"PC Gamers tend to upgrade their hardware every 2 years" No, y'all rich people do, the grand majority of pc gamers make their hardware last as long as possible.
@@Gobama_prismG This is a stupid comment, people who simply have the means can upgrade as they see needed, simply because that bother you does not make them spoiled lol.
Come on, let's be realistic - people who upgrading their PC every two years are the same people who buy new iPhone every year. It's not because the previous one is obsolete, but because they have money and have no ideas how else they can spend them. Steam Deck is obviously for mobile gaming and not for (all) AAA titles, аnd I don't see minimum system requirements skyrocketing outside of AAA titles. So Steam Deck will last you at least 3-4 more years since now with no issues at all.
ye, people who upgrade their pc hardware every year must be psychopaths, as I am using my 1080TI custom build PC for over 5-6 years already, and it's still fucking perfect. I can see people upgrading after 4 years or more, but 2 years? nah man
I agree. Even their average PC video showed that most people were running gts1650s anyways. It's either people who have disposable income , people just want something because "new" and people who need a PC that can better handle their growing workload that upgrade every year/ 2 years. I heard someone say they needed a new iphone the other day and I'm like why? is your phone not able to handle what you do on it? Their response is was it's fine, I just need a newer phone
It's my secondary gaming console. I'm living through constant power outages, and it's ideal for me now. Still play mostly indie and pixelart games, even on my main PC with much better CPU and GPU.
Apparently in Nov 2022 there was 6.75% of the users on Steam using DirectX 8 GPUs. The fact that the Steam Deck is made by Steam *(correction Steam is a platform by Valve)* themselves it can be seen as a console similar to Xbox and PS5 which use PC hardware. It is easier for developers to target the Steam Deck for optimizations compared to the numerous PC configurations.
Why would they? Most cant be even bothered to optimize for the most poupular gpu which was the gtx 1060 until recently. I dont most will optimize for a even smaller margine.
I am seeing the argument as " it will be easier ( should be) for devs to fix general issues in their games for steam deck then PC's as a whole". I don't see the steam deck becoming irrelevant anytime soon as like mentioned in the video it has official valve backing for software updates, and as mentioned in a recent LTT video the new average gaming desktop has become lower rather then higher since even lower range GPU's have almost if not as much power as their older counterparts.
I do not think it will become obsolete anytime soon. I look at it from a use case. I baught my deck to run certain kinds of things in a more comfortable way. I work from home so the last thing I want to do sometimes is stay at my desk after a 10 hour shift. As a handheld I think it holds up very well.
When I started working from home a lot during COVID (like many of us) I knew that same feeling would happen so I set up an entirely different desk setup that was specifically meant for work. Works really well and mentally I don't feel bad sitting at my gaming setup.
Yup, I have a great PC, and I still regularly use my Steam deck, and it’s awesome having it especially games that are more “mobile friendly” so not as much fast paced FPS, but more Roguelike, card games (slay the spire inscription), survival games, rpgs, etc😊
And... I learned that you can stream your games from your pc to your deck using moonlight without input lag at higher quality. I still think i'm going to wait for v2 though.
Other consoles are obsolete in a moment when the last game is released for them. That will never happen in a case of the Steam Deck. There will always be new games available for it even though they might be simpler to what AAA is at that time.
Lol I just traded my 1070 Alienware PC, desk, monitor, and mouse/keyboard for a 3050TI Laptop on Black Friday with my brother in law. $500 laptop he spent and I spent another $200 on 1tb SSD and 32gb ram.
Valve's aversion to the number "3" was clearly misplaced. Not only was it SteamOS 3 that finally took hold, but 3.3 (and explicitly 3.3.3) was extremely solid and stable. The number they *should* have been worried about was "4." SteamOS 3.4 was a Windows 21H2-level dumpster fire, and now I'm worried SteamOS 4 might be a Vista-sized fiasco.
"Gamers" in their definition is "Users that partake in the steam survey" and uh....that includes that 2011 macbook in school, and every single shitty notebook ever made, and uh, yea, 2 years lifespan on average seems about accurate for the bottom end of the notebook market
Based on the Nov 22 Steam HW survey, 43.66% of ALL surveyed hardware that is nvidia is 20 series or older (initial 30 series release was just over 2 years ago so I used that as my divider). This doesn't factor in other brands' older hardware. If you add up all the nvidia users (so ignoring people that have crossed brands), >2 year old nvidia HW is 2/3rds of all nvidia HW. Sure, with the 40 series out now and not represented in the survey, that means a bunch of people that were probably waiting are now upgraded but I'd wager they fall into the definitely more than 2 years since an upgrade club. I don't get how LTT can already be trying to make videos about SteamDeck maybe already being obsolete. Seems a bit tone deaf and definitely pushes me towards the "LTT doesn't relate to their demographics at all" camp. The Steamdeck is more powerful than more than half the hardware that shows up in the surveys, I'd be hardpressed to call it obsolete in the way y'all seem to be trying to define it... as useless. But it's not going anywhere anytime soon (nor any of the other handheld PCs) and its certainly not ending production and at the very least can't be considered "obsolete" until Steam stops producing it. Since Linus likes to be really pedantic about word definitions such as "resolution" I'd hope y'all would be a bit more responsible and realistic in word choices.
So, congrats on the engagement, LTT but with videos like this I'm hardpressed to expect I'll be able to relate to any reporting and should only expect meaningful entertainment out of your non-reporting videos.
@@Elenrai No, look at just the nvidia hardware in the survey (if we exclude mobile gpus it would only shift the results a few percent) and you'll see that a majority of the hardware is more than 2 years old.
PC games tend to upgrade their hardware every 2 years? I really doubt that is a average statistic. I and most people I know use the same pc for like 6-10 years without upgrading it.
Every two years a new graphics card comes out. The 4060 was pretty bad at price to performance but typically they buy a new graphics card and sell the old one while it still has value
@@StinkyBlack1is the same for consoles, the difference is that in PC you have to lower the graphics to free up VRAM, in the console the developer do that for you
You can rationalize anything. I'll rationalize it this way. I'm happy Steam deck has been a success and will push Valve and other companies to make better products. If it means buying a steam deck 2 in 5 years. Great. For now, I'm really enjoying the Deck. I'm actually playing games again.
@@jamandcracks8875 but he said if it means buying it in a few years great to he’s enjoying it? lol that’s why thought steam deck and deck was something diff
I personally prefer some of the other options, such as the Retroid or Ayn ODIN. Much better battery life, much cheaper, and can typically emulate up to GC/PS2.
@@ThePearlJam The price to performance still outdoes those other handhelds. But I can understand why you might prefer one of them over the steam deck, it’s not like it’s a perfect handheld.
Baited, I admit, but it's kind of a nonsense title: Deck could only be "Obsolete" if there was a competitor that provides the same experience for a cheaper price or one that provides a superior experience for (nearly) the same price. I'd love to see the handheld PC market get really competitive, but considering Valve heavily subsidised the Deck to get it where it's at, this is a tough ask.
Yeah, here I expected a video about all the new 6800U handhelds. The 512GB GPD Win 4 is the same price as the 512GB Deck plus a copy of Windows, and it even has a Sidekick-style hidden keyboard. If I didn't already own a Deck I probably would have bought one.
There are a lot of devices already out that are more powerful than the Steam Deck. But they will never compare to the software support from both Valve and the Steam Deck community. Aya and other companies will never come close in that regard. The software is much more important to longevity of a device than hardware specs.
Yeah, there's competition on specs, but not on price. Valve is uniquely capable here because they own a store where they can get a cut of revenue. Other current handheld manufacturers have to make all their revenue on margin, so they'll never be able to truly compete except at the high end, where cost isn't a driving factor. True competition would require someone like Epic getting into the handheld gaming console business too.
@@chrisdpratt I don't entirely agree - Valve certainly can afford to subsidise entirely or make smaller profits on the Deck, but with so much of the ground work already done (Valve, GPD, AYA, to some extent Sony and Nintendo too for formfactors) and Valve putting in so much work on top of sponsoring other bits of Linux development to make SteamOS run well on other platforms as well, coupled with the every forward progress of the next gen chips, etc - All adds up to make creating a competitor rather more affordable for the company that chooses to try in the near future. At least if you can get enough initial investment to make a big enough run for economies of scale to come into it there. I would not call a gaming PC handheld a niche product of a niche market, and I don't think the financial types are likely to any more either... So committing to that run big enough to make each unit retail in the right ballpark.... I think we will see a more competitive handheld PC market sooner rather than later, unless the steamdeck sales obviously tank tomorrow - if there are only a few million people with the money and interest to buy a handheld and they all have one type situation there is no point in creating a rival - which I think we can all agree is unlikely.
@@EliZeusYT I filled mine with indies and barely touched it. Bought a 1tb Micro SD and filled with triple A games and I'm playing a couple hours a day now. Currently enjoying Miles Morales
I don't think it will be for a year or two, it's popularity has created a benchmark for the low end. I think we will see games with a steam deck setting designed to hit a consistent 40 FPS
It's popularity already has died off. They are easy to buy now. It is a pointless device. I rather take my laptop that is far more powered then the steam deck.
@@vegeta6555 I ain't seeing someone playing games on a laptop unless they are at a desk or something. a steam deck is something you can play anywhere as it's handheld. It's like why would you play a game on a phone when you can take a laptop around. a laptop is not always practical
People still share pics or clips of their Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum gameplay on social media, so the concern of the Steam Deck's obsolescence is wholly unwarranted. The Steam Deck will remain relevant long after it's no longer capable of running modern games and will become a very important part of games preservation, and that people are even now using it as a game emulator only cements its place in the future.
Exactly! I bought a Steam Deck to play PC games but mainly to play all my emulated consoles! I don't even really go for triple a games I prefer jrpgs. The fact I can play ps2 games on the go was the biggest selling point for me 😅
Many people think that each new game somehow requires better or same performance, while probably in 10 years time over 50% games released on PC will work just fine. Not to mention you have tons of replayable games, which you return from time to time. I am rediscovering number of titles on deck, especially platfomers and adventure games. Talk about how many times you can play Slay the Spire or Battle Brothers? My kids love Lego Worlds, which plays excellent.
@@NoMatterRichWay personally, I have PNY's standard xc A1 256gb (black card with green stripe). I've heard A2 and A3 are faster...but mine seems as fast as any Switch game and I trust the brand.
Re: title - not at all! The Steam Deck is genuinely greater than the sum of its parts thanks to things like SteamInput, the price is basically impossible to beat, and the Steam Deck still has the best performance at 12W and below. But there are some fun devices out there.
In our hearts, the Steam Deck will never be obsolete. Best gaming device I've ever owned. Revolutionary in its design in relation with price and functionality. My childhood self would have sacrificed all the other systems I owned for the portability of this thing
@@RhythmGrizz Nintendo Switch can't hold a candle to the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck is what the Switch wishes it could be. Shuntaro Furukawa is NOT going to have sex with YOU. Stop trying so hard. 😂😂😂
Steam Deck's success is exactly what will make it *not* obsolete for a long time. It has become a performance target for developers to aim for. So they'll have extra graphical options like they always have, but they'll still be trying to make it play perfectly on a Steam Deck. Regardless, the good news for Valve is that it doesn't matter if a competitor comes in with a better Steam Deck so long as it runs Steam!
yeah, steamos being public is gonna be a win for consumers that get handhelds with good performance, other companies that get sales from powerful handhelds, and valve who gets steam profits
One thing to remember when talking about compatibility is, when one platform sells millions of units, developers will optimise their titles for that platform. That gives me hope for the future.
given the economic & environmental forecasts, I'd imagine competition on cost and power efficiency will overtake competition on raw power in the next couple decades.
Minisforum has a nice portfolio of products so far. Taking the mantle from Zotacs. You can build a similar PC too, if you're comfortable with flex PSUs.
