamPal itself, laptops, desktops, any device with SteamLink, cloud gaming like GeForce NOW, any future devices etc).

otabdeveloper4 5y ago

> ...to be a gateway for kids to buy into the "big-boy" consoles Game consoles are like vinyl record players. Despite the huge nostalgia market in a demographic with lots of disposable income and lots of potential free time due to a looming retirement, to "kids these days" it's already a legacy format that's dead from any practical perspective.