It's Time to Admit What the Steam Deck Really Is 

Its a device you can use as a PC or as a console. You literally have this choice, which is why its amazing and unique.

I believe that if the steam deck only had the gaming mode, it would have been a console, but instead it allows for much more functionality over a console, letting you use the device how you want instead of how the developers intend. Overall I think it's a great option for people that don't want to spend a lot of money, and maybe don't have the space for a gaming computer, but still want to try PC gaming. It also brings a familiar aspect of having a controller built in. I'm not trying to say the device is perfect but it does bridge the PC and console market in a way that other devices haven't before, due to the fact it has steam's library behind it, and the continual support and updates to the device.

I may be an outlier, I don't know, but I bought my deck specifically with the intention of using it as a PC that I can occasionally use as a handheld. I've been using mine as a dedicated coding and programming rig for 2 months, and have run into zero problems so far.

Considering the fact that my old pc was a literal potato im glad that the steam deck can finally open me up to a decent pc-like experience and the fact i can take it anywhere leaves me very satisfied.

As a Mac user the steam deck has been a great window into the world of PC gaming for me. Portability is a huge bonus. Just finished playing portal 1 and now playing portal 2. Loving it!

Given the pace of development on the Steam Deck experience and OS, I suspect this video will be extremely out of date in just a couple months. I'd like to see a retrospective at that time. Valve has done a lot to push development in Wine, in KDE, in the Linux kernel, and even in AMD graphics, and it shows.

Considering it’s a first generation device that hasn’t been out that long, it’s doing a lot of things very well. Not perfect yet but valve continues to patch and improve the software. The future feels bright.

I would argue that the Steam Deck is what you want it to be. For me it's both a wonderful handheld console (we all know that) AND a powerful work PC (that actually doesn't play any games). Hear me out... I get easily distracted, and the Steam Deck is a WONDERFUL distraction, so what I decided to do is to dock the Steam Deck to an external SSD and a proper desktop setup (screen, keyboard, mouse, wacom tablet etc). I work from home as a game developer (working on a abi-art style 2D indie game, so nothing too demanding) and on the external SSD I use Manjaro, a very competent Linux distro. This works out great, since when I boot from the external SSD, my game library become unavailable forcing me to focus on work. 😁 Perfect for someone that gets easily distracted. The Steam Deck also draws somewhere between 1-3W in desktop mode. Which is even better now when we have an ongoing energy crisis in Europe.😅 I save around 15EUR per month using the Steam Deck instead of my desktop. Not a lot of money but still, I much rather spend those 180$/year on something nicer than electricity. Because ultimately, the Steam Deck performs equally as good as my desktop during work related tasks (except huge exports, but honestly, I don't mind taking breaks)

Having owned one since April, I've had a genuine console experience from this handheld PC. The hardware is underpriced and sold at a loss The ecosystem is designed around the product (deck OS is absolutely console-like) Oh, and just for the best of it: You do NOT need to be a nerd to use it. Not even a little bit. It's a PC but it makes a damn good console.

My favorite part of the SD is the love it gets from both Valve and the Community

The sole reason why I bought my deck is mostly due to the lack of space in my studio apartment. Getting a gaming laptop was also out of equation by how costly they're so I'm pretty thankful Valve managed to craft something powerful enough to run the most recent games and also for an affordable price. Not to mention about how easy it is to install emulators and even customize the console with various themes and plugins, kinda reminded me to my old hacked PSP

The PC is one word: Awesome. It doesn't matter if you consider it a console or a mini pc. Excellent video.

I've watched you grow really fast as I was waiting for my own deck and hyped as hell. Crongrats! :D

The Steam Deck is a console for PC players and a PC for console players.

Yeah, it's a PC, just not a particularly convenient one. You mostly use it as a PC when you want to install or mod non-Steam games, but still, you can do that, and anything else you can do on a PC.

Yeah I think calling it a hybrid is probably the best of both worlds if we have to compromise on the argument! I do think console gamers can get stuck on the whole "You need to tinker to even play games on pc" not realizing that it really is very simple to play, to the point where the experience between the two on something like the deck is nearly identical at times.

I would never have described myself as a PC user until I used the steam deck. I am just a casual gamer but this thing is opening a door for me to the PC gaming experience. I love the steamdeck, and I can see myself setting in the future upgrading and getting a PC desktop one day. I did not expect this to happen.