@@Malisteen Peak power consumption will never be a selling point for gaming desktops. PSUs are limited to 1500W by the North American 15amp outlet standard and since they only get close to that intermittently, their average power consumption is always negligeable to room heating, water boilers or an oven. Unless you game all day, it literally doesn't matter if your PC can draw over 1000W, it won't cost you much even in areas where electricity is very expensive
@@KekusMagnus Let's assume 600W constant load for 8h. This might include some work from home and some time that might have higher loads, some days one might be longer on it and some days one might be shorter on it. With my current electricity prices of ~70 cents per kWh that's roughly 1200€ per year. True not absolutely crazy, but with our lower salaries here it's certainly something I (and most other people as well) consider. I would never accept 40% higher power draw for 15% more performance here. Simply not worth it.
@@Malisteen Couple of decades? In my head I feel that we will be seeing it much sooner, at least in the US where capitalistic greed continues to get worse. I hope I'm wrong though.
I think medium settings 40fps is honestly an amazing target for the deck. I wasn't sure on 40fps until I tried it but it feels much closer to 60fps than 30, and has been working great for me on games like rdr2, sonic frontiers, and spiderman miles morales
Personally I still can't help but feel shortchanged in 40hz mode. I'm glad it exists because I'd rather play in 40 than 30, but honestly for anything I can't run near 60 on steam deck I'll just play on my laptop.
@LPNP fair, I don't have a laptop and so 40fps makes me happy to lie back in bed and play games, but someday a few years down the line a 1080p60 / 720p90 capable deck would be awesome
Well you could not see more than 30 fps to begin with. What you can see is a possible smearing effect but that is really more up to the screen than it is to fps output of the GPU. Since the Steam Deck has a pretty good screen there is almost no smearing and fps >40 is not really needed for most games.
Depends what you are using it for, i personally use mine as a retro gaming machine. The current hardware its on will always run the game i want it to run. I think if you bought a steam deck as a triple AAA gaming platform that was a mistake, if i want to play games that demand a lot of resources i would just use my PC. However having a portable console that i can play JRPG's and Retro collections on while i am traveling is amazing. Being able to switch to desktop mode for casual web browsing is an added bonus.
I use mine to play AAA games on medium settings and it goes great!!!! consistent 40 fps. don't get much battery but when I want more battery / higher graphics settings I can use steam link to stream my pc to my deck and play games anywhere around my house
@@filedotnix for sure, it is defiantly a capable machine, i was just saying to for me personally its a retro gaming setup (an amazing one at that) so it being dated doesn't really apply (im sure a lot of people use it for indie / retro games as well). As a PC gamer i just have a pretty good setup so when i want to play demanding titles i just play on my main rig, and then use the steam deck as a travel device for retro and JRPG titles.
@@Trick0ut makes sense. I have a good pc but sometimes feel super constrained by having to sit at my desk to play games, so I'll sometimes stream games from pc to deck so I can get higher settings (or play games that don't work on deck)
This was my idea whenever I get a Deck. Playing older or Humble games that aren't resource hungry. I don't always want to sit at my desk for those types.
similar to how games are solely developed for consoles cause of the lack of hardware variance, with over a million Steam Decks sold already devs are also incentivized to design their games to run well the Steam Deck since it offers the same rigid hardware as consoles. Even as it gets older I wouldn't be surprised if AAA titles just start having a dedicated graphics settings just for the deck.
Just for perspective, 1 million Steam Decks sounds like a lot and it is, but compare that to 144 million Nintendo Switches sold in 6 years, or ~24 million per year. The trick is that supporting the Steam Deck requires very little extra time and effort for most Developers, the biggest hurdles are anti cheat, overreaching DRM, always online connections and 3rd party launchers... getting the likes of EA, Activision, EPIC and so on to WANT to support the Deck, that is going to be the big trick here. The indies already love this thing, it's a new market for them to throw their stuff at that has hungry playerbase for all the small games to play in-between that they completely ignored while only playing on the big PC. They just have to pay attention that their controls make sense for a regular gamepad (not all indies do), that 1280x720 or better x800 is properly supported and that fonts are actually big enough to be readable at that screen size.... which has been less or a problem than i thought, but there is a handful of games i ran into with tiny fonts that i uninstalled again. Heck i could see a market for PC games that got ported to Switch to be backported to Steam for Steam Deck, because that is already graphically dialed in for weaker hardware, has gyro controls (i would expect anyway, idk) and a readable UI at that screen size. ... like i would not complain if Star Wars Episode 1 Racer would be ported back to PC just to have a better experience in the UI and have the videos actually play properly, the Steam version WORKS, but it is janky AF. ...and i'd buy it again just for that.
@@ZeroB4NG I had the switch for 2 years now I have the steam deck And I can confidently say that Nintendo is shit Weak performance and very expensive games
@@senatorarmstrong1233 Nope, they're already planning a steam deck 2. Try running the latest games on the highest graphical settings, you'll probably not be able to do it without taking big hits to FPS.
As a brazilian, a person who lives in a country where we have to buy a computer that lasts at least 5 to 10 years, i can safely tell that the steam deck can last 5 years and become a cool retro gadget by then.
@@Ulexcool computer hardware is expensive in Brazil so they can’t afford to upgrade as often as people in the US can, so whatever they get they gotta make it last
@@Ulexcool You see, the top 5% of the population earn around 600 dollars or more, and the other 95% are earning from 300 to 600 per month. Living costs for people with a "good" wage is around 500 dollars, so people here always buy things in installments, so it's less impactfull and they can still have some buying power. So that's why people can't afford to simply buy something that's gonna last less than the year's worth of installments they're paying for it and they also can't afford to spend such scarce money on frivolous things all the time. Also, a 300 dollar laptop here, with all the taxes, arrive at our stores at a 900 dollars price. So basically everyone is poor and everything is 3x the price.
@@_..D your 5 years ago computer is what they will buy now and have to use for 5 to 10 years forward, that is the difference between poor and rich countries
Even if the steam deck does go "obsolete" relatively soon, it's still going to be very useful as an emulation platform. I thought that I was going to play more PC games on it but since getting it I have found myself going back and playing more older console titles on it and it is perfect for that.
I really love Cyberpunk theme, and when the game was able to run more stable, I was looking for something to play it on. PS5, all sold out, or high price. I'm not really a huge console, sit down, and game type either tbh. I found out about the deck from looking for options and placed my order ASAP. The PC I was looking to build, as suggested specs by Cyberpunk, was looking to be upwards of $3k+ (I'm the all or nothing type). The deck runs Cyberpunk 2077 AMAZINGLY. My friend, with a ~$3k setup, also plays on his PC, and it sometimes struggles (different setting ofc). At the end of the day, the deck is able to play MANY AAA titles VERY smoothly. The density of pixels makes everything look really good, given the form factor. I will 100% buy any future deck models, as I truly believe it's the PC version of the much loved PSP, and it is really unique.
It really is the the psp's spiritual successor, given the fact that you can emulate so many different consoles and handhelds on it. Just love experimenting to see which switch games would work on it.
Ik, I was gonna do the same as you, just for Cyberpunk but it does run well on Deck, but maybe in the future I'll still build one so I can really use a bunch of mods for it. But not right now, the Deck is amazing for everything.
short answer: absolutely not, why? 3:49 if you own a steam deck, chances are you own another main gaming machine. the steam deck, like your microwave to your oven is for convenience & a new way to play. not for cooking your entire family’s meal with
Anthony, I havent upgraded my PC for like 7 years. Still have a 1080. Realistically i watch LTTs PC builds bc I want to stay in touch with up to date tech, not bc I want to upgrade. Steam deck will go a long ways.
Steam Deck, just like older PCs, even with older GPUs won't be Obsolete any time soon for a simple reason: "Graphical Progress" nowadays is pretty much only down to resolution & frames per second. So, as long as you will be playing in 720p or 1080p with 30 or 60 fps and with medium to high settings - you will be able to run pretty much everything - unless some new technology (like always on Ray tracing) will be required to boot a game.
One of the other, less mentioned benefit of the steam deck is that it accelerated proton compatibility among games. Devs now actually have a reason to optimise games for linux. I'm hoping this will boost Linux's viability as a daily driver os for more people.
It's not the same as a GTX 950, because it's RDNA2, which is the same as console GPUs. It's not going to be obsolete at the low resolution. You just won't be able to run games with raytracing or high settings. There's also supposedly a refresh planned, but that will not change specs but build quality and battery life. Maybe a OLED screen.
@@Loundsify on the old versions, because Nvidia did not fully support dx12 until RTX. GCN was ahead of Maxwell, and Vega was ahead of Pascal in function support. You can get more longevity out of Vega APUs than low end Nvidia chips that have like 2gb VRAM and outdated API support. So obviously a RDNA2 APU is going to crush a similar spec Nvidia GPU based on something old. Steam deck also has quad channel memory which makes the APU perform better, not having a memory bottleneck. Just compare it to Vega APUs, as it gets double the FPS. People were amazed at how well it ran doom eternal for example, so it's not a bottleneck. Also, many people use 40 FPS mode to save power while having better FPS than 30 mode. People aren't going to run 1080p 60 FPS unless they're docked, both for screen limits and battery life. So it's not a concern.
@@tylerbenrich is it fuck, look at benchmarks for games on the 1050 and then compare the Steamdeck, they're basically the same. Not the 1050ti but the standard 1050.
I never understood the people arguing graphics. I play on my Deck because I want to lay in bed, play in another place that isn't my house, lay on the couch exc without having to account for a laptop. I've found myself not caring as much about graphics because hitting 40-45hz is what I prefer for BATTERY LIFE. That's really all I care about. If I want graphics I'll go play on PS5 or a desktop.
I am SCREAMING through my indie back log thanks to my Deck and once it goes obsolete I'm just going to integrate it into my live performance music rig as the awesome little linux machine it is.
One thing you sadly missed to mention along the lines: I would highly recommend learning about the "Golden 40" that leverages the 40Hz capabilities of the Deck's display, similar to what Sony does with 120Hz VRR-capable TVs with some PS5 games. Inevitably, you'll often end up worrying if a recent release can run at 60FPS on there. The Golden 40 does massively help here: due to the fact that you can lower the panel's refresh rate to 40Hz through the Quick Action Menu, you are able to go for 40FPS instead of 30. Why, you may ask? Despite the additional 10FPS payload to the Deck's graphics APU, 40 FPS is right in the middle between 30 and 60 FPS in terms of frame pacing, meaning a nearly 60 FPS experience. Try it out! If you want to see this in action, feel free to watch an older video of mine where I tried to explain this comprehensively. Cheers!
The late December 2022 OS update brought me 10-15 FPS in GTA5 story mode, much to my surprise... and I think with higher settings (they got reset somehow with the OS update, strangely). I'm more than happy with my Deck and would recommend it... and will buy the V2, if one comes to exist!
agreed!!! i agree with valve's assessment for improving screen and battery for now. I'd love to get a few more hours and a prettier screen. my one hope is that for a steam deck 2 they keep the chassis the same so I could upgrade mine, but that unfortunately remains to be seen
You mean an additional 10 to 15, right? I was getting near consistent 60fps when j was playing this past summer, 10 to 15 total would be a major regression.
Considering how active and beloved the PSVita homebrew community is, I think Steam Deck will get love for many more years cause a lot of the things you can't do without modding a PSVita you can do very easily on a Steam Deck out of the box.
The Steam Deck is my favorite console I own. I can use it as an emulator for anything I want, including the Wii using actual wiimotes and sensor bar. I can mod whatever I want, and play most of the games I own. It feels great in my hand, it's just the right shape and size for me. It's also infinitely more customizable than any console out right now that I've seen. Also the exhaust smells great don't judge me.
