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I doubt Nintendo views the steam deck as a competitor. I don’t think they really see the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, or PC gaming as competitors either. They are hap

I doubt Nintendo views the steam deck as a competitor. I don’t think they really see the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, or PC gaming as competitors either. They are happy to truck along doing their own thing with (comparably) affordable hardware and relying on great first party games to sell systems. You can access the entire switch library with a $200 switch lite compared to the $500 entry level Steam Deck. If you spring for the $350 OLED switch you get the dock and controller included too, which the Steam Deck doesn’t include. Despite the Steam Deck being an excellent piece of hardware and the switch being underpowered, the Switch is going to end up being the 3rd or 4th best selling console of all time. Currently 5th and likely to overtake at least the PS4.

BoorishBears 4y ago
Publishers won't see the Steam Deck as a new platform vs PC, and that's what really matters to be a competitor. I thought, maybe Valve was going to make that kind of play, but almost immediately after getting mine I realized Valve was not thinking that big (or if they were, their actions don't sell it). I was actually going to write an article on how not to do onboarding, using the Deck as an example, but enough time has passed I forgot most of the learnings, but I would summarize my experience with the Deck as "Very smart people worked on all the fun, exciting, challenging parts of making a new product... and rushed through the boring parts like a kid doing homework in their least favorite subject". One example off the top of my head: login. I worked on a greenfield consumer hardware project with a similar rich UI, and before we had our SoC finalized (COVID made that fun), we were already protoyping "boring" things like signing in with your existing device and a code, because we _knew_ that those first few minutes are unbelievably important for how people view your product. Making them type in a long secure password is a great way to ruin their excitement. - There's a bunch of (very visible) polish things that are 100% excusable for the Deck, and I still enjoy it... but just don't show Valve having anyone having driven this thing as "we want to be the new console platform". And to be clear I'm not passing judgement on that either: the Steam Deck essentially turning Valve into a PC manufacturer putting out one of the coolest "PCs" for an extremely good price is not terrible. And I totally understand the value of it being "just another PC", it turns out being a PC gives you a lot of value when it comes to having a gaming library! But I can't help but dream of what could have been. A world where the Steam Deck really came correct as its own platform. A smattering of games have thrown carrots to the Steam Deck, like C2077 adding quality presets and the like, but I'm imagining mainstream games not being considered shipped without extensive testing and optimization specifically for the Steam Deck just like an independent console. Gameplay features being designed specifically for the unique form factor and having that be a selling point for the "Steam Deck edition" I also think it would have put some good pressure on the incumbents when it comes to the "console manufacturer - publisher" relationship, since Valve has proven that they're much more reasonable to deal with (Greenlight launched at a time when companies like Nintendo were still forcing you to sign an NDA just to see how much a dev-kit cost, before you'd even dream of launching a game for their console)
- wilsonnb3 4y ago
  Hopefully some of what you want will come in the future. Steam deck has made it from “niche pre order thing for enthusiasts” to “niche thing I can buy whenever I want”, which is a great step. It’s probably the most successful hardware venture from Valve since they tried to make Steam Machines back in 2014. Hopefully they keep up the momentum.
- ranguna 4y ago
  Login on the steam deck works fine for me, did it once and never had to do it again. As for the "homework" you mentioned valve should've done, they did it. They've mentioned that they'll work with game studios of all sizes to help them make their games compatible on launch with the steam deck, both in technical terms (proton on Linux) and in usability (ui on a small screen).
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    Glad a person on HN who probably already has an affinity for tech can settle for subpar onboarding... but I guess they pay me to do a little better than subpar (and I'm wishing Valve had aimed for a little better than subpar) which is why I'm judging on a similar standard. I don't want to dox myself over this, but the Verge review for the steam deck is starts with "it's not ready". The Verge review for our product starts with how easy it was to setup and how impressed they were with the UI (which has to deal with constrained input just like the Deck) While they're not direct competitors, I leave you to guess which is more approachable to the average user. - Valve clearly did not put in nearly as much effort into the polish of the frontend software as they did with the hardware and lower level stuff. Hardware wise the thing is a marvel, and Proton is an engineering marvel... but then a top post on the subreddit is complaining that they can't even get the back button right for the store. It's things like that which separate a tech toy from a console. Working with game studios is one thing, having massive widespread appeal so they feel compelled to take you up on it is another.
    - ranguna 4y ago
      Well, the I guess I can't comment then. I'm extremely happy with my steam deck, probably because I'm a very specific subset of the target audience: a gamer who happens to love tinkering with stuff.
ekianjo 4y ago
Valve themselves say that they don't view the Switch as a competitor: https://boilingsteam.com/valves-lawrence-yang-and-pierre-loup-griffais-interview-with-japanese-media-we-dont-consider-the-nintendo-switch-to-be-a-competitor/ https://boilingsteam.com/valves-lawrence-yang-and-pierre-lou...
ranguna 4y ago
Entry level steam deck is 419€