When I unboxed the steam deck, I thought that it would not be playable for long sessions...I was way wrong. It's deceptively ergonomic ^^ Then you can change the controls to your heart content or try out community ones. The consolization was done in a really great way. Ironically, I can't remove the game gear of my mind when I play the Deck. The two have a strong bind to me. As for desktop mode, you can quickly forget that you are running from the Deck, so, quite a success to me. Valve pulled something great there! And for some time, I thought that the price of the Steam Deck was low, but Valve will just sell more games thanks to it. Now, people consider games they wouldn't have considered if they didn't own the Steam Deck. Quite a master move, because even if they won only pennies on it, the extra game sales alone would do it! Another nice thing is that those games are usually independent developers.

As a console gamer, I just like the fact that they’ve streamlined gaming on PC into a handheld. I’ve never really liked sitting at my desk to game. It really is the ease of use the Deck provides compared to a PC.

It's a console and a PC, I mean when you boot it up it's like a console but it also has this entire PC side to it that you can dive into and mess around in. My friend had no clue what he was doing in desktop mode and how to get back to the gaming mode despite the return to gaming mode icon on the desktop. But in gaming mode everyone else that's used my deck has been able to just play whatever game they see.

Your point about output resolution is not a negative as a "PC" since as you said it worked fine in desktop. Thats a negative to the console part of the experience. Either way its sorted now.

It's a PC with all of the stuff that console gamers say they hate about PC gaming built right in. The idea of calling it a console just doesn't click with me because all of the stuff that makes it console like can be done on any PC. However, the biggest thing about consoles is that they are a streamlined experience that you have very few options with. There isn't much customization on a console vs with the Steam Deck it's not can I do something and more so how do I do it.

I just sold my desktop and got a deck and I have to say. I'm very impressed. Since you can just plug in an external mouse, keyboard and monitor it absolutely can function like a normal pc and I'm lovin it. Only "negative" thing is, I'm new to linux so I have to learn a lot of things

1. Hot dogs are sandwiches 2. Corndogs are dumplings 3. The Steam Deck is a Linux-based hand-held gaming PC. It is not remotely intended to be a general purpose PC, so if you use it as one, YMMV.

I think that the deck is a PC. A handheld LINUX based gaming PC. I intentionally ran Fedora Silverblue on my old iMac in preparation for the Deck. Silverblue has the same limitations as SteamOS. It is immutable. Meaning the core OS can’t be written to, which by default makes it more stable. I found I could very easily live inside of Flathub. So much so that I look for Flatpak compatibility with every distro I run now. Realistically, how often would one go into desktop mode? That depends on you. I personally installed a few Flatpak apps as contingencies in case I couldn’t use my main PC, only to realize that I didn’t really use them, so I removed them. Before the Deck I was more of a console gamer than a PC gamer. The Deck has opened me to the world of flexibility and raw power of PC gaming, especially thanks to Steam input and the controllers flexibility we have. I wanna return to my highlight of a Linux-based gaming PC for a minute. If you have experience in Linux, especially with immutable systems such as Silverblue or Micro OS, and are used to KDE Plasma, you will be far more ready for the Deck outside of gaming mode. Yes, using Plasma makes it very similar to Windows in the UX overall, but Linux is not Windows. It is important that we go in to the Deck realizing it. For me, Linux was one of the reasons I got the Deck. It is a different animal, but I’ve used a Linux long enough to where I was able to jump right in. I’ve got my gripes with the Deck (mostly around anti cheat), but overall, this is definitely a handheld gaming PC in my mind.

I regularly use the SteamDeck as a full PC with a dock and Keyboard / Mouse / Monitor, for things such as browsing, coding, 3D print slicing and a bunch more without any issues however, I am also an avid linux user already so I am used to terminal and getting around.

The best part about the steam deck is the price. No other handheld with this much power will give you this price point.