I think a big part of the Deck's lifespan is because going forward you're looking at diminishing returns of more graphically intense games but the deck has cleared the floor where pretty much any kind of game experience is viable - open-world games as far as the PS Vita struggled at times, but from the Switch onwards there's no longer a case of 'I wish this could play *a* game *like* Skyrim'. The other part of it is being an open system - looking to run emulators for older systems? No need to lock yourself out of firmware updates or do hardware modifications, just go ahead. Want to use it as a plex client? Just use discover, job's done. It's a hugely significant breakpoint for hardware that can play an immense catalogue of older software.
the Deck is the only handheld PC that has a controller with enough inputs for virtually ALL PC games. As a former AyaNeo Air owner, the specs and screen were amazing, however it was always that switch-style control layout that made me hate it. You can't play for long periods of time without getting hand cramped. No such issues on the Steam Deck. Can play for hours on end and not even think about it. Besides, on such a small screen 800p is plenty sharp enough for real-world gaming.
Have mine for a month now. I don't use it outside that much apart from when I comute to work. Since I have the deck I haven't used my pc that much. I use the pc as server and stream to the deck. Simultaneously I can pause in the deck and send the same signal to Steam link app on my TV and resume the game there. It's super convenient and costumisable. With a few simple tweaks I can control my PC from Linux and do the most simple stuff remotely. In the future I plan to put my pc away in the laundry room and do all the gaming through the deck, I won't miss the fan noise when I'm playing for sure.
The steam deck has quite literally gotten me into games again. I’m a husband, father, work full time etc etc. I have lots of obligations. Getting to play spider-man for a few minutes here or there, or play emulated games I played when I was a kid is just so special. I truly thought I may buy it and sell it within a week or two, but it’s probably my favorite purchase of 2022
The upgrading the PC every 2 years part is a bit off. Sure there are a couple of people that are enthusiasts to that extent. But from my experience most people stick with their hardware longer than 4 years. My current Rig is slowly approaching it's 7th year - And while I would like to upgrade, I am not willing to currently buy a GPU at the prices that they are at. Apart from all that, the Steam Deck was (at least to my knowledge) not marketed to be for cutting edge titles. It's biggest advantage is the openess of the platform - e.g. emulation, current titles at Low-Mid quality, older titles with nearly no issues and the ability to have it on the go. Due to the fact that the Steam Deck has only one hardware configuration, developers in the future could specifically target and optimize for it, similar to consoles.
This really depends on the performance tier of your system, but yes you're right. A system made using cheaper hardware will show its age sooner. upgrading mobo and storage, maybe ram can be pretty worthwhile.
I'm planning to buy the steam deck soon. Although it isn't officially released here yet, hopefully, once the economy stabilizes, I could afford it once it's officially released. There are plenty of semi-grey market sellers here that's selling it for a bit of a premium. Probably prices will drop on official release.
Considering the focus on repairability, it's wholly possible that when the Deck becomes obsolete, some tinkerers will find a way to upgrade the specs. And considering how cool Valve is, there might even be official support for this.
the steamdeck is something I've always seemingly wanted since I was a kid. I didn't really get into tablets/phones even then, because they missed an opportunity to just have pc games working natively on them, and so I stuck with gba, and DS. to this day I hope that someone comes out with another two screen system. on another note, one thing I've been thinking about for a while now, is that when I'm reading a book on my phone I might as well just have had an e-ink display connected to it, but imagine it being like a nintendo DS style system, where the 2nd non-primary screen can only just display text, and maybe this would use less power? but yeah, imagine playing an RPG like chrono trigger, the top screen is your primary phone screen, so its HDR oled and big, but the menu system for the battles is on the lower screen, which would be an e-ink with touch capability. or something like this, anyway.
I love the Steam Deck. I always wonder if this means more devs will port their games to linux natively to run on the hardware or will they continue to just push proton.
I want linux support to be reduced, not increased. Force Steam to build its shit around the popular operating systems, not accomodate their immensely shitty specific linux distro that locks out a massive chunk of worthwhile titles.
@@Orochistorm First Off, their Distro isn’t shitty. But more importantly, if you don’t like it, you can use steam and proton on any Linux Distro. They don’t focus on their own Distro, they focus on Linux in general. Why? Because they don’t want to be locked in with whatever Microsoft does.
@@Orochistorm Very Negative. We need more options for OSes. I guess you don't mind being tied to a closed operating system who's maintainer makes unnessary changes to all levels from hybrid kernel, user land, apis, and interface. This type of attitude is why we had vista, windows 8, windows 11.
@@Orochistorm This is one of the most idiotic comments I have to read on the internet. There is a reason Valve chose Linux instead of Windows for the Steam Deck. Remember, the Steam Deck is a showcase of SteamOS and mainly, Proton.
I'd like to see a video dedicated to showing how to resolve stuttering, fps drops, and the wide range of weird issues that come with pc gaming. I've noticed the psychology behind wanting to update my hardware stems from getting hitching or weird "performance" issues and thinking they'd go away if i just upgraded.
hitching and weird performance issues are almost always driver related or easily solved with tweaks to game config, though sometimes it can even be solved by addressing the thread usage in xml configs DOWN, like with a really prominent No Man's Sky problem where it assigns your max number of cores/threads by default to both aspects, making the game try to use more threads than you actually have and then stuttering because of it
This is what happens when PC gets shitty ports, and we are forced to compensate the poor optimization by brute forcing smooth gameplay with over engineered PC components. Soon graphic cards are going to need their enclosures if we continue at this pace
@@Orochistorm not looking to resolve the issues. there are far more than just what i listed in the comment. i was saying i wanted a video that helps ppl understand that these issues arent related to the performance of the card and there are a ton of issues that stem from Windows or from things like drivers
Obsolete? The way I view it, the Steam Deck can run current games PLUS near all previous generation games through emulators. This will be my emulation library and I will cherish it
The answer to your question (without watching the video) is "no." I play with my Deck every day. My computers are way better, but they aren't portable. I can just grab my Deck and go. Sure my Deck is a little big, but it feels nice in my hands. The buttons are in just the right spot... For me. I find the ergonomics to be great.
You'd have a point about gamers regularly upgrading if it weren't for how old the most popular hardware in the Steam Hardware Survey is. I mean the most popular GPU is the GTX1650, a GPU that was released in April 2019.
The Steam Deck is incredible - every time Valve optimizes and transports another game to it, my Win Max 2 gets another great Linux-compatible game to run smoothly. Not just joking, though - I'm absolutely adoring the renewed efforts behind Proton/Bottles/Wine/Soda/etc as they have helped me almost completely migrate out of Windows.
Some developers are actively working with valve to downscale and restrict asset size to save and optimize resources on deck. Some games take less storage space on deck compared to PC. Downscaling textures and such could help massively but that's down to the Devs to decide if they want to do it or not. Valve obviously is always there to support.
@@stonalisa3729 That's another option. Getting the game folder optimized for the deck is already a big step. I don't see the point of having 2k and 4k textures when you are limited to play in 1280x800 resolution.
Valve must have used their data to target the deck towards what users actually play. Look at the steam replay data , 29% of games being played are 8+ year old games, 64% of time spent on games is 1-7 years old. Only about 17% are new releases from 2022 .
Most steam deck owners I know are using them for cleaning out their backlog of older games. Not really for trying to play a bunch of all the newer games
I was never looking for a barn burner system.. Having the power of a PS4 Pro-ish in my hands, with the flexibility of a PC, was the whole point. People obsessed with performance are still using their Desktops. If the latest release ends up not playing on the Deck, I still have 10's of thousands of games to choose from and I won't care.
I just sold my steam deck. Compatibility issues and low fps killed it for me. If I can’t just easily play my favorite game on Steam OS at 70+ fps I would have kept it.
The Steam Deck has gotten me into playing a lot of games I would have never touched without owning one. Thing has changed my gaming habits a ton, for the better.
Do you mean accessibility devices for people like with one arm (left one)? If not, how a left handed joystick supposedly would be any different to a regular one? 😂 Tho it can still be a good video idea. Most of us will probably watch it to laugh at the bizarre premise. I'm left handed btw
@@okarowarrior Left handers (like me n you) can not find a gaming mouse. All separate thrusters for joysticks are right handed,,, I just thought that Linus and Co would make an original take on it.
@@carlcollingwood2063 is there any reason you need to use your left hand for your mouse? There are some things that I use my left hand (I'm right handed) for if they require me to. I've seen a few other people are left handed and they just get used to using it on the right side. You can try ambidextrous mice. Those are probably more plentiful than left hand only mice.
@@carlcollingwood2063 It's because left handed people don't use "left handed mice". Just use the mouse in your right hand... I'm left handed and have never once thought to myself "man I wish my keyboard and mouse were mirrored in the opposite way". Why would you want that?
They are hard to find because they don't exist. Left handed people don't use special devices lmfao. Just use your right hand? I'm left handed. My right hand still works fine.... Being left handed doesn't disable your right hand lmfao wtf.
‘The typical console has a lifespan of 5 years’. What? If you count the time from release until the succes was officially released, the PS1 lasted 6 years. PS2 also 6. PS3 was 7. PS4 also 7. That’s already more than 5. But: lots of people kept and actively used their consoles for years longer.
I think it will continue to run steams huge library of amazing indie / retro inspired games. Currently playing TMNT Shredders Revenge and Chained Echoes. Also it's an amazing streaming target for in home streaming. Assuming Sunshine improves to be on equal footing with the EOL Nvidia Gamestream.
So far I’ve been thoroughly impressed with how many games run natively on my Steam Deck and how good they actually look. I figured that I would end up streaming more games off my desktop PC, but so far I haven’t felt the need to do that. There have even been some games that I’ve lowered the resolution because running at the native resolution made everything feel sorta small, and lowering things further gave it the little bit of zoom I felt like I needed. I hope that in the future there will be games designed to be compatible with it, and they offer some text scaling options to make it easier to read, but I’m probably going to keep this thing around for years. It helped keep me sane while I stayed with my in-laws for a week over Thanksgiving, because I could just chill out on the couch and get my game on instead of fiddling around on my phone or trying to find something to watch on cable. The scalability of games these days is impressive and there are so many tricks to get better performance that it’ll easily outlive the current Switch hardware. I played Cult of the Lamb on my Deck while the wife played on her Switch, and it looked so much better on my Deck and there was a dedicated bleat button that she didn’t have on her version because it didn’t have as many buttons.
You might not be able to run the most demanding games from 2025 on your current Steam Deck, but with the ability of Steam Deck to play the existing PC library and emulate other consoles and game systems including the current Nintendo Switch, you wouldn’t have time to play all the great games playable on Steam Deck even if you had a hundred years to do it. Steam Deck will offer value for many years into the future as long as you can replace the battery.
I love the Steam Deck. I love the openness. Excellent for indie titles, which have been much better than AAA games over the last few years anyway. I love that I can play my exisiting Steam library on it, making it loaded with games from day 1.
Absolutely not obsolete. Anybody saying so would by lying to you. Platforms just getting started and more and more games are added. Day by day the library grows and hopefully deckard comes to light and adds VR
With all respect, I don't understand the objective of this video. Of course, the hardware will be obsolete regarding the playability of new gen games since developers will eventually focus on newer hardware components. But with this mentality, all packaged hardware could be defined as obsolete as soon as they leave the manufacturing site and as long as the user does not upgrade the components in question. The only logical motivation for this video here I can think of is to publish yet another one to not fall back in RUclips's algorithm. If so, very disappointing...
To be honest, i borrowed one of these from a friend for a week, It's cool an all but most of my emulated games are available on PSP & PS VITA. I'd rather have a pocket ready game console then a mini laptop in a bag.