BoorishBears 4y ago

Publishers won't see the Steam Deck as a new platform vs PC, and that's what really matters to be a competitor. I thought, maybe Valve was going to make that kind of play, but almost immediately after getting mine I realized Valve was not thinking that big (or if they were, their actions don't sell it). I was actually going to write an article on how not to do onboarding, using the Deck as an example, but enough time has passed I forgot most of the learnings, but I would summarize my experience with the Deck as "Very smart people worked on all the fun, exciting, challenging parts of making a new product... and rushed through the boring parts like a kid doing homework in their least favorite subject". One example off the top of my head: login. I worked on a greenfield consumer hardware project with a similar rich UI, and before we had our SoC finalized (COVID made that fun), we were already protoyping "boring" things like signing in with your existing device and a code, because we _knew_ that those first few minutes are unbelievably important for how people view your product. Making them type in a long secure password is a great way to ruin their excitement. - There's a bunch of (very visible) polish things that are 100% excusable for the Deck, and I still enjoy it... but just don't show Valve having anyone having driven this thing as "we want to be the new console platform". And to be clear I'm not passing judgement on that either: the Steam Deck essentially turning Valve into a PC manufacturer putting out one of the coolest "PCs" for an extremely good price is not terrible. And I totally understand the value of it being "just another PC", it turns out being a PC gives you a lot of value when it comes to having a gaming library! But I can't help but dream of what could have been. A world where the Steam Deck really came correct as its own platform. A smattering of games have thrown carrots to the Steam Deck, like C2077 adding quality presets and the like, but I'm imagining mainstream games not being considered shipped without extensive testing and optimization specifically for the Steam Deck just like an independent console. Gameplay features being designed specifically for the unique form factor and having that be a selling point for the "Steam Deck edition" I also think it would have put some good pressure on the incumbents when it comes to the "console manufacturer - publisher" relationship, since Valve has proven that they're much more reasonable to deal with (Greenlight launched at a time when companies like Nintendo were still forcing you to sign an NDA just to see how much a dev-kit cost, before you'd even dream of launching a game for their console)

wilsonnb3 4y ago
Hopefully some of what you want will come in the future. Steam deck has made it from “niche pre order thing for enthusiasts” to “niche thing I can buy whenever I want”, which is a great step. It’s probably the most successful hardware venture from Valve since they tried to make Steam Machines back in 2014. Hopefully they keep up the momentum.
ranguna 4y ago
Login on the steam deck works fine for me, did it once and never had to do it again. As for the "homework" you mentioned valve should've done, they did it. They've mentioned that they'll work with game studios of all sizes to help them make their games compatible on launch with the steam deck, both in technical terms (proton on Linux) and in usability (ui on a small screen).
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  Glad a person on HN who probably already has an affinity for tech can settle for subpar onboarding... but I guess they pay me to do a little better than subpar (and I'm wishing Valve had aimed for a little better than subpar) which is why I'm judging on a similar standard. I don't want to dox myself over this, but the Verge review for the steam deck is starts with "it's not ready". The Verge review for our product starts with how easy it was to setup and how impressed they were with the UI (which has to deal with constrained input just like the Deck) While they're not direct competitors, I leave you to guess which is more approachable to the average user. - Valve clearly did not put in nearly as much effort into the polish of the frontend software as they did with the hardware and lower level stuff. Hardware wise the thing is a marvel, and Proton is an engineering marvel... but then a top post on the subreddit is complaining that they can't even get the back button right for the store. It's things like that which separate a tech toy from a console. Working with game studios is one thing, having massive widespread appeal so they feel compelled to take you up on it is another.
  - ranguna 4y ago
    Well, the I guess I can't comment then. I'm extremely happy with my steam deck, probably because I'm a very specific subset of the target audience: a gamer who happens to love tinkering with stuff.

ekianjo 4y ago

Valve themselves say that they don't view the Switch as a competitor: https://boilingsteam.com/valves-lawrence-yang-and-pierre-loup-griffais-interview-with-japanese-media-we-dont-consider-the-nintendo-switch-to-be-a-competitor/ https://boilingsteam.com/valves-lawrence-yang-and-pierre-lou...

ranguna 4y ago

Entry level steam deck is 419€