Best thing about steam deck, you don't have to rely only on a community to add or fix features and stuff. They have people that do care on the team, unlike other UMPCs and Consoles

I would say the Deck is a gaming focused PC. But I would also say you could probably say the same about the recent iterations from Xbox and Playstation, they are just locked down so you can't do as much with the hardware as you might like. Yes, you can use the Deck as a desktop replacement, or even a laptop replacement, but I would still be cautious of any important data on a mobile computer, even my phone. You mentioned that it would have been easy to get your data without the lock screens, and I would say that it would still probably be fairly straightforward to get it even with the lock screen. It would be trivial to pull the drive and mount it on a different computer and chroot into it, and that would very likely subvert the passcode security. I haven't logged into the browser on my deck, and I probably won't for that very reason. The only thing I have really used the browser for anyway is game art and Plex, which is a single login that isn't tied to anything, and I can easily pull my password from my password manager to log in. But I would never do anything close to financial on a mobile device. Not worth the risk. That being said, I rarely take my deck outside of the house, and it would be just as likely to be stolen in a home invasion as my desktop, so... Biggest thing is being able to secure your accounts as fast as possible, because basically nothing is safe... On the other side of things, you can use the deck for all sorts of productivity related things, and it would work just fine. There are a few edge cases for software that you would have to download with the OS in writable mode, but I would guess that most people aren't going to be using them. I would also guess that if I were a game dev, I would still prefer to work on my actual desktop, with more resources than the deck has, for my development. It's cool, and I think that is what a lot of this comes down to, but I wouldn't see it changing my workflow paradigm. I would try it and go back to what I was using previously. And with Warpinator, it wouldn't be that much different to transfer a build to the Deck from a build machine. But other productivity tasks would be very easy and no problem to do on the Deck, until you start getting into those edge cases with different software needs.

Comment from the begining of the video: Steam deck is a PC. Obviously, since user has a full access to it's functionality. And while I do agree, that the touch controls aren't amazing for the changes in the desctop environment, it still allows a full PC gaming experience. (I have honestly no idea what the video should be about at this point.) Edit 1: 4:30 You say, that deck is not a good pc, because you don't want to use it as a PC...... you know that doesn't make sense right? Edit 2: 8:00 Unreal engine is designed for beefy ultra-beast machines that most developers NEED to develop a game, that will be bleeding edge graphics in 5 years, when the development is done. To expect it to run on Deck is delusional. Edit 3: 12:00 Just a strange point, but I remember being seriously confused by the marketing, because Valve kept seriously hiding the desktop environment. I wasn't even sure until the verry release, if it would be possible to use the desctop mode without a dock. Final edit: Ok. I am not mad, that you want to call Deck a console, but the limitations that define the console experience simply do not exist in the Deck. It would be slander to call it a console. I bought it knowing, that the consoles that I know of are useless to me because of these limitations. And Deck has none of them.

The Steam Deck is a hybrid. A very well done hybrid

The Deck has become my main PC. It's also great for taking multiplayer games to a friend's house without taking half an hour to unplug and pack everything so my PC survives the journey. I do my office work on my Steamdeck and play games during my lunch break. While I think an equivalent cost laptop MIGHT get the same performance, I'd have to take a controller with me to use for games that are better with a controller, and it'd take more space to do so. I support an esports college course and it has been invaluable for showcasing the varied games across many platforms that aren't just Fortnite and Valorant. I've had students on Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, Killer Queen Black, Soul Calibur V, BallisticNG, Redout, and so many more! I couldn't lug a PC or Console to do that, but the Steam Deck does it.

I am using the steam deck as my main PC. I will be using it to develop with Java and to learn android development. I have been trying to get Emacs working to my liking but because it is a flatpak it has a learning curve. I also would like to install the British English language so that doesn't interfere with my workflow.

I respect the fact that you're unbiased with the videos you make. Gives you big points as a creator 👍🏾

Steam Deck is like Jurassic Park, you can stay in the hamster ball and enjoy the park, or run out the ball and go out to explore.

Its normal PC functionality is not really worthwhile IMO, but as a game console with the options and customization of PC, it is fantastic. It has been a literal game changer for me and has helped me to get a lot more out of games I otherwise either held off playing or bought/waited to buy on Switch. Having the option to buy the games on PC and play them either on my reasonably beefy desktop or my Steam Deck (without buying them twice) has been awesome.