Realistically you should be able to play any of the modern games that come out within the next 3 to 5 years in varying capacities at good FPS, so I don’t think it’s gonna be much of an issue. From a purely technical perspective it might seem obsolete to those who have all the money in the world, but for people like me who don’t I don’t think there’s gonna be any significant differences until the third or fourth iterations at the soonest. It’s like trying to compare the Switch to a Switch OLED. Sure it’s *kinda* different and better, but to an average person like me who just wants to play games it’s not gonna be much of a problem. I still have my Switch from March of 2017 and still haven’t upgraded to an OLED yet, nor do I plan to. Yes I know it’s not entirely fair since PCs improve faster than consoles do, but to what end? Honestly my biggest concern would be whenever they stop supporting the original Steam Deck models entirely for future titles, which I don’t think is gonna happen anytime soon no matter the compromises. If anything, having a Steam Deck 2 this or next year would be terrible business since the main appeal of it is that it gets upgraded and improved on all the time, so to have a model not be supported after 2-4, or even 5-7 years would not look good for them. Assuming the *absolute worst case scenario* though, it’s still great for emulation, the games that came out for it, and the older games that came out before, as well as modding, so there’s no rush to get one unless you’re dying to play much newer in tandem all the time, which is unlikely since, let’s be real here, *most* games after the 2000’s aren’t much to write home about. Sure there are rare exceptions, but they’re too far and wide between, and it’s not like said examples we already know of can’t already be played. Chances are most of them are indies or fan games/mods anyways, and those are definitely not gonna make the Steam Deck obsolete for even longer. So in any case, there is nothing to worry about unless you are rich and an absolute tech nerd. It might be a PC, but it’s also supposed to be simple and convenient. I doubt Valve would want to mess up a reputation like that up when they’re already doing well very quickly so far.
I actually see this every different, The fact that this is a PC will mean it will never be 100% obsolete, if the os ever become out of date just install windows, this could always be used a normal PC; Now as far as gaming wise, it can be used to play lower end games, the steam deck also does cloud gaming, by the time the steam deck is "obsolete", cloud gaming might have improved for better experience. I see the Steam Deck lasting as long as you want it to last, unlike consoles, new games will always be available on steam. Now if you want an improved experience then you can consider upgrading, but that would be by choice and as a want not as a need. The steam deck is here to Stay.
From what I read on the second version of the steamdeck it'll be more geared to display quality and form factor versus performance. Curious to see how it plays out
@@khhnator I think you’ve misread what I meant. Games can possibly have optimized graphics settings preset to target a specific device, GPU, resolution or framerate. I didn’t mean devs have to make compromises at the engine level that gamers with more powerful hardware will have a bad experience with settings turned up. If developers add the steam deck preset and Steam launcher will start the game with those settings for the steam deck. However, devs and publishers cannot/will not make the time and effort to do this unless they are sponsored, incentivized by other means.
@@khhnator Check LTTs recent Average PC video, low setting in games have been tailored to play on GTX 1060s because they were the most GPUs (it's now the GTX 1650 hardly a massive improvement) A games low setting don't impare it's ultra settings, no reason why the Steam Deck can't become the new lowest common denominator
@@Pegaroo_ of course not, i agree with you. we are more than a decade past the point were game ideas are being limited by hardware but whining is something people do.
I've noticed a lot of PC gamers give consoles too much credit for the "it was designed to run on it" shite. Been a long time PC and Console player and I can straight up say, ever since the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, pretty much all AAA games are filled with bugs and barely reach their target framerate. The Steam Deck STILL runs Elden Ring smoother than any console, even running the PS4 version on PS5 comes with framerate issues.
@@NJWebCrawler that's actually less a about the switch and how bad game freak is at optimizing their games to run well The last 3 pokemon games have had performance issues despite being designed for the switch Check out series like boundary break for scarlet and violet and you'll see just how many performance hacks they have in the game and yet it still runs bad Meanwhile other series like xenoblade run very well on the switch because monolith soft actually know what they're doing when it comes to optimization
@@ryanw217 It wasn't meant for the steam deck, that part was mentioning how games run fine on consoles in general, I specifically pointed out the Switch...
Of course - the same day I buy a SteamDeck this video pops up on my youtube, making me extremely worried about "Did I just buy a piece of junk?", to just be comforted by the overwhelming amount of good comments about the SteamDeck! Phew...
I think a lot more devs will look to optimize their games for the Deck's specific hardware going forward seeing as the device's adoption has been quickly taking off. As long as there continues to be a growing market, devs will adjust their future games to meet that niche.
Good one. Had one for 8 years until I could finally do an upgrade in 2019. Imagine making an upgrade from an AMD Athlon II X4 640 + GT 440 to an R3 2200g for really cheap money. And that system would outperform the old parts fairly easy. It makes you realize how fast hardware age.
Bro. I bought my last PC 10 years ago. the only upgrade it got was a GT 970 someone gave me. The Steam Deck is a real upgrade for me in some regards but overall it‘s for a completely different usecase. Comfortable gaming on my couch or to bring it with me to my GFs place to play some steamgames while I‘m there
Why I’m not buying it until gen 2 or 3. The resolution doesn’t need to increase much, maybe 1440 or 1680 to be sharp enough for a handheld. So newer hardware can dump everything into frame rate and higher graphical settings and/or Ray tracing and not have to compete with 4K 120fps PC games on desktop.
Do PC gamers seriously get new hardware every two years? I'm still gaming on a setup that I built in 2018. For the games that I play regularly (FromSoft games, TW3, Pathfinder: WOTR, Divinity: Original Sin), the deck is functional to the point where I barely go on my PC anymore (even though the game performance is superior on the PC). Also, the Steam Deck also benefits from the console advantage. A lot of games are being optimized specifically to run on the deck, so it's support lifespan should be a little better than a traditional PC.
The Steam Deck won’t be obsolete for years unless something better releases for $400. Even then that’s not how I would define obsolete for this product. With dual boot windows/SteamOS you can play nearly every game out there. If you want to play the latest games you just turn the graphics to the lowest settings. Low graphics is a very small tradeoff for the ability to play anything while traveling or laying in bed. If I want more performance I’ll sit at my desktop PC. I wouldn’t be opposed to a smaller alternative if it were the same price.
Im betting with constantly evolving upscaling tech the steam deck will be able to play games for quite awhile also devs seem to really like the steam deck so it may see alot of development specifically optimized for its hardware in the future.
That's what I'm excited about. If more games run on Linux I might switch over to it from Windows. I think steam has their own linux distro for pc, maybe I'll try it out in a few months.
After being a console gamer for my entire life, in treating the Steam Deck as a Low/Mid end PC. It's docked almost always, I didn't have to learn how to build it with little experience and it gets great updates regularly and customer and community support is great.
No, it's not obsolete simply because there's nothing that beats it from a power performance perspective. Doesn't matter if there are more powerful devices because not everybody can blow a thousand dollars on a system
You can also stream from your beefy desktop PC to your Steam Deck if you want to be able to play the most demanding AAA games while still playing in your bed
For me the video quality was very poor streaming. When games have put an emphasis on graphics over gameplay for the last 2 decades, I don't understand why I don't hear more complaints about this. Also, the lag would make any racing/fighting/rhythm games (or any game that requires timing) to be (for me) virtually unplayable.
@@Freakazoid12345 Its likely the fault of your network hardware than anything related to steam or deck. I sometimes stream from my pc to my ipad or steam deck and have 0 lag or video issues.
"PC Gamers tend to upgrade their hardware every 2 years" No, y'all rich people do, the grand majority of pc gamers make their hardware last as long as possible.
Im running a GTX 1060 and I am still happy lmao.
It isn't the rich but the geeks and spoiled people
Someone can be rich and reasonable with his expenses
@@Gobama_prismG This is a stupid comment, people who simply have the means can upgrade as they see needed, simply because that bother you does not make them spoiled lol.
@@bigbay1159 you sound spoiled
@@MoadTomiyou sound spoiled
Come on, let's be realistic - people who upgrading their PC every two years are the same people who buy new iPhone every year. It's not because the previous one is obsolete, but because they have money and have no ideas how else they can spend them.
Steam Deck is obviously for mobile gaming and not for (all) AAA titles, аnd I don't see minimum system requirements skyrocketing outside of AAA titles. So Steam Deck will last you at least 3-4 more years since now with no issues at all.
ye, people who upgrade their pc hardware every year must be psychopaths, as I am using my 1080TI custom build PC for over 5-6 years already, and it's still fucking perfect. I can see people upgrading after 4 years or more, but 2 years? nah man
@@RabbitConfirmed You're so advanced. I'm still rockin 980ti. 😂 It'll be a nice jump when I finally get a new machine next year.
@@illuminotme825 Im still waiting for a good reason to upgrade. Maybe if some good new VR headset is coming out, that could maybe convince me.
I agree. Even their average PC video showed that most people were running gts1650s anyways. It's either people who have disposable income , people just want something because "new" and people who need a PC that can better handle their growing workload that upgrade every year/ 2 years. I heard someone say they needed a new iphone the other day and I'm like why? is your phone not able to handle what you do on it? Their response is was it's fine, I just need a newer phone
It's my secondary gaming console.
I'm living through constant power outages, and it's ideal for me now.
Still play mostly indie and pixelart games, even on my main PC with much better CPU and GPU.
Apparently in Nov 2022 there was 6.75% of the users on Steam using DirectX 8 GPUs. The fact that the Steam Deck is made by Steam *(correction Steam is a platform by Valve)* themselves it can be seen as a console similar to Xbox and PS5 which use PC hardware.
It is easier for developers to target the Steam Deck for optimizations compared to the numerous PC configurations.
Why would they? Most cant be even bothered to optimize for the most poupular gpu which was the gtx 1060 until recently. I dont most will optimize for a even smaller margine.
@@ChrisBa303 It isn't just optimising for one GPU (such as the 1060), they would also have to optimise for the CPU, the amount of RAM and etc.
made by Valve*, sorry to be a pedant.
@@hotaru25189 the steamdeck IS a computer, just a low-end one with a low res screen.
I am seeing the argument as " it will be easier ( should be) for devs to fix general issues in their games for steam deck then PC's as a whole".
I don't see the steam deck becoming irrelevant anytime soon as like mentioned in the video it has official valve backing for software updates, and as mentioned in a recent LTT video the new average gaming desktop has become lower rather then higher since even lower range GPU's have almost if not as much power as their older counterparts.
I do not think it will become obsolete anytime soon. I look at it from a use case. I baught my deck to run certain kinds of things in a more comfortable way. I work from home so the last thing I want to do sometimes is stay at my desk after a 10 hour shift. As a handheld I think it holds up very well.
This right here. I hybrid work and the last thing I wanna do is continue to stay at my desk. So true.
When I started working from home a lot during COVID (like many of us) I knew that same feeling would happen so I set up an entirely different desk setup that was specifically meant for work. Works really well and mentally I don't feel bad sitting at my gaming setup.
Yup, I have a great PC, and I still regularly use my Steam deck, and it’s awesome having it especially games that are more “mobile friendly” so not as much fast paced FPS, but more Roguelike, card games (slay the spire inscription), survival games, rpgs, etc😊
And... I learned that you can stream your games from your pc to your deck using moonlight without input lag at higher quality.
I still think i'm going to wait for v2 though.
Other consoles are obsolete in a moment when the last game is released for them. That will never happen in a case of the Steam Deck. There will always be new games available for it even though they might be simpler to what AAA is at that time.
Antony: "Pc gamers upgrade their hardware every 2 years"
Me still with a 1070: 😳
Ahem, 1060 3GB, more than enough for me.
Lol I just traded my 1070 Alienware PC, desk, monitor, and mouse/keyboard for a 3050TI Laptop on Black Friday with my brother in law. $500 laptop he spent and I spent another $200 on 1tb SSD and 32gb ram.
lmao 960 still got legs
Me with a 12 year old laptop that can barely run minecraft
1050Ti
Well I mean, it's Valve, so we know Steam Deck 3 is never coming out, so it will be obsolete eventually
they could always just release the steam deck alyx & move on from there
@@athrun2 lmaooooooo
Valve's aversion to the number "3" was clearly misplaced. Not only was it SteamOS 3 that finally took hold, but 3.3 (and explicitly 3.3.3) was extremely solid and stable. The number they *should* have been worried about was "4." SteamOS 3.4 was a Windows 21H2-level dumpster fire, and now I'm worried SteamOS 4 might be a Vista-sized fiasco.
I'll start worrying when I see steam deck 2 episodic releases
Dammit I forgot they never want to go beyond 2.
