Such a weird article from Nintendo Life trying to defend the Switch 2 over the Steam Deck. And it’s so cringe.
First let’s talk about the contention that the Switch 2 has better value because it’s comes with a dock.
Look, I can hook my Steam Deck up to my TV using a USB-C to HDMI adapter and use the Steam Deck itself as a controller. As for a dock itself, sure the official Steam Deck Docking Station costs C$109. However, I can buy a 3rd party docking station off Amazon for C$40. So that’s not much of an argument.
The Switch 2 has a bigger screen that runs at 1080P. That great. But the Steam Deck has an OLED panel which the Switch 2 does not.
In terms of performance, the Switch 2 probably has a better GPU. However, it lacks the Steam Deck’s CPU power. And it only has 12GB of RAM compared to the Steam Deck’s 16GB of RAM. Will games look better on Switch 2? Only if CPU and RAM don’t serve as bottlenecks.
The next thing: Switch 2 is supposedly better because a joy-con can act as a mouse. But they’re really grasping at straws here because I can use an actual Bluetooth mouse with the Steam Deck—one which is more ergonomic too. Oh, and unlike the Switch 2, I can also use a Bluetooth keyboard too with a Steam Deck.
Apparently, the Steam Deck’s touchpad so “too awkward” compared to the Switch 2’s mouse. But you don’t use a mouse in handheld mode—no one does. Touchpads, on the other hand, do work in handheld mode. And I find them much more suitable for FPS and RTS games than an analog joystick.
Now for the article’s final point: the Steam Deck can’t play Switch 2 games. This is actually the most legitimate point. However, it cuts both ways too. Switch 2 can’t play decades of PC games, all which are accessible on Steam Deck. And I should know because I’m able to run literally thousands of games on my Steam Deck—many which don’t even run on Windows anymore without lots of modding.
Can Switch 2 play F.E.A.R. without needing to jailbreak and emulate it? Nope—so in terms of game library, Steam Deck has the win.
But ultimately, this is a silly comparison because the Steam Deck is already three years old at the moment. Of course the Switch 2 will be able to do some things better than Steam Deck. It should—it’s the newer piece of hardware.
However, when the Steam Deck 2 comes out—probably next year—how will the Switch 2 compare? I don’t know, but it will likely have all the advantages that the Steam Deck still has but with giant generational leap in terms of performance.
Right now, if I wanted to, I could get a Lenovo Legion Go S. And it would be leagues better than a Switch 2. It has a AMD Ryzen Z2 Go APU, 32GB of RAM, and 1 TB of storage—which absolutely wrecks the Switch 2 in terms of raw performance.
But the reason I’m holding off is because I think the Steam Deck 2 will be even better.
This doesn’t even touch about many points that makes the Steam Deck just plain better. The games are cheaper. You don’t have to pay for online multiplayer. You have access to multiple storefronts like GOG or itch.io. You can use it as a PC in desktop mode. I can go on.
Now do I think the Switch 2 is totally lacking in value? No. If I had a young child, I’d probably get them a Switch 2 simply because it’s more kid friendly.
However, I’m a full grown man. As for my kid? She’s turning 12-years-old in a few weeks so I think she’ll do just fine with a Steam Deck.
The switch and switch 2 are better than all handheld PCs at present for one simple reason: it’s much simpler to obtain and use for the average consumer. That’s it. Average consumers don’t give a shit about teraflops and fps as long as it’s easy to use and still looks good.
Also don’t need fuckin anchor arms to carry it around
If only other handheld games consoles (that aren’t “retro” ones) tꝏk lightweightedness into consideration !
ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏk
Except I couldn’t give a fuck about Nintendo games. Never played ‘em and probably won’t ever want to either.
You should give some of them a try. Nintendo is a shitty company sometimes, but some of their games speak for themselves - stuff like The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Mario Kart 8 DX, Ring Fit Adventure, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Earthbound, etc. are all legendary for a reason.
I’ve gotten thousands of hours of play out of every Nintendo system I’ve ever owned (including the WiiU), because the games are just that damn good.
That said I love the Steam Deck as well, but it scratches a different itch. It has a much bigger library of awesome games, and it’s less restrictive than Nintendo’s walled garden approach to gaming.
TLDR; Steam Deck is great, but Switch 2 will be great as well. Gamers win with both choices.
Idk if id include ring fit adventure in that list but yeah
The bigger trend is that enshitification of consoles have made steam a juggernaut.
$80 a game is a non starter for most people. Switch was a golden goose that revolutionized mobile handheld gaming. It was like a gameboy reboot. I doubt Switch 2 gets even close to half of the success
my steam deck can play switch and nintendo games and steam games checkmate
Nintendo life is just being a bit insecure due to constantly hearing about it being a deck measuring contest.