When talking about the steam deck, I’d like to draw your attention to apple computers. The reason people love apple computers is the tight integration between hardware and software. It’s a polished experience that isn’t too restrictive. Of course you also have the option to install Windows/Linux on a mac. The steam deck is similar. What makes a steam deck isn’t only the hardware, but the way the software and hardware interact together to create an experience you just never could fully get when using windows on such a device. It is also revolutionary (and more PC like) in the way that it allows you to go into the software only as much as you feel comfortable! You can tweak settings but you don’t have to. On the console side however, you have gaming mode: a super intuitive and user friendly way to just play games without having to even think about the steam deck as a multipurpose tool. I’ve seen so many people say “I’m glued to my PC for 9 hours at work. The steam deck gets me away from that.” At its core, it’s a gaming device and some people like it for the fact that it creates a clear boundary between work and play. Yes you could do work on a steam deck, but why do that when it’s designed to be a device you can just have fun with? Whether you use it as a PC or console however, I think it’s easy to say that most people have booted desktop mode at least once and on the flip side, have spent countless hours playing games in gaming mode! And as such, especially in gaming mode, the hardware/software synergy is hard to miss. So is it a PC, console, or something we’ve never seen before? I think everyone perceives it differently.

I'd call it a runaway success. 1 million units from a first-time release in the first year is pretty impressive. Valve has never released this type of hardware before, and as such didn't have the contacts required nor the guarantee of success. Now, with 1 million units sold, their OEM is more than happy to throw more production capacity Valve's way and that will keep them coming. EDIT: At this point, literally all of the 'faults' that the Steam Deck has are all software. Software can always be improved, as long as the underlying hardware is strong.

The idea of using the steam deck with a portable monitor as a laptop replacement is interesting. But several times in this video it was mentioned that an update from valve could blow away your files. Or that was the impression I got. Is this true? If so, I wouldn't want to start storing important files for my work on it. Even if they're backed up, I'd have to bring them all back on again. Maybe even re-install some things. That would be a pain. I'd also say if this is the case that's its not a PC nor a console but an expensive, but cool, convenience.

POV: You live in India so you have seen steam deck on the internet only💀

KDM (the team that works on the desktop) is actively working on it so the desktop PC may just be much better soon enough.

The steam deck is a handheld Gaming PC targeted at Console gamers with the ability for PC enthusiasts and tweakers to get stuck in… it’s the best of both for the handheld gamer

"Do you think a Steam Deck is a PC or a console?" Yes. It is. In case that wasn't clear, it is entirely possible to be both, while being either.

One word to describe the steam Deck "Beast" end of story!!!

This was the biggest selling point for me. A full Linux desktop. I was looking at windows portables around the time the steam deck was announced. I wanted to install Linux on one of these devices. Valve gave me what I wanted. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me. Even my family loves my steam deck. I bought some as Christmas presents. By the way, Valve is caught up in the queue for America. I pre-ordered on Thursday night and got the email to buy it on Monday. Overall I'm happy with the steam deck. OG Xbox emulator is worse RIP Burnout 3 takedown. I enjoy sitting down on the couch to play PC or emulated games.

one of the coolest things about this thing as a concept is if you wanted to, you could write software on the steamdeck for the steamdeck that you could then run on the steamdeck. Any other console manufacturer would have nightmares about letting users have that much freedom. Conversely, you don't need to be a computer scientist to have an out of the box fantastic gaming exprience running it as it's presented to the user on startup.

I think the lines between PC and console are blurring. And I think the SD is going to be a great way to help bridge the gap.

Look I’ve been deep under the hood of my deck, I have several emulators on it and I can run botw with the gyro working. The deck has a desktop, I can install Linux apps. It’s running an open source OS on top of x86 architecture. It is a PC that takes up less space on the go with the downside of giving up performance. I travel ALOT, and I can’t take a gaming laptop in addition to my MacBook and a 15-25lb camera kit. The steam deck is the perfect experience to wind down with in my hotel after a long day. It can charge off the same 142wh battery pack I charge my camera batteries with and run my MacBook on the go. I don’t need to plug anything in to use it right away. It’s literally perfect.

Your problem is that you ARE CONFUSED. The Steam Deck is either a PC or console or hand held. It's all of them. And it's only getting better by the week as the devs are continuing to improve on the software with the help of the community. No other gaming device even come close by the time it's done. Give a few years.

I received my Steam Deck last week and my two main takeaways is that it's very fiddly and actually not that portable at all. It might be a classical case of "jack of all trades, master of none". People who want PC gaming will get much better experience with an actual PC - you said it yourself. People who want convenience of a console won't get it from Deck either, at least not yet. People who want to play on the go will likely stick to their mobile phones - Steam Deck is pretty bulky and is not something you can carry around in a pocket or purse. I'm afraid it will remain relatively niche product - either for people who have to compromise in some way or for geeky enthusiasts who actually don't mind fiddling (such as myself). I wouldn't call it a console at all, the layer of user-friendliness is fairly thin, one wrong turn and linux starts winking at you from under the hood...