What is the "gamers upgrade on average every 2 years" based on? I thought the steam surveys showed much more prevalence of older hardware?
Yeah, that felt extremely out of touch.
"Gamers" in their definition is "Users that partake in the steam survey" and uh....that includes that 2011 macbook in school, and every single shitty notebook ever made, and uh, yea, 2 years lifespan on average seems about accurate for the bottom end of the notebook market
Based on the Nov 22 Steam HW survey, 43.66% of ALL surveyed hardware that is nvidia is 20 series or older (initial 30 series release was just over 2 years ago so I used that as my divider). This doesn't factor in other brands' older hardware. If you add up all the nvidia users (so ignoring people that have crossed brands), >2 year old nvidia HW is 2/3rds of all nvidia HW. Sure, with the 40 series out now and not represented in the survey, that means a bunch of people that were probably waiting are now upgraded but I'd wager they fall into the definitely more than 2 years since an upgrade club.
I don't get how LTT can already be trying to make videos about SteamDeck maybe already being obsolete. Seems a bit tone deaf and definitely pushes me towards the "LTT doesn't relate to their demographics at all" camp. The Steamdeck is more powerful than more than half the hardware that shows up in the surveys, I'd be hardpressed to call it obsolete in the way y'all seem to be trying to define it... as useless. But it's not going anywhere anytime soon (nor any of the other handheld PCs) and its certainly not ending production and at the very least can't be considered "obsolete" until Steam stops producing it. Since Linus likes to be really pedantic about word definitions such as "resolution" I'd hope y'all would be a bit more responsible and realistic in word choices.
So, congrats on the engagement, LTT but with videos like this I'm hardpressed to expect I'll be able to relate to any reporting and should only expect meaningful entertainment out of your non-reporting videos.
@@Elenrai No, look at just the nvidia hardware in the survey (if we exclude mobile gpus it would only shift the results a few percent) and you'll see that a majority of the hardware is more than 2 years old.
PC games tend to upgrade their hardware every 2 years? I really doubt that is a average statistic. I and most people I know use the same pc for like 6-10 years without upgrading it.
My i5-2500K is 13 years old.
Every two years a new graphics card comes out. The 4060 was pretty bad at price to performance but typically they buy a new graphics card and sell the old one while it still has value
Good luck gaming. In 10 years ram usage went from like 4 gig average to 16 minimum
@@StinkyBlack1is the same for consoles, the difference is that in PC you have to lower the graphics to free up VRAM, in the console the developer do that for you
@@BlissBatchyou need to upgrade that shit
You can rationalize anything. I'll rationalize it this way. I'm happy Steam deck has been a success and will push Valve and other companies to make better products. If it means buying a steam deck 2 in 5 years. Great. For now, I'm really enjoying the Deck. I'm actually playing games again.
well just install windows 11 and then it's obsolete🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@raven4k998what’s the “deck” sorry I don’t follow this stuff
@@JamieReynolds89steam deck dude. The console
@@jamandcracks8875 but he said if it means buying it in a few years great to he’s enjoying it? lol that’s why thought steam deck and deck was something diff
@@JamieReynolds89 yeah gotcha haha
In terms of games, potentially could become obsolete. However in terms of emulation, this thing is a godsend.
I personally prefer some of the other options, such as the Retroid or Ayn ODIN. Much better battery life, much cheaper, and can typically emulate up to GC/PS2.
@@ThePearlJam steam deck can emulate ps3/Xbox 360, Wii U, etc🙏 very much worth the price
@@ThePearlJam The price to performance still outdoes those other handhelds. But I can understand why you might prefer one of them over the steam deck, it’s not like it’s a perfect handheld.
@@antifrizzy and switch
Ahenobarbus Henocide
Baited, I admit, but it's kind of a nonsense title:
Deck could only be "Obsolete" if there was a competitor that provides the same experience for a cheaper price or one that provides a superior experience for (nearly) the same price.
I'd love to see the handheld PC market get really competitive, but considering Valve heavily subsidised the Deck to get it where it's at, this is a tough ask.
Dude it’s Linus tech, you really expect the title to NOT be garbage?
Yeah, here I expected a video about all the new 6800U handhelds. The 512GB GPD Win 4 is the same price as the 512GB Deck plus a copy of Windows, and it even has a Sidekick-style hidden keyboard. If I didn't already own a Deck I probably would have bought one.
There are a lot of devices already out that are more powerful than the Steam Deck. But they will never compare to the software support from both Valve and the Steam Deck community. Aya and other companies will never come close in that regard. The software is much more important to longevity of a device than hardware specs.
Yeah, there's competition on specs, but not on price. Valve is uniquely capable here because they own a store where they can get a cut of revenue. Other current handheld manufacturers have to make all their revenue on margin, so they'll never be able to truly compete except at the high end, where cost isn't a driving factor. True competition would require someone like Epic getting into the handheld gaming console business too.
@@chrisdpratt I don't entirely agree - Valve certainly can afford to subsidise entirely or make smaller profits on the Deck, but with so much of the ground work already done (Valve, GPD, AYA, to some extent Sony and Nintendo too for formfactors) and Valve putting in so much work on top of sponsoring other bits of Linux development to make SteamOS run well on other platforms as well, coupled with the every forward progress of the next gen chips, etc - All adds up to make creating a competitor rather more affordable for the company that chooses to try in the near future. At least if you can get enough initial investment to make a big enough run for economies of scale to come into it there. I would not call a gaming PC handheld a niche product of a niche market, and I don't think the financial types are likely to any more either... So committing to that run big enough to make each unit retail in the right ballpark....
I think we will see a more competitive handheld PC market sooner rather than later, unless the steamdeck sales obviously tank tomorrow - if there are only a few million people with the money and interest to buy a handheld and they all have one type situation there is no point in creating a rival - which I think we can all agree is unlikely.
the deck will be an amazing indie games machine for years so no worries
Yup! Just got Timberborn a few days ago. Runs super smoothly, and barely used battery. (Maybe 8% per hour, depending on settings and FPS cap)
U can play almost every triple A bro
I've been playing Trails of Cold Steel 2 on it. Its incredible
@@EliZeusYT I filled mine with indies and barely touched it. Bought a 1tb Micro SD and filled with triple A games and I'm playing a couple hours a day now. Currently enjoying Miles Morales
Exactly
I don't think it will be for a year or two, it's popularity has created a benchmark for the low end. I think we will see games with a steam deck setting designed to hit a consistent 40 FPS
@UCDpTSpcV37yAR29SHWd7KVg its because the steam deck has a 40hz mode
It's popularity already has died off. They are easy to buy now. It is a pointless device. I rather take my laptop that is far more powered then the steam deck.
@@vegeta6555 yeaaaa. A laptop is way less convenient and is a lot bulkier. There's a reason one would prefer something like the steam deck
@@linuxes9681 Steam deck on bus trips are awesome. I would never want to have a laptop with me there
@@vegeta6555 I ain't seeing someone playing games on a laptop unless they are at a desk or something. a steam deck is something you can play anywhere as it's handheld. It's like why would you play a game on a phone when you can take a laptop around. a laptop is not always practical
People still share pics or clips of their Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum gameplay on social media, so the concern of the Steam Deck's obsolescence is wholly unwarranted. The Steam Deck will remain relevant long after it's no longer capable of running modern games and will become a very important part of games preservation, and that people are even now using it as a game emulator only cements its place in the future.
It will still be a powerhouse portable emulation station, long after its hardware is considered "obsolete" by AAA gaming standards.
Exactly! I bought a Steam Deck to play PC games but mainly to play all my emulated consoles! I don't even really go for triple a games I prefer jrpgs. The fact I can play ps2 games on the go was the biggest selling point for me 😅
I can imagine it being my no. 1 emulation device for many years after its "end date".
Many people think that each new game somehow requires better or same performance, while probably in 10 years time over 50% games released on PC will work just fine. Not to mention you have tons of replayable games, which you return from time to time. I am rediscovering number of titles on deck, especially platfomers and adventure games. Talk about how many times you can play Slay the Spire or Battle Brothers? My kids love Lego Worlds, which plays excellent.
@@strzyga83 I'm playing GTA4 from scratch. I've mostly forgotten the missions, it's like a brand new game. My Steam Deck will last forever.
The deck is great and continues to improve! I feel like my Steam Deck has actually gained significant value since when it arrived in Sept.
Yeah WTF is he talking about?
Yup. The updates and having it in your hands after a while makes you fall in love with it
Any recommendations for SD storage? I want to make sure I get the right card.
@@NoMatterRichWay personally, I have PNY's standard xc A1 256gb (black card with green stripe). I've heard A2 and A3 are faster...but mine seems as fast as any Switch game and I trust the brand.
Yes, this video is obsolete, I love mine lol
Re: title - not at all! The Steam Deck is genuinely greater than the sum of its parts thanks to things like SteamInput, the price is basically impossible to beat, and the Steam Deck still has the best performance at 12W and below.
But there are some fun devices out there.
In our hearts, the Steam Deck will never be obsolete. Best gaming device I've ever owned. Revolutionary in its design in relation with price and functionality. My childhood self would have sacrificed all the other systems I owned for the portability of this thing
"Revolutionary in its design"
Ah yes
How Revolutionary of valve to copy the Switch
Yeah I have 2, for windows and Steam. I am so spoiled by the trackpads and portability.
@@RhythmGrizz that's such a stupid argument.
@@RhythmGrizz Comparing the steam deck to a switch is disrespectful to the steam deck
@@RhythmGrizz Nintendo Switch can't hold a candle to the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck is what the Switch wishes it could be.
Shuntaro Furukawa is NOT going to have sex with YOU. Stop trying so hard. 😂😂😂
Steam Deck's success is exactly what will make it *not* obsolete for a long time. It has become a performance target for developers to aim for. So they'll have extra graphical options like they always have, but they'll still be trying to make it play perfectly on a Steam Deck.
Regardless, the good news for Valve is that it doesn't matter if a competitor comes in with a better Steam Deck so long as it runs Steam!
yeah, steamos being public is gonna be a win for consumers that get handhelds with good performance, other companies that get sales from powerful handhelds, and valve who gets steam profits
Agreed. I'm still surprised Valve made the Steam Deck but I'm very thankful they did. Thousands of other people feel the same way
Provided that new devs use engines with very scalable graphics settings. Otherwise, they'd be crippling the PC games out there.
One thing to remember when talking about compatibility is, when one platform sells millions of units, developers will optimise their titles for that platform. That gives me hope for the future.
I wish people competed with sub 100W PC's. Would be really fun to see how much performance can be squeezed out of a minimal amount of power.
given the economic & environmental forecasts, I'd imagine competition on cost and power efficiency will overtake competition on raw power in the next couple decades.
Minisforum has a nice portfolio of products so far. Taking the mantle from Zotacs. You can build a similar PC too, if you're comfortable with flex PSUs.
@@Malisteen Peak power consumption will never be a selling point for gaming desktops. PSUs are limited to 1500W by the North American 15amp outlet standard and since they only get close to that intermittently, their average power consumption is always negligeable to room heating, water boilers or an oven.
Unless you game all day, it literally doesn't matter if your PC can draw over 1000W, it won't cost you much even in areas where electricity is very expensive
@@KekusMagnus Let's assume 600W constant load for 8h. This might include some work from home and some time that might have higher loads, some days one might be longer on it and some days one might be shorter on it. With my current electricity prices of ~70 cents per kWh that's roughly 1200€ per year. True not absolutely crazy, but with our lower salaries here it's certainly something I (and most other people as well) consider.
I would never accept 40% higher power draw for 15% more performance here. Simply not worth it.
@@Malisteen Couple of decades? In my head I feel that we will be seeing it much sooner, at least in the US where capitalistic greed continues to get worse. I hope I'm wrong though.