Okay, so I gotta admit, that article about the Switch 2 being not-so-bad actually convinced me. They’re right, it’s awesome for parties and two-player gaming on the go. I didn’t realize the hardware could do 3.2 teraflops docked (1.6 undocked)—the Deck only does 1.6!
Yeah, games are pricey, but I think Nintendo delivers good entertainment value.
You could achieve the exact same with a steam Deck with emulation and buying a few more controllers
The article makes a point out of mentioning that you wont be able to emulate switch 2 games on the deck due to hardware performance and emulation overhead.
Maybe 5 years into the future, but not now.
Also interested in any link suggestions for controllers that are as compact as switch joycons. Would be awesome for social gaming on the go.
When is the video game community going to understand there’s no such thing as “better”. The whole “this vs that” or “us vs them” just needs to stop.
Yes, we all know handhelds peaked with the DS (I am totally biased).
Nothing beats the DS Lite’s 15 hour battery life
Before Steam Deck maybe.
Biased, but absolutely right.
Valve is definitely a more ethical company but all the console crusading also gets tiresome
I mean, I also never take a gaming article seriously if it has the word “obliterate” in it.
They can play by play all the they want but at the end of the day. I can play games I brought back in 1997 on my steam deck they can barely handle going back one generation to the switch and have to use emulation and a subscription service for a handful of their older systems.
I went from CD of star fleet academy i had in a storage box to a SD card to the steam deck. Installed and running the longest part was setting the key binds in steam input.
They can play by play all the they want but at the end of the day. I can play games I brought back in 1997 on my steam deck they can barely handle going back one generation to the switch and have to use emulation and a subscription service for a handful of their older systems.
I get your point, but to be honest Nintendo couldn’t care less about making it easy or cheap for us to play 1997 games, it doesn’t happen now, and I don’t think it will ever happen, the only reason why they gave some efforts to make Switch 1 games retrocompatible I think is because it would be riots if they didn’t lol.
It is a good argument, but companies don’t care about this, which is sad.
I mean they don’t make it very hard to play their first party Games. Just pay the online free. The main issue is that not all of those games from 1997 are their games. They are just made for their system.
Well one does and it’s valve and they make a lot of money by selling those games at good prices.
I literally purchased Rog Ally X as a response to how shitty switch 2 felt. I then installed Bazzite os on it.
I’m just going to point out some things.
-1: The comparison comes from price point and the fact that both systems are handheld play anywhere systems with docking capability for couch play.
-2: There are already arguably better spec’s handhelds in this category that would outperform both these systems, but the cost of them is largely a deciding factor and it comes with some tradeoffs that include OS (since these are windows only handhelds with the exception of the Legion Go S, meaning that if you don’t want windows you have to go to the added trouble of installing something like Bazzite).
-3: We know that just about every handheld on the market has some tradeoffs. The Legion Go has a beautiful screen and joycon-like detachable controllers. But it’s also heavier than the switch, and the steam deck and arguably less comfortable to hold for some. We know the the original ROG Ally had a bunch of problems including the fact that it would destroy its own SF card slot and potentially any SD card installed in it. It’s newest iteration is great (lots of fixes, better GPU/CPU, larger SDD, better battery life, better ergonomics, fixed SD card slot etc), however it’s also close to $1000. The Legion Go S had a different storage capacities depending on which OS you chose at launch. Even now there’s different variants that give different performance at different price points (Z1 extreme vs Z2 Go). The Switch OG lacks emulation for a lot of newer games (Wii and DS games specifically). Those games are coming probably but they are available on other handhelds with just a little bit of extra work.
-4: Ease of play and ease of emulation are things people who aren’t buying these devices to tinker want. So the Switch 2 wins there. Just buy the subscription and you can emulate quite a lot of their gaming library with more to come.
-5: Expecting a publication largely catering to the fans of Nintendo to offer up its competition as the better bargain for the money is just… Silly. It doesn’t make sense.
The switch 2 doesn’t add enough things to the table to make me want to spend $450+ to buy it. It’s launch titles are not particularly compelling for me, and when you add their anti-emulation litigation to the pile and DCMA abuse, I just don’t feel like it’s something I’m currently willing to buy. On top of that there’s lots of accessibility improvements I would love to see including joycon styles for 2D platformers that I clude a real D pad, GameCube style Joycons, or even just Joycons that would allow those with partial impairment or disability. There’s a lot of unexplored territory for the design and execution of this product that doesn’t include better graphics or being able to play cyberpunk 2077 and I think people forget that. Can you get such things on a steam deck? Yeah. Probably. But not natively docked to the system in handheld mode.