That security part made absolutely zero sense, if someone gained physical access to your device a pin isn't helping you at all

Can you do a poll on your channel on how many are satisfied with steam deck, steam support. Has anyone been facing issues with their unit, and how steam support is handling the issues?

I see a Steam Deck as a more portable gaming laptop. There are limitations as most gaming laptops have but they also got more flex than a console or hand held.

Calling it just a console is a bit diminutive. I honestly think the steam deck is going to start trickling into other fields of usage as people start to realize it's potential. The fact that it's got a USB port which on its own grants it extra plug and play compatibility will mean we will start to see the steam deck and other similar form factor devices being used for plenty of other options down the road.

I have an old Alienware Alpha as my main HTPC. I am slowing tweaking the deck to take over that role. the biggest issue I have is not being able to mount external drives in game mode. I am sure there is a slick plugin to do that but I haven't dived down that rabbit hole yet.

The Steam Deck is a "Switch PC" for me. Installed Win10 on another MSD, together with some beloved games, mostly to control with mouse and keyboard (RTS), and my own WoW Wotlk private server with bot support in singleplayer mode. On the go, I am playing games, which are nice to control with the controller. Enhancing the experience on the go from time to time with the NREAL Air glasses, and/or have an 1080p image on my good old Hitachi full HD projector or my decent OLED TV, playing either with a BT controller or BT mouse and keyboard. I also do have installed my full collection of retro games for systems up to Gamecube, PS3 and OG Xbox to enjoy my most beloved gaming titles, during my gaming "career" the last 35 years. What more to wish...?

It's the most wonderful console I've ever owned. I dont need to break anything to unlock the device. It's a million times better than my switch. Its also a wonderful Linux pc with full driver support out of the box. My only wish is that it had a second USB-c port. I have finished 3 games in the last 3 weeks. And I havent used my more powerful desktop since I got it.

I think the whole point of the deck is to be an excellent entry level PC and a good companion device for existing PC players

I think people are not fully realizing how it's such early days for the Deck. It's only just gotten to the point where you can order one and then not be put on a waiting list. The official dock hasn't been released yet. It hasn't been around long enough yet that developers would specifically target it for development. The fact that under the hood it is a fully fledged PC based on open source tech means that Valve has enormous capacity to receive user and developer feedback and integrate those changes into the system WITHOUT needing to release new hardware means that there is a ton of room for the experience to improve. On top of that, new hardware does not necessarily need to break compatibility with the old systems meaning that the overall userbase of Deck users will just continue to grow, rather than being reset every generation of hardware. The Deck launched with console-like ease of use while creating a solid platform for Valve to iterate on. In a year or two the experience will be so dramatically improved from launch it will be almost like a new system, and by the time we're looking at Deck 2 or 3 I think it will have totally revolutionized both the console industry and PC ecosystem.

For me the problem about the steam deck is the size. It is too big to fit in a pocket, so you end up having a carrying case and carrying it like that is annoying so you end up putting it in a backpack. At that point you might as well spend the money on a older but good gaming laptop. This is my problem with alot of new handhelds tho, alot of new handhelds are soo big that it's not worth getting it because at that point you might as well get something bigger. I miss when handhelds fitted in pockets, like the PS Vita.

I live off-grid on a boat and have just used a steam-deck as a low-power gaming pc setup. You're right it is serviceable, but i would like to see it taken further. :)

Add in perfect game emulation for old systems and games and it becomes even more versatile. I got mine yesterday. I'm so glad I have the antiglare screen. I've been playing Need For Speed games on it mostly so far. They work great.

It's just the first iteration, the problem is how fast technology is moving in this space with new handheld PCs coming every 6 months and the steam Deck is already obsolete before it was mass produced.

Do you think that when the Steam Deck comes to norway (hopefully) will it cost more? A lot of expensive phones and devices cost 100$ extra here.

It's console as application rather than console as appliance. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

The Steam Deck is definitely a handheld PC. It's no more a console than an iMac.