I think medium settings 40fps is honestly an amazing target for the deck. I wasn't sure on 40fps until I tried it but it feels much closer to 60fps than 30, and has been working great for me on games like rdr2, sonic frontiers, and spiderman miles morales
Personally I still can't help but feel shortchanged in 40hz mode. I'm glad it exists because I'd rather play in 40 than 30, but honestly for anything I can't run near 60 on steam deck I'll just play on my laptop.
@LPNP fair, I don't have a laptop and so 40fps makes me happy to lie back in bed and play games, but someday a few years down the line a 1080p60 / 720p90 capable deck would be awesome
I’ve been using 45. Haven’t tried 40, will give it a shot.
That's because, in terms of frametime delivery and feel, 40fps (25ms) is per millisecond the exact midpoint from to 60fps (16.7ms) to 30 (33.3ms).
Well you could not see more than 30 fps to begin with. What you can see is a possible smearing effect but that is really more up to the screen than it is to fps output of the GPU. Since the Steam Deck has a pretty good screen there is almost no smearing and fps >40 is not really needed for most games.
Depends what you are using it for, i personally use mine as a retro gaming machine. The current hardware its on will always run the game i want it to run. I think if you bought a steam deck as a triple AAA gaming platform that was a mistake, if i want to play games that demand a lot of resources i would just use my PC. However having a portable console that i can play JRPG's and Retro collections on while i am traveling is amazing. Being able to switch to desktop mode for casual web browsing is an added bonus.
I use mine to play AAA games on medium settings and it goes great!!!! consistent 40 fps. don't get much battery but when I want more battery / higher graphics settings I can use steam link to stream my pc to my deck and play games anywhere around my house
@@filedotnix for sure, it is defiantly a capable machine, i was just saying to for me personally its a retro gaming setup (an amazing one at that) so it being dated doesn't really apply (im sure a lot of people use it for indie / retro games as well).
As a PC gamer i just have a pretty good setup so when i want to play demanding titles i just play on my main rig, and then use the steam deck as a travel device for retro and JRPG titles.
@@Trick0ut makes sense. I have a good pc but sometimes feel super constrained by having to sit at my desk to play games, so I'll sometimes stream games from pc to deck so I can get higher settings (or play games that don't work on deck)
This was my idea whenever I get a Deck. Playing older or Humble games that aren't resource hungry. I don't always want to sit at my desk for those types.
It runs Cyberpunk 2077 with almost all settings on high (distant shadows on high tanks the frame rate in the badlands, turn it to medium) at 30fps.
similar to how games are solely developed for consoles cause of the lack of hardware variance, with over a million Steam Decks sold already devs are also incentivized to design their games to run well the Steam Deck since it offers the same rigid hardware as consoles. Even as it gets older I wouldn't be surprised if AAA titles just start having a dedicated graphics settings just for the deck.
I disagree, I think they're going to target having medium settings be optimized to run well on the deck, but not label it as specifically for the deck
Definitely agree. The steam deck offers a good incentive for a standard "low" or "medium" hardware setup that I hope many devs keep in mind.
Just for perspective, 1 million Steam Decks sounds like a lot and it is, but compare that to 144 million Nintendo Switches sold in 6 years, or ~24 million per year.
The trick is that supporting the Steam Deck requires very little extra time and effort for most Developers, the biggest hurdles are anti cheat, overreaching DRM, always online connections and 3rd party launchers... getting the likes of EA, Activision, EPIC and so on to WANT to support the Deck, that is going to be the big trick here.
The indies already love this thing, it's a new market for them to throw their stuff at that has hungry playerbase for all the small games to play in-between that they completely ignored while only playing on the big PC.
They just have to pay attention that their controls make sense for a regular gamepad (not all indies do), that 1280x720 or better x800 is properly supported and that fonts are actually big enough to be readable at that screen size.... which has been less or a problem than i thought, but there is a handful of games i ran into with tiny fonts that i uninstalled again.
Heck i could see a market for PC games that got ported to Switch to be backported to Steam for Steam Deck, because that is already graphically dialed in for weaker hardware, has gyro controls (i would expect anyway, idk) and a readable UI at that screen size. ... like i would not complain if Star Wars Episode 1 Racer would be ported back to PC just to have a better experience in the UI and have the videos actually play properly, the Steam version WORKS, but it is janky AF. ...and i'd buy it again just for that.
@@ZeroB4NG I had the switch for 2 years now I have the steam deck
And I can confidently say that Nintendo is shit
Weak performance and very expensive games
Could you tell me a real life example of this?
As long as they release games on PC, the Steam Deck won't be obsolete.
yeah i'm pretty sure valve will release upgrade parts, i mean they sell parts through Ifixit
Nonsense....
It won't be able to run those games
@@senatorarmstrong1233 Nope, they're already planning a steam deck 2.
Try running the latest games on the highest graphical settings, you'll probably not be able to do it without taking big hits to FPS.
It's a weird question because Deck Verified exists for a reason and developers can indeed push optimized versions of their games intended for the Deck
As a brazilian, a person who lives in a country where we have to buy a computer that lasts at least 5 to 10 years, i can safely tell that the steam deck can last 5 years and become a cool retro gadget by then.
Please explain _"in a country where we have to buy a computer that lasts at least 5 to 10 years"._
This makes zero sense.
@@Ulexcool computer hardware is expensive in Brazil so they can’t afford to upgrade as often as people in the US can, so whatever they get they gotta make it last
@@Ulexcool You see, the top 5% of the population earn around 600 dollars or more, and the other 95% are earning from 300 to 600 per month. Living costs for people with a "good" wage is around 500 dollars, so people here always buy things in installments, so it's less impactfull and they can still have some buying power. So that's why people can't afford to simply buy something that's gonna last less than the year's worth of installments they're paying for it and they also can't afford to spend such scarce money on frivolous things all the time. Also, a 300 dollar laptop here, with all the taxes, arrive at our stores at a 900 dollars price. So basically everyone is poor and everything is 3x the price.
@@_..D your 5 years ago computer is what they will buy now and have to use for 5 to 10 years forward, that is the difference between poor and rich countries
@@_..D Except thanks to tariffs everything out of US costs more than you think, especially in third world countries.
Even if the steam deck does go "obsolete" relatively soon, it's still going to be very useful as an emulation platform. I thought that I was going to play more PC games on it but since getting it I have found myself going back and playing more older console titles on it and it is perfect for that.
I really love Cyberpunk theme, and when the game was able to run more stable, I was looking for something to play it on. PS5, all sold out, or high price. I'm not really a huge console, sit down, and game type either tbh. I found out about the deck from looking for options and placed my order ASAP. The PC I was looking to build, as suggested specs by Cyberpunk, was looking to be upwards of $3k+ (I'm the all or nothing type). The deck runs Cyberpunk 2077 AMAZINGLY. My friend, with a ~$3k setup, also plays on his PC, and it sometimes struggles (different setting ofc). At the end of the day, the deck is able to play MANY AAA titles VERY smoothly. The density of pixels makes everything look really good, given the form factor. I will 100% buy any future deck models, as I truly believe it's the PC version of the much loved PSP, and it is really unique.
It really is the the psp's spiritual successor, given the fact that you can emulate so many different consoles and handhelds on it. Just love experimenting to see which switch games would work on it.
Ik, I was gonna do the same as you, just for Cyberpunk but it does run well on Deck, but maybe in the future I'll still build one so I can really use a bunch of mods for it. But not right now, the Deck is amazing for everything.
short answer: absolutely not, why? 3:49
if you own a steam deck, chances are you own another main gaming machine. the steam deck, like your microwave to your oven is for convenience & a new way to play. not for cooking your entire family’s meal with
Anthony, I havent upgraded my PC for like 7 years. Still have a 1080. Realistically i watch LTTs PC builds bc I want to stay in touch with up to date tech, not bc I want to upgrade.
Steam deck will go a long ways.
Wait 1080 is 7 years now?!?
I'll have this thing for a very very long time, I can play all my older retro games and many current gen just fine.
Steam Deck, just like older PCs, even with older GPUs won't be Obsolete any time soon for a simple reason: "Graphical Progress" nowadays is pretty much only down to resolution & frames per second. So, as long as you will be playing in 720p or 1080p with 30 or 60 fps and with medium to high settings - you will be able to run pretty much everything - unless some new technology (like always on Ray tracing) will be required to boot a game.
yo... i need some of that copium bro, whos your dealer?
@@Ulexcool Stop crying about other people enjoying things. Or die mad about it.
@@Ulexcool he's speaking the truth
@@Ulexcool i see the poor are at it again
We know you have an gtx 1060 dont worry bro
One of the other, less mentioned benefit of the steam deck is that it accelerated proton compatibility among games. Devs now actually have a reason to optimise games for linux. I'm hoping this will boost Linux's viability as a daily driver os for more people.
That's a smart observation. I hope it's true. Linux is my favorite os.
It's not the same as a GTX 950, because it's RDNA2, which is the same as console GPUs. It's not going to be obsolete at the low resolution. You just won't be able to run games with raytracing or high settings. There's also supposedly a refresh planned, but that will not change specs but build quality and battery life. Maybe a OLED screen.
Yeah it much closer to the 1050 in actual gameplay performance. Teraflops between Nvidia and AMD don't compare.
@@Loundsify on the old versions, because Nvidia did not fully support dx12 until RTX. GCN was ahead of Maxwell, and Vega was ahead of Pascal in function support. You can get more longevity out of Vega APUs than low end Nvidia chips that have like 2gb VRAM and outdated API support. So obviously a RDNA2 APU is going to crush a similar spec Nvidia GPU based on something old. Steam deck also has quad channel memory which makes the APU perform better, not having a memory bottleneck. Just compare it to Vega APUs, as it gets double the FPS. People were amazed at how well it ran doom eternal for example, so it's not a bottleneck. Also, many people use 40 FPS mode to save power while having better FPS than 30 mode. People aren't going to run 1080p 60 FPS unless they're docked, both for screen limits and battery life. So it's not a concern.
Almost everything is a retina display when you have bad eyesight. OLED may be nice though if they can get the life span long enough to avoid burn in.
@@Loundsify Nowhere near a GTX 1050. The performance is more like a GT 1030.
@@tylerbenrich is it fuck, look at benchmarks for games on the 1050 and then compare the Steamdeck, they're basically the same. Not the 1050ti but the standard 1050.
I never understood the people arguing graphics. I play on my Deck because I want to lay in bed, play in another place that isn't my house, lay on the couch exc without having to account for a laptop.
I've found myself not caring as much about graphics because hitting 40-45hz is what I prefer for BATTERY LIFE. That's really all I care about. If I want graphics I'll go play on PS5 or a desktop.
I am SCREAMING through my indie back log thanks to my Deck and once it goes obsolete I'm just going to integrate it into my live performance music rig as the awesome little linux machine it is.
One thing you sadly missed to mention along the lines: I would highly recommend learning about the "Golden 40" that leverages the 40Hz capabilities of the Deck's display, similar to what Sony does with 120Hz VRR-capable TVs with some PS5 games. Inevitably, you'll often end up worrying if a recent release can run at 60FPS on there. The Golden 40 does massively help here: due to the fact that you can lower the panel's refresh rate to 40Hz through the Quick Action Menu, you are able to go for 40FPS instead of 30. Why, you may ask? Despite the additional 10FPS payload to the Deck's graphics APU, 40 FPS is right in the middle between 30 and 60 FPS in terms of frame pacing, meaning a nearly 60 FPS experience. Try it out! If you want to see this in action, feel free to watch an older video of mine where I tried to explain this comprehensively. Cheers!
The late December 2022 OS update brought me 10-15 FPS in GTA5 story mode, much to my surprise... and I think with higher settings (they got reset somehow with the OS update, strangely).
I'm more than happy with my Deck and would recommend it... and will buy the V2, if one comes to exist!
agreed!!! i agree with valve's assessment for improving screen and battery for now. I'd love to get a few more hours and a prettier screen. my one hope is that for a steam deck 2 they keep the chassis the same so I could upgrade mine, but that unfortunately remains to be seen
You mean an additional 10 to 15, right? I was getting near consistent 60fps when j was playing this past summer, 10 to 15 total would be a major regression.
