Nintendo didn’t fancy announcing the Switch Pro, so Valve decided to do it instead. It’s a coincidence, but it’s hard not to chuckle at the exaggerated disappointment surrounding the Nintendo Switch OLED and see it shortly followed up with a portable machine that – more or less – delivers on what many Switch Pro fans were hoping for. You can’t play Breath of the Wild in 4K on Steam Deck, but it incorporates your existing Steam library and a familiar form factor with seemingly little compromise. For a lapsed PC gamer like me, it has the potential to pull me back into a digital landscape of games I’ve long left behind.
I prefer playing on consoles. I own a gaming PC kitted out with an RTX 2080 Ti, 16GB of RAM, and a half decent processor, so I have all of the components to play the latest games on the highest settings. Despite all of this, I always find myself gravitating towards the PS5 and Xbox Series X instead of sitting at my desk and sinking into games in my spare time. Perhaps I associate this PC with work too much, and thus I’m reluctant to make it the battle station for my most treasured hobby when I can laze about on the sofa instead. I’d much rather pick up a controller and engage with my favourite games this way rather than fiddling with graphical options and being tempted by the complicated allure of mods. The Steam Deck letting me chill out on the couch while playing a PC game completely recontextualizes the position of PC gaming in the wider landscape.
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At the time of writing, I have 615 games in my Steam library, many of which I’ve never played. They also span multiple generations, ranging from iffy ports of PS2 classics to modern blockbusters that I’ve stumbled upon as part of Humble Bundles or as a result of my job. Sadly, they’ve often been left to gather digital dust. I’m never tempted to install them and give everything a spin because the added layers of complexity saddled with PC gaming throw my obsessive compulsive disorder into overdrive as I spend more time ensuring things look and run the best than I do actually, you know, playing the damn game. It’s a mindset I hope isn’t unique to myself, but I feel the Steam Deck will remedy many of these ailments because it takes my existing repertoire of games and makes them playable on what is essentially a more powerful Nintendo Switch.
The overall concept almost feels too good to be true. It’s an obvious clone of Nintendo’s console, yet with a larger size, adjusted design, and clearly built infrastructure around Valve’s existing ecosystem. Even if you’ve been with Steam since its inception in 2004, you’ll be free to log into a Deck and find all of your games ready and waiting to be played. I’m sure some compatibility issues will arise at launch, but in the grand scheme of things, this is one of the most ingenious moves Valve has pulled in quite some time. The machine also features more than enough power to play the latest games at a decent rate, so those who don’t even own a PC right now can pick one up and take advantage of coming sales and promotions just like so many of us have been doing for decades. It’s broadening the horizons of a platform that has long felt isolated, like a second take on the Steam Machines that faded into obscurity only a few short years ago.
Unfortunately, it looks like the button layout and actual design of the Steam Deck were designed by some inhuman crab monster, and that will likely put me off becoming an early adopter. If the product has staying power, it will be subject to revisions that further improve its internal hardware and docking capabilities beyond the original model. I’ll sit on the sidelines and watch as initial impressions form, and will join the party if things pan out. The dock itself is the most appealing piece of the puzzle for me, because it turns the traditional PC experience into something more akin to a console. I can take my Steam library to bed with me for a cheeky round of Hades, and can hook it up to my television for more demanding titles that require my full attention. It’s exactly how I use the Switch, with smaller games being a handheld affair while larger ones deserving of the extra screen real estate end up in the dock. It’s the best of both worlds, and Valve is finally realising that widening the general appeal of PC gaming can only be a good thing, even more so when it has more and more rivals to contend with in the digital space nowadays.
There are still a lot of questions surrounding the Steam Deck, and I’m sure the community will answer many of them later this year when the hardware becomes available. I don’t pride myself on being an expert when it comes to the technical aspects of gaming – I’m more about the cultural impact of the medium – so a machine that will allow me to invest in the PC scene once again without many of the issues that held me back previously is super exciting. I hope the prospect of this hardware isn’t too good to be true.
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