Dude, will you ever stop to deliver such high quality content? Man, and I initially planned to read the news during today’s breakfast.

I'm a PC gamer, always was, only had a 360 for exclusives. For a month now I've lived in a country 1.5k away from mine, with Steam Deck being my daily driver, and I didn't even notice that much difference between gaming on a Deck vs my PC. It's amazing, if you haven't bought it yet, just fucking buy it.

They didn't invent the "PC as a handheld console". The breakthrough was that they made it affordable.

Even if it was a closed system entirely it would still allow me to play games I have already bought. If I bought all games all over for the switch it would be a damn expensive experience.

I agree with most of what you said. However, being able to develop games on the Steam Deck directly is a not necessarily an apt comparison; developers don't have all their dev tools directly running on an XBox or PlayStation when developing those games. They test on them for sure but aren't directly running the dev tools on the consoles

about the locked file system you can get distrobox on the steam deck, distrobox will let you get another linux distro inside the steam deck and you will have full access to it like you install a program with in distrobox the app will be in your application menu and it will act like it was installed diractly, and it have access to you files and graphics, USB and more to make everything work really smoth. hope this helped someone

It's a Linux handheld gaming PC and should be treated as such.

You can tell Valve is kinda just “winging it” a bit. They initially built a gaming device meant to play Steam games. If Steam was a closed system, that woulda been it. However since Steam is more of a warehouse of other folks games including their own, they had to leave the door open. Since the hardware it takes to run Steam games is just basically PC hardware, they couldn’t close off folks from just putting Windows on it. They didn’t want the system to appear as a closed system bcuz, that wouldn’t be cool. They prefer Linux over Windows BUT told us “just get it. It’s basically a full PC. You could even install another operating system on it.” They had a crutch by not letting the drivers work with Windows, but after seeing the response from all the folks who ended up HAVING to install Windows to run some incompatible games, they went ahead and pushed out the drivers for Windows. All in all, they just want us to buy the thing. This is what I was thinking about it all along. If they’d just accept Windows , even temporarily while they improve Proton, we all would just get one and do what we want with it. Run Steam OS, run Linux, run Windows, MacOS, whatever. As long as they don’t worry about what folks are tryna do with their Decks and just focus on mastering SteamOS and Proton, it should have an answer for everyone. Everyone who can deal with the size of it lol

"Let me know if you think the Steam Deck is a PC or a console" me (before watching video): "yes, it is"

The Steam Deck is a small gaming-only PC. I already have a gaming PC (laptop) docked as my main rig. I bought the Steam Deck so I can casually game in other parts of my home, or when travelling. For that purpose - Steam Deck is a clear winner.

Just went on a trip for Thanksgiving and used my Deck to work on some school assignments with a little wireless keyboard and mouse to work on it. It's a great hybrid.

I didn't expect desktop replacement out of the Deck. Its a customizable console that syncs saves with my PC games and emulates everything. I have an actual PC, the Deck compliments the PC, it can't replace it.

Personally, I use it as both! I use windows mode for school work and some games incompatible with steamos, and then I unattatch from my dock and boot into steamos for games. It's amazing for me, as I can only afford one kind of entertainment system

what valve did was "bring pc gaming in a handheld form factor, at the right price"

Fair criticism, but a strat that has always worked: dedicated Windows partition, and dedicated Arch/Ubuntu/wtv partition. Solved, no filesystem locks, no userspace overwrites on update, Unreal dev tools work, C/C++ toolchains work. It works, just not... right out of the box

I've got a gaming laptop and a Steam Deck. The gaming laptop has been reduced to an office machine.

Steam Deck is "the console (experience) for PC gamers" AND "the PC (experience) for console gamers" It's all about perspective.

I love how much everybody is totally missing the point. "WHY DOES IT MATTER?" It literally doesn't matter, I find it fascinating in a world where it's offensive to define what makes a male or female, but there are people arguing over whether an entertainment device is a PC or a console.

You mention that it took a few months for Valve to add a lock screen to the Steam Deck, but lets not forget that the Steam Deck does a much greater job than its main 'competitor', the Switch, when it comes to security. The Switch still does not have a lock screen at all, even today 5 years after launch. I distinctly remember having to use a workaround to get a lock screen on my Switch by enabling parental controls and setting the daily play-time limit to 0 minutes a day to force the console to make me need to unlock the device with an actual PIN in order to use it. This was only a work-around though and was a complete afterthought and not the intended way by Nintendo to use the parental controls feature, the Switch did not offer a lock screen unless you knew about this workaround and didn't offer any such security option in the settings and for whatever reason still doesn't to this day.