@@lpnp9477 It was pretty obvious that he meant 10-15 more "brought me 10-15 fps" is self explanatory.
@@Luke357 nope, it wasn't, but thanks for being condescending anyway
@@lpnp9477 He should have said "An additional 10-15 fps" But no one is perfect.
The more popular the steam deck becomes the more developers will make sure that games are supported.
Why? Because they will get money from sales…
Considering how active and beloved the PSVita homebrew community is, I think Steam Deck will get love for many more years cause a lot of the things you can't do without modding a PSVita you can do very easily on a Steam Deck out of the box.
yeah you can practically run any program compiled for x86_64 on it (which is the most popular CPU architecture for non-mobile and non-embedded shit)
The Steam Deck is my favorite console I own. I can use it as an emulator for anything I want, including the Wii using actual wiimotes and sensor bar. I can mod whatever I want, and play most of the games I own. It feels great in my hand, it's just the right shape and size for me. It's also infinitely more customizable than any console out right now that I've seen.
Also the exhaust smells great don't judge me.
I think a big part of the Deck's lifespan is because going forward you're looking at diminishing returns of more graphically intense games but the deck has cleared the floor where pretty much any kind of game experience is viable - open-world games as far as the PS Vita struggled at times, but from the Switch onwards there's no longer a case of 'I wish this could play *a* game *like* Skyrim'. The other part of it is being an open system - looking to run emulators for older systems? No need to lock yourself out of firmware updates or do hardware modifications, just go ahead. Want to use it as a plex client? Just use discover, job's done. It's a hugely significant breakpoint for hardware that can play an immense catalogue of older software.
An another important aspect, the Steam Deck is known hardware. Developers will be able to design just for it, helping it last longer.
Do you honestly think devs will develop specifically for a device that sold less than the wii u in the same time frame?
@@TheNinjaCrash Except they already are. Developers are specifically targeting the SD now, but sure, believe what the other jealous trolls tell you. 🤣
the Deck is the only handheld PC that has a controller with enough inputs for virtually ALL PC games. As a former AyaNeo Air owner, the specs and screen were amazing, however it was always that switch-style control layout that made me hate it. You can't play for long periods of time without getting hand cramped. No such issues on the Steam Deck. Can play for hours on end and not even think about it. Besides, on such a small screen 800p is plenty sharp enough for real-world gaming.
Have mine for a month now. I don't use it outside that much apart from when I comute to work.
Since I have the deck I haven't used my pc that much. I use the pc as server and stream to the deck. Simultaneously I can pause in the deck and send the same signal to Steam link app on my TV and resume the game there. It's super convenient and costumisable. With a few simple tweaks I can control my PC from Linux and do the most simple stuff remotely.
In the future I plan to put my pc away in the laundry room and do all the gaming through the deck, I won't miss the fan noise when I'm playing for sure.
The steam deck has quite literally gotten me into games again. I’m a husband, father, work full time etc etc. I have lots of obligations.
Getting to play spider-man for a few minutes here or there, or play emulated games I played when I was a kid is just so special.
I truly thought I may buy it and sell it within a week or two, but it’s probably my favorite purchase of 2022
Honestly they're selling like hot cakes on ebay for retail price still so there's still that option if you need it
The upgrading the PC every 2 years part is a bit off. Sure there are a couple of people that are enthusiasts to that extent. But from my experience most people stick with their hardware longer than 4 years. My current Rig is slowly approaching it's 7th year - And while I would like to upgrade, I am not willing to currently buy a GPU at the prices that they are at.
Apart from all that, the Steam Deck was (at least to my knowledge) not marketed to be for cutting edge titles. It's biggest advantage is the openess of the platform - e.g. emulation, current titles at Low-Mid quality, older titles with nearly no issues and the ability to have it on the go. Due to the fact that the Steam Deck has only one hardware configuration, developers in the future could specifically target and optimize for it, similar to consoles.
This really depends on the performance tier of your system, but yes you're right. A system made using cheaper hardware will show its age sooner. upgrading mobo and storage, maybe ram can be pretty worthwhile.
I'm planning to buy the steam deck soon. Although it isn't officially released here yet, hopefully, once the economy stabilizes, I could afford it once it's officially released.
There are plenty of semi-grey market sellers here that's selling it for a bit of a premium. Probably prices will drop on official release.
Considering the focus on repairability, it's wholly possible that when the Deck becomes obsolete, some tinkerers will find a way to upgrade the specs.
And considering how cool Valve is, there might even be official support for this.
I would love to see what people do in response to being able to upgrade the CPU/GPU.
The hair flip was fucking iconic. Well done. Flaunt that shit my guy 🔥
the steamdeck is something I've always seemingly wanted since I was a kid. I didn't really get into tablets/phones even then, because they missed an opportunity to just have pc games working natively on them, and so I stuck with gba, and DS. to this day I hope that someone comes out with another two screen system.
on another note, one thing I've been thinking about for a while now, is that when I'm reading a book on my phone I might as well just have had an e-ink display connected to it, but imagine it being like a nintendo DS style system, where the 2nd non-primary screen can only just display text, and maybe this would use less power? but yeah, imagine playing an RPG like chrono trigger, the top screen is your primary phone screen, so its HDR oled and big, but the menu system for the battles is on the lower screen, which would be an e-ink with touch capability. or something like this, anyway.
Natively? That seems like a bit of a stretch. Mind explaining how?
@@kadrix732 I was a dumb kid, and tablets at the time were running on windows XP.
I love the Steam Deck. I always wonder if this means more devs will port their games to linux natively to run on the hardware or will they continue to just push proton.
I want linux support to be reduced, not increased. Force Steam to build its shit around the popular operating systems, not accomodate their immensely shitty specific linux distro that locks out a massive chunk of worthwhile titles.
@@Orochistorm First Off, their Distro isn’t shitty. But more importantly, if you don’t like it, you can use steam and proton on any Linux Distro. They don’t focus on their own Distro, they focus on Linux in general. Why? Because they don’t want to be locked in with whatever Microsoft does.
@@Orochistorm Very Negative. We need more options for OSes. I guess you don't mind being tied to a closed operating system who's maintainer makes unnessary changes to all levels from hybrid kernel, user land, apis, and interface. This type of attitude is why we had vista, windows 8, windows 11.
@@Orochistorm This is one of the most idiotic comments I have to read on the internet. There is a reason Valve chose Linux instead of Windows for the Steam Deck.
Remember, the Steam Deck is a showcase of SteamOS and mainly, Proton.
@@Orochistorm Linux native support and a near perfect compatibility layer is the ideal future for PC gaming
I'd like to see a video dedicated to showing how to resolve stuttering, fps drops, and the wide range of weird issues that come with pc gaming. I've noticed the psychology behind wanting to update my hardware stems from getting hitching or weird "performance" issues and thinking they'd go away if i just upgraded.
hitching and weird performance issues are almost always driver related or easily solved with tweaks to game config, though
sometimes it can even be solved by addressing the thread usage in xml configs DOWN, like with a really prominent No Man's Sky problem where it assigns your max number of cores/threads by default to both aspects, making the game try to use more threads than you actually have and then stuttering because of it
This is what happens when PC gets shitty ports, and we are forced to compensate the poor optimization by brute forcing smooth gameplay with over engineered PC components. Soon graphic cards are going to need their enclosures if we continue at this pace
@@Orochistorm not looking to resolve the issues. there are far more than just what i listed in the comment. i was saying i wanted a video that helps ppl understand that these issues arent related to the performance of the card and there are a ton of issues that stem from Windows or from things like drivers
Obsolete? The way I view it, the Steam Deck can run current games PLUS near all previous generation games through emulators.
This will be my emulation library and I will cherish it
The answer to your question (without watching the video) is "no." I play with my Deck every day. My computers are way better, but they aren't portable. I can just grab my Deck and go. Sure my Deck is a little big, but it feels nice in my hands. The buttons are in just the right spot... For me. I find the ergonomics to be great.
You'd have a point about gamers regularly upgrading if it weren't for how old the most popular hardware in the Steam Hardware Survey is. I mean the most popular GPU is the GTX1650, a GPU that was released in April 2019.
Can this be applied to Windows 11 in the settings?
@@indianaduckyttyy I'll have to look at it
The Steam Deck is incredible - every time Valve optimizes and transports another game to it, my Win Max 2 gets another great Linux-compatible game to run smoothly.
Not just joking, though - I'm absolutely adoring the renewed efforts behind Proton/Bottles/Wine/Soda/etc as they have helped me almost completely migrate out of Windows.
Some developers are actively working with valve to downscale and restrict asset size to save and optimize resources on deck. Some games take less storage space on deck compared to PC. Downscaling textures and such could help massively but that's down to the Devs to decide if they want to do it or not. Valve obviously is always there to support.
@@Icneumone7 why not make a choice for the downloader which assets they download?
@@stonalisa3729 That's another option. Getting the game folder optimized for the deck is already a big step. I don't see the point of having 2k and 4k textures when you are limited to play in 1280x800 resolution.
Me, still waiting for my Win Max 2 to arrive 😢😭
Seeing how well gaming on steamdeck worked is what got me to finally buy a PC for gaming since I only want to run mac or Linux
Valve must have used their data to target the deck towards what users actually play. Look at the steam replay data , 29% of games being played are 8+ year old games, 64% of time spent on games is 1-7 years old. Only about 17% are new releases from 2022 .
Most steam deck owners I know are using them for cleaning out their backlog of older games. Not really for trying to play a bunch of all the newer games
I was never looking for a barn burner system.. Having the power of a PS4 Pro-ish in my hands, with the flexibility of a PC, was the whole point. People obsessed with performance are still using their Desktops. If the latest release ends up not playing on the Deck, I still have 10's of thousands of games to choose from and I won't care.
I just sold my steam deck. Compatibility issues and low fps killed it for me. If I can’t just easily play my favorite game on Steam OS at 70+ fps I would have kept it.
The Steam Deck has gotten me into playing a lot of games I would have never touched without owning one. Thing has changed my gaming habits a ton, for the better.
I have an idea for a future video... showcase or compare gaming accessories for LEFT handed players. Mice - Joysticks etc. They are VERY hard to find!
Do you mean accessibility devices for people like with one arm (left one)?
If not, how a left handed joystick supposedly would be any different to a regular one? 😂
Tho it can still be a good video idea. Most of us will probably watch it to laugh at the bizarre premise. I'm left handed btw
@@okarowarrior Left handers (like me n you) can not find a gaming mouse. All separate thrusters for joysticks are right handed,,, I just thought that Linus and Co would make an original take on it.
@@carlcollingwood2063 is there any reason you need to use your left hand for your mouse? There are some things that I use my left hand (I'm right handed) for if they require me to. I've seen a few other people are left handed and they just get used to using it on the right side.
You can try ambidextrous mice. Those are probably more plentiful than left hand only mice.
@@carlcollingwood2063 It's because left handed people don't use "left handed mice". Just use the mouse in your right hand... I'm left handed and have never once thought to myself "man I wish my keyboard and mouse were mirrored in the opposite way". Why would you want that?
They are hard to find because they don't exist. Left handed people don't use special devices lmfao. Just use your right hand? I'm left handed. My right hand still works fine.... Being left handed doesn't disable your right hand lmfao wtf.
‘The typical console has a lifespan of 5 years’. What?
If you count the time from release until the succes was officially released, the PS1 lasted 6 years. PS2 also 6. PS3 was 7. PS4 also 7.
That’s already more than 5. But: lots of people kept and actively used their consoles for years longer.
I think it will continue to run steams huge library of amazing indie / retro inspired games. Currently playing TMNT Shredders Revenge and Chained Echoes.
Also it's an amazing streaming target for in home streaming. Assuming Sunshine improves to be on equal footing with the EOL Nvidia Gamestream.
As someone who collects Obselete consoles and games, and a Steam Deck owner, I see this as an absolute win!