It’s an odd comparison, if the Steam Deck had Pokémon, Zelda and Mario etc., then there’d be a reason to compare them like for like.
Still wish Steam Deck would improve docked mode support, it’s pretty janky.
FWIW, I use it all the time on a dock and have no problems. I used to have HDMI issues, but it turned out it was an old cable (issue=TV connection didn’t work at all). I also had to change controllers as apparently cable controllers drivers can’t work with read-only filesystem. 8bit controllers work without issues. Me and my wife are super happy with it over all.
That said, maybe my standard is pretty low, but I just turn on the thing, open a game and play.
Buddy, I have tried docked mode on windows (Ally + Windows + Bluetooth controller). It’s hell! I can’t wait to get back to SteamOS/Bazzite.
What problems have you faced in docked mode?
You know what has been great? Being on a vacation and bringing my steam deck and playing tears of the kingdom off of it with better performance than the original switch had. I paid for it and ripped it myself because I still believed it was the right thing to do, but with Nintendo’s increased focus year after year against emulation enthusiasts like we’re fucking criminals, I’m gonna give them something to bitch about. I’m never paying another dime to Nintendo for as long as I live, and that is coming from someone who grew up with a super Nintendo and an N64. Fuck yourself Nintendo. Yo ho and a bottle of get fucked.
How many FPS and resolution do you get with TOTK in the Steam Deck?
How about the battery life while emulating it?
I usually keep it limited at 40 fps for battery and it doesn’t have any trouble there. Tbh haven’t tried for anymore than that but based on the stability I’d guess I could bump it up. Battery life at native resolution tends to be pretty decent; anecdotally I ran down about 35% in a 2 hour flight a couple days ago. My deck’s battery ain’t what it used to be though; I signed up for the presale on the first day the deck was announced.
Oh, so it does get more than 40 FPS while emulating it on the Deck, that is good to hear, I do get higher FPS (closer to 60 FPS) in my original Switch 1 overclocked in BOTW (I heard it is not very different with TOTK), and I don’t get to do the quirks and workarounds that comes with emulation (I do it with the hack itself lol) because well, the game runs natively.
The battery backup you get is definitely better than mine undocked though (although when I do this I play docked), so it is good to hear Switch 1 games aren’t that demanding then.
Lol I didn’t bother setting up citron on my deck literally this week because I looked at a couple of videos online and the FPS seemed sub par. I’d no idea the original switch was worse 😂 does this hold true across the board? It might save me setting up some kind of sunshine/moonlight contraption for a bit.
The main draw of Switch 2 is Nintendo software. That’s about the end of the discussion for me that makes me need one. Nintendo has always made my favorite games since I started playing in 1988. They still make many of my favorite games today.
I was mad at the pricing at first but then I put it in perspective. I really only buy 3-4 retail games per year on the Switch, and at $10-20 more each, that’s $30-80 more per year at most. Not a happy thing but it is what it is. That’s literally one night out with friends having drinks and food.
Still going to love my Steam Deck and still going to play plenty of games on it too… likely more than Switch 2 because of Steam deals and the fact that I trust Valve more with my digital library than Nintendo honestly. They’ve never let me down whereas Nintendo has.
The high price for first Party Nintendo exclude games doest matter that much even. I buy the physical versions and the have good resale value.
Steam Deck’s touchpad so “too awkward”…
The Steam Deck touchpads are literally the ONLY modern touchpads I like. Every other mother touchpad is absolutely atrocious because they don’t give you anything like a vibration to tell you your mouse is moving and you actually get some level of confirmation you clicked. It feels like every other touchpad out there now, I swear, requires you to attempt to click on the left/right mouse button (completely integrated into the touchpad) about a billion times before it registers that you clicked once.
Also, if the joycons for switch 2 are anywhere near as uncomfortable to hold for extended periods of time like they are for me with regular switch, I guarantee my hand would start hurting after a couple minutes of the, probably gonna be as responsive as a dead man to a cannonball to the face, mouse mode. The premise of turning what could be one of the worst controller designs I’ve ever seen into a mouse makes my hands bleed in pain without having to ever hold one.
Yeah that’s crazy, the touchpads on the Steam Deck are really good…
I would assume a publication like “Nintendo Life” will promote Nintendo irrespective of what the issue is.
And to my limited understanding, the people who buy/use Nintendo are either children (you are not going to tell them they have shit taste) or hardcore fanboys who on some level will defend any action by Nintendo no matter what.
Yea it’s mostly children, and Nintendo’s trying to save face by you could by their crappy accesories
I’m neither and have a Switch. There’s just some games i want to play on it.
Won’t be getting a switch 2 though. That ship sailed considering how easy it is to emulate the first console.