It's not the Switch 2, it's the PSP3.

In my opinion, the Steam Deck is a Gaming Laptop built around a controller and 2 trackpads instead of the standard clamshell design with keyboard and 1 trackpad. The Steam Deck's design combined with Game Mode simulates a Handheld Console Experience.

A small tangent, but I think the SteamDeck is best compared against not gaming pcs or consoles, but things like the RPi, which can be both a pc and can even give console like experiences with minimal effort; but that isn't the most important thing about it. What they have in common is they are open, yet finely targetable, dev platforms. Something neither pcs or consoles have going for them.

With the dual boot funcionality being implemented in the future, do you think your opinion will change about if the Deck have actually an ideal PC experience?

I would use a Steam Deack to emulate old games. But I already tried it on 3 different machines - one of them a brand new gaming laptop worth 1.600 Euros - and it was a complete nightmare so far. I spent hours and hours to configure the games but every game I like to play was either stuttering, making sound problems or looking strangely odd.

Honestly, I like my Steam Deck and I played it a lot in first several month, but now I find myself playing my Switch OLED more then I do Steam Deck. Also, when travelling, I tend to take Switch over Steam Deck - it is smaller (I have a case that stores it in disassembled state), lighter, more portable and has a better battery life.

I've experienced both PC and console gaming to say my preference became console as I didn't like sitting at desks if I could avoid it. But I also don't like the walled garden either. Steam Deck brings PC gaming, console gaming and handheld gaming together in a package that is affordable. That's what got my money.

While I understand the appeal of having a PC vs. Console debate about the Steam Deck, I still think that Steam Deck is a whole new kind of a portable gaming device. The devices we saw before were either locked down consoles with their own ecosystems (Switch), or attempts to bring a desktop PC experience to a portable format by using an OS that wasn't designed for that purpose (I'm referring to Windows, of course). Steam Deck aims to take the best of both worlds, and offer the best possible portable gaming experience. I really hope that when Valve finally release the new SteamOS to the public other companies will use the opportunity to create their own SteamOS-based devices.

It's a handheld gaming PC. Gaming mode which is like big picture mode - what we had for years before steamdeck - does not make it a console imho.

I want to be able to record gameplay directly through Deck mode. Right now I have to do a weird workaround where I go to desktop mode, start recording through OBS, and then launch Big Picture mode on desktop in order for Steam to recognise the deck as a controller input again. It's a vastly lesser experience to playing in dekmode, and really reduces the 'convenience factor' of that Deck for me.

The Steam Deck philosophy is to put users in control. That's why: - you can repair your Steam Deck - you can install non Steam games - you can mod Steam OS - you can change the hardware / create hardware mods - you can even tweak / configure CPU and GPU via tools like PowerTools And the list is pretty much endless Yes, you can say, it's in current state not a perfect PC. I was suprised when I got my own Steam Deck, 5 months after launch, it still had the keyboard not responding issue. I thought to myself that Valve should have adressed this a long time ago. Still, now the keyboard issue resolved. Finally ! So my opinion is that Valve hasn't took the necessary steps to make a good Desktop experience. I'd totally look forward to make games in Unreal Engine. I hope that Valve does fix that issue. I have faith that someone will find a solution somehow. Because it's the ultimate user empowered machine !😁

One things for sure.... Nintendo refined their target with the switch as a hybrid. The steam deck could very well do the same and more as a hybrid

To be honest: Getting Unreal Engine running on Linux is generally a painful experience. So this is not about the Steam Deck. If you want to develop with the Deck, I highly recommend installing VSCodium as flatpak. It should bring the most necessary parts with it. So you don't need to disable the read-only filesystem. Edit: Also I recommend to use Godot for game development on the Deck. Because Godot can actually be installed via Steam directly and it brings an IDE with the engine itself in comparison to Unity for example.