So far I’ve been thoroughly impressed with how many games run natively on my Steam Deck and how good they actually look. I figured that I would end up streaming more games off my desktop PC, but so far I haven’t felt the need to do that. There have even been some games that I’ve lowered the resolution because running at the native resolution made everything feel sorta small, and lowering things further gave it the little bit of zoom I felt like I needed.
I hope that in the future there will be games designed to be compatible with it, and they offer some text scaling options to make it easier to read, but I’m probably going to keep this thing around for years. It helped keep me sane while I stayed with my in-laws for a week over Thanksgiving, because I could just chill out on the couch and get my game on instead of fiddling around on my phone or trying to find something to watch on cable.
The scalability of games these days is impressive and there are so many tricks to get better performance that it’ll easily outlive the current Switch hardware.
I played Cult of the Lamb on my Deck while the wife played on her Switch, and it looked so much better on my Deck and there was a dedicated bleat button that she didn’t have on her version because it didn’t have as many buttons.
You might not be able to run the most demanding games from 2025 on your current Steam Deck, but with the ability of Steam Deck to play the existing PC library and emulate other consoles and game systems including the current Nintendo Switch, you wouldn’t have time to play all the great games playable on Steam Deck even if you had a hundred years to do it. Steam Deck will offer value for many years into the future as long as you can replace the battery.
I love the Steam Deck. I love the openness. Excellent for indie titles, which have been much better than AAA games over the last few years anyway. I love that I can play my exisiting Steam library on it, making it loaded with games from day 1.
Absolutely not obsolete. Anybody saying so would by lying to you. Platforms just getting started and more and more games are added. Day by day the library grows and hopefully deckard comes to light and adds VR
With all respect, I don't understand the objective of this video.
Of course, the hardware will be obsolete regarding the playability of new gen games since developers will eventually focus on newer hardware components.
But with this mentality, all packaged hardware could be defined as obsolete as soon as they leave the manufacturing site and as long as the user does not upgrade the components in question.
The only logical motivation for this video here I can think of is to publish yet another one to not fall back in RUclips's algorithm. If so, very disappointing...
To be honest, i borrowed one of these from a friend for a week, It's cool an all but most of my emulated games are available on PSP & PS VITA. I'd rather have a pocket ready game console then a mini laptop in a bag.
Realistically you should be able to play any of the modern games that come out within the next 3 to 5 years in varying capacities at good FPS, so I don’t think it’s gonna be much of an issue. From a purely technical perspective it might seem obsolete to those who have all the money in the world, but for people like me who don’t I don’t think there’s gonna be any significant differences until the third or fourth iterations at the soonest. It’s like trying to compare the Switch to a Switch OLED. Sure it’s *kinda* different and better, but to an average person like me who just wants to play games it’s not gonna be much of a problem. I still have my Switch from March of 2017 and still haven’t upgraded to an OLED yet, nor do I plan to. Yes I know it’s not entirely fair since PCs improve faster than consoles do, but to what end? Honestly my biggest concern would be whenever they stop supporting the original Steam Deck models entirely for future titles, which I don’t think is gonna happen anytime soon no matter the compromises. If anything, having a Steam Deck 2 this or next year would be terrible business since the main appeal of it is that it gets upgraded and improved on all the time, so to have a model not be supported after 2-4, or even 5-7 years would not look good for them.
Assuming the *absolute worst case scenario* though, it’s still great for emulation, the games that came out for it, and the older games that came out before, as well as modding, so there’s no rush to get one unless you’re dying to play much newer in tandem all the time, which is unlikely since, let’s be real here, *most* games after the 2000’s aren’t much to write home about. Sure there are rare exceptions, but they’re too far and wide between, and it’s not like said examples we already know of can’t already be played. Chances are most of them are indies or fan games/mods anyways, and those are definitely not gonna make the Steam Deck obsolete for even longer. So in any case, there is nothing to worry about unless you are rich and an absolute tech nerd. It might be a PC, but it’s also supposed to be simple and convenient. I doubt Valve would want to mess up a reputation like that up when they’re already doing well very quickly so far.
I actually see this every different, The fact that this is a PC will mean it will never be 100% obsolete, if the os ever become out of date just install windows, this could always be used a normal PC; Now as far as gaming wise, it can be used to play lower end games, the steam deck also does cloud gaming, by the time the steam deck is "obsolete", cloud gaming might have improved for better experience. I see the Steam Deck lasting as long as you want it to last, unlike consoles, new games will always be available on steam. Now if you want an improved experience then you can consider upgrading, but that would be by choice and as a want not as a need. The steam deck is here to Stay.
From what I read on the second version of the steamdeck it'll be more geared to display quality and form factor versus performance. Curious to see how it plays out
I wonder if Valve incentivizes developers/publishers with lower commissions if they optimize game settings for steam deck
the problem is... how you verify that?
and then people will complay that the game looks bad becouse of steamdeck
@@khhnator I think you’ve misread what I meant. Games can possibly have optimized graphics settings preset to target a specific device, GPU, resolution or framerate. I didn’t mean devs have to make compromises at the engine level that gamers with more powerful hardware will have a bad experience with settings turned up. If developers add the steam deck preset and Steam launcher will start the game with those settings for the steam deck. However, devs and publishers cannot/will not make the time and effort to do this unless they are sponsored, incentivized by other means.
@@khhnator Check LTTs recent Average PC video, low setting in games have been tailored to play on GTX 1060s because they were the most GPUs (it's now the GTX 1650 hardly a massive improvement)
A games low setting don't impare it's ultra settings, no reason why the Steam Deck can't become the new lowest common denominator
No, they don't.
@@Pegaroo_ of course not, i agree with you.
we are more than a decade past the point were game ideas are being limited by hardware
but whining is something people do.
It's already time more developer focuses more to gameplay than graphics
just an 950 in an handheld? a few years ago, i wouldn't have even dreamed of this.
I've noticed a lot of PC gamers give consoles too much credit for the "it was designed to run on it" shite. Been a long time PC and Console player and I can straight up say, ever since the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, pretty much all AAA games are filled with bugs and barely reach their target framerate. The Steam Deck STILL runs Elden Ring smoother than any console, even running the PS4 version on PS5 comes with framerate issues.
@0:50 Not true at all, some Switch titles still run horribly and new Switch titles like Pokemon Scarlet/Violet are abysmal....
I mean that's a problem with the game itself not the steamdeck. Violet runs terrible on my gaming pc too
Guys im pretty sure they meant that about the Switch itself, mentioning how terribly the new pokemon games run on the Switch despite being exclusive.
@@NJWebCrawler that's actually less a about the switch and how bad game freak is at optimizing their games to run well
The last 3 pokemon games have had performance issues despite being designed for the switch
Check out series like boundary break for scarlet and violet and you'll see just how many performance hacks they have in the game and yet it still runs bad
Meanwhile other series like xenoblade run very well on the switch because monolith soft actually know what they're doing when it comes to optimization
@@ryanw217 It wasn't meant for the steam deck, that part was mentioning how games run fine on consoles in general, I specifically pointed out the Switch...
@@NJWebCrawler Yes finally someone that is smart and can READ...
I upgrade my pc every 8 years. Don't know who upgrades every 2 years.
Since the Steam Deck is also a great emulator, I don't think it'll ever be "obsolete".
Every 2 years, and I'm sitting here with my 9 year old cpu, that is still rock solid
Of course - the same day I buy a SteamDeck this video pops up on my youtube, making me extremely worried about "Did I just buy a piece of junk?", to just be comforted by the overwhelming amount of good comments about the SteamDeck! Phew...
I think a lot more devs will look to optimize their games for the Deck's specific hardware going forward seeing as the device's adoption has been quickly taking off. As long as there continues to be a growing market, devs will adjust their future games to meet that niche.
SKIP THE AD 2:17
Haha I wish I could upgrade my PC every 2 years.. I haven't done an upgrade in about 4 years. I'm due but too broke
Good one. Had one for 8 years until I could finally do an upgrade in 2019. Imagine making an upgrade from an AMD Athlon II X4 640 + GT 440 to an R3 2200g for really cheap money. And that system would outperform the old parts fairly easy. It makes you realize how fast hardware age.
Bro. I bought my last PC 10 years ago. the only upgrade it got was a GT 970 someone gave me. The Steam Deck is a real upgrade for me in some regards but overall it‘s for a completely different usecase. Comfortable gaming on my couch or to bring it with me to my GFs place to play some steamgames while I‘m there
Why I’m not buying it until gen 2 or 3. The resolution doesn’t need to increase much, maybe 1440 or 1680 to be sharp enough for a handheld. So newer hardware can dump everything into frame rate and higher graphical settings and/or Ray tracing and not have to compete with 4K 120fps PC games on desktop.
Do PC gamers seriously get new hardware every two years? I'm still gaming on a setup that I built in 2018. For the games that I play regularly (FromSoft games, TW3, Pathfinder: WOTR, Divinity: Original Sin), the deck is functional to the point where I barely go on my PC anymore (even though the game performance is superior on the PC).
Also, the Steam Deck also benefits from the console advantage. A lot of games are being optimized specifically to run on the deck, so it's support lifespan should be a little better than a traditional PC.
I bought my Steam Deck to play all the games I bought in the past on older consoles, and I love my Steam Deck for that. Game preservation ♥
I don't upgrade my hardware every two years lmao, that would be insane.
I wish Valve would have added support for external Gpu while docked. maybe the next version will have it
It is basically impossible with current usb, the bottleneck would be waaaaay too high
@@maciejka1pci-e with the m.2 slot and done.
@@maciejka1 USB 40Gbps is now a thing
@@maciejka1 What? External GPUs have been around for a while now and work fairly well?
The Steam Deck won’t be obsolete for years unless something better releases for $400. Even then that’s not how I would define obsolete for this product. With dual boot windows/SteamOS you can play nearly every game out there. If you want to play the latest games you just turn the graphics to the lowest settings. Low graphics is a very small tradeoff for the ability to play anything while traveling or laying in bed. If I want more performance I’ll sit at my desktop PC.
I wouldn’t be opposed to a smaller alternative if it were the same price.
So the Steam Deck is about the same performance as an Xbox One S. That's pretty neat, you can play 95% of all games ever released.
Im betting with constantly evolving upscaling tech the steam deck will be able to play games for quite awhile also devs seem to really like the steam deck so it may see alot of development specifically optimized for its hardware in the future.
The steam deck is a beast on its own. Will definitely stay mainstream for at least 5 years. Not to mention, it's running a free/libre OS, GNU/Linux.
That's what I'm excited about. If more games run on Linux I might switch over to it from Windows. I think steam has their own linux distro for pc, maybe I'll try it out in a few months.
@@xcurrentbreeze6626 It's not designed to run on desktop PC's. Use Fedora Silverblue for your computers.
i just bought one ten minutes ago
After being a console gamer for my entire life, in treating the Steam Deck as a Low/Mid end PC. It's docked almost always, I didn't have to learn how to build it with little experience and it gets great updates regularly and customer and community support is great.
No, it's not obsolete simply because there's nothing that beats it from a power performance perspective. Doesn't matter if there are more powerful devices because not everybody can blow a thousand dollars on a system
You can also stream from your beefy desktop PC to your Steam Deck if you want to be able to play the most demanding AAA games while still playing in your bed
For me the video quality was very poor streaming.
When games have put an emphasis on graphics over gameplay for the last 2 decades, I don't understand why I don't hear more complaints about this.
Also, the lag would make any racing/fighting/rhythm games (or any game that requires timing) to be (for me) virtually unplayable.
You can also do this with your phone (and controller). That got tiring, which is why I got a Steam Deck. ;)
Can you use the steam deck as a controller at the same time?
@@idk8964 the built in physical controls work when you're streaming, if that's what you mean.
Well, as far as I can tell.
@@Freakazoid12345 Its likely the fault of your network hardware than anything related to steam or deck. I sometimes stream from my pc to my ipad or steam deck and have 0 lag or video issues.