I think we're missing the forest through the trees. Whether the Deck is a console or a PC matters less because adoption of the deck isn't as big a deal as it would be for other consoles. Steam Deck out the gate supports more games than literally any console has ever supported in their lifetime, provided you're open to a minor level of tinkering. But that right there is the beauty of it: We don't need a studio to say "let's support the steam deck", like we hope studios used to say "Let's support the Nintendo Switch". For us, we can join in with PC gamers in adoption. When Sony comes out and says: "Here's Spider-man remastered for the PS5 also released on PC" we can rejoice. Our adoption rates mirror the PC adoption rate, even if most PC gamers will never use(or perhaps not even be aware) of the steam deck. Granted, there is a level of shared knowledge we as deck owners can give each other through sites like protondb, about supporting new AAA titles, so adoption of the deck specifically in this regard is helpful, but that's a different type of adoption: It's adoption by skilled users, not adoption to drive companies to make choices about how to release their games. Here's the really cool part: Let's say in 1 year valve releases a steam deck 2, with significantly faster specs. We could upgrade right? But we don't have to. I'm sure most of the PC gamers here aren't running 3090's from nvidia, or are pre ordering the new 40x series nvidia cards. Heck i'm still running on a 1060ti i bought in 2017. Yeah I can't really play games in 4k or 144hz, but I can play 1080p60fps just fine on most titles. My point is this: The deck will always have support even if the hardware continues to date. Upgrading to newer hardware will only enable newer titles that are currently too taxing for the existing one, everything possible on the deck today, will be possible on the deck 2, deck 3, deck 4, etc. Comparatively on the console side, does anyone have any expectation that their switch games will run perfectly out of the box when the next nintendo console comes out? I mean it's possible, and we'd all be grateful for it if it happened, but do we expect it? So that's the real value of the deck: We share in PC adoption, and we also share in the PC rewards, stuff like playing games regardless of "generation" of hardware. Meanwhile we can offer a console experience that's on par in terms of accessibility with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo's console experience offerings.

The Steam Deck is a PC. Put simply, what we call a PC today is the branch of computers founded by IBM with their IBM-PC line. It is an open hardware platform. This is not to be confused with the term in which it was based on "Personal Computer" which is an obsolete term as it simply meant a computer designed to be run by an individual during a time when computers commonly required multiple operators. As IBM fell out of popularity in the platform that they founded as competition grew (HP, Compaq, Gateway, Dell, etc.), the platform ceased being referred to as IBM-PC/Compatible and just were referred to as PCs. This was further cemented with the Mac vs PC campaign of Apple as they did not want the Mac to be seen as just another PC especially as their platform was architecturally different at the time and not IBM-PC compatible. While we are far from the IBM-PC of 30 years ago, there are still a few characteristics that define a device as being part of the PC platform. The obvious is that it is natively compatible with PC software and OSes. But the one thing most people have troubles wrapping their head around is that the freedom of the PC was originally aimed at companies when IBM laid out the original rules of the PC platform rather than the individual user. Companies were allowed to use the parts they wished and develop software as they wished without approval from IBM. Finally and possibly most significantly, the BIOS would be open so that whoever was making the PC had full control over the hardware with the ability to choose what BIOS they wanted to use or to create their own. This one is very important because it is the reason you can build your own PC but you can't build your own Mac. It is also the reason you can buy an HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. but you can't buy an HP Mac, Dell Mac, and so on. The Steam Deck is a PC because it isn't a proprietary system that only Valve can develop for. (Every console is proprietary and running closed software on a closed platform only developed by the creator of the system.) You can wipe out SteamOS and put Windows on or any distro of Linux. Despite whether or not the Steam Deck has all the features or settings you would like to see or whether or not other OSes and interfaces would be good or not for the device, it is fully your choice to do what you wish with the device. This is the very spirit of the PC platform. Keep in mind that we are at the infancy of handheld gaming PCs being in the mainstream view. Everything has to start somewhere. The first smartphones, laptops, and tablets sucked compared to the experience they offer today. Yes, most of the software being used on handheld PCs was originally designed with other form factors in mind (including the devices running on Windows) but give Valve and the other companies involved with making handheld PCs time and so long as demand for them remains, we will see a very different and refined experience in coming years. It is another thing that makes it a PC. Unlike consoles which must be a whole working experience as envisioned by their creators at launch, the PC is an evolving platform that improves through trial and error. Figuring out what works and what doesn't and gaining ideas for improvement through their users by what they try through experimentation. (Kind of like this week with people changing their custom boot videos and Valve trying to find a way to make this easier)