With a Nintendo Switch 2 on the way, I hope Valve make a Steam Deck 2

I would prefer "Deckard" (rumored portable VR headset) over a Steam Deck 2.

I would prefer "Deckard" (rumored portable VR headset) over a Steam Deck 2.

when the oled was being touted by quite a few before its release that it was going to be the 2.0, when i went looking through the documents that were available, there is potential that the deckard tv box is likely in the works, and there is a possibilty that it could also be compatible with the next steam deck as well. (My personal speculation based on what i read, but not a definite)

the wifi 6 specs and its range in footage along with some not yet utilized specs in the oled version could potentially elude to it. which in my opinion would be a decent prospect. Especially since deckard has been in the works for a little over 2 years now.

Am I the only one who's not necessarily too excited for a new Deck at the moment? Keep in mind I could be salty because I just got mine August last year, but it feels like the OLED model fixed pretty much every nit pick there was with the original we had for now.

Furthermore, people asking for Deck 2 to run current games... do you guys want to throw $1K or more on your handhelds? I know I wouldn't, I find the current Deck perfectly fine for what I realistically expected would run on it, besides, setting up Sunnine/Moonlight was easy enough I'd never bother with a more powerful handheld if I can locally stream all my demanding games (which aren't many) from my capable PC.

I'd probably be more into the idea if there'd be specific exciting features and innovations coming with a Deck 2, not just adding more RAM etc.

* 6-8 cores (no need to go above 8) that's very power optimized

afaik, runing 1 core at 4ghz consume way more power than 2 cores at 2 ghz, so maybe increasing the ammount of cores might be a good idea

The 8 year cadence of the switch is too long as it has definitely been losing developer interest in the last two years as it's too weak to support on multiplatform releases anymore.

because those developers are developing for switch 2...
i mean look at how many units switch 1 sold, do you really think anyone would be crazy to not relase their games for switch 2?

Furthermore, people asking for Deck 2 to run current games... do you guys want to throw $1K or more on your handhelds?

Couple to few time that, top of the line struggling with current release "quality" and "optimization" way to often.

Hopes... proper jump in hardware, not undervolted laptop APU/SoC; proper world wide and average (big) electronic store release and availability; not targeting enthusiast and people with no sense and too much cash to burn... not many can replace hardware every 3 year or less (or get free samples), a lots beyond 5 or even 8 year mark.

Furthermore, people asking for Deck 2 to run current games

Running current games is not adequate. If the Deck 2 is releasing in 2026/2027 then it needs to be able to run games from 2028 & 2029.

It needs to have sufficient performance to minimise the work of game devs to make that happen, and it needs to sell in sufficient numbers to make that effort worthwhile. Those two factors are inversely related: the Switch could command game developers putting in epic amounts of work for their games to run on its underpowered hardware because it sold >100 million units; the Deck 2 isn't going to sell that many so the work required needs to be less. Lower resolution and a smaller screen than the mainstream will get some of the way there, but not all of it.

Time to fire up those Amigas, Atari STs or DOS systems and play the loads of games that released for them that you never had time to get to! Or even the loads of new games that have been coming out for them!

With how the industry is going to have to lie in the unsustainable bed that it's made for itself, I'm currently preparing for an emulation-heavy approach to gaming in the future until things right themselves again, so I'll certainly be checking out the new stuff alongside revisiting old favourites and digging into stuff that passed me by!

I don't know if there are newer stats available, but anecdotally I think tablet use peaked around then, and has declined a lot since.

Edit: here's some recent browser stats, which have it at around 2%
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet

I didn't look exhaustively, but I think it peaked at less than 7%
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/worldwide/2014

And was already on the decline when mobile overtook desktop
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/worldwide/2016

I struggled to find more recent ones because I didn't know where to look - many thanks for digging those up.

It's still just as sad of a picture, though, since for all intents and purposes "Mobile" and "Tablet" are the same thing here, with people opting to use phones and tablets (all running the same mobile OSes) interchangeably for internet tasks, instead of PCs - when you put the two together, you get 60% of the market in favour of the mobile/tablet side (with an unknown amount of the PCs also being portables themselves, I'm sure).


Last edited by Pengling on 9 May 2024 at 9:10 am UTC

I'm currently preparing for an emulation-heavy approach to gaming in the future until things right themselves again

That's basically been me these past couple years, a mix of emulation and generally older titles I missed out on. It's a good life; you'll probably never run out of good games, and your backlog will remain enormous for years to come. There's nothing especially important in getting the latest and the "greatest" of games if you think about it, once you wrap your head around that concept and ditch that FOMO feeling, you realise time doesn't amount all that much to art, and graphics aren't even close to being everything in a game.

!Emulation? really?


Last edited by Pyrate on 9 May 2024 at 9:41 am UTC

That's basically been me these past couple years, a mix of emulation and generally older titles I missed out on. It's a good life; you'll probably never run out of good games, and your backlog will remain enormous for years to come

I have the same idea, although my Steam Deck is mainly an emulation machine at this point. The problem is, I don't enjoy many retro games and I feel like the games I do enjoy have only recently started to come out. Thank God for indie games, though! Even where they're not my taste, I can appreciate the vision behind them. For example, I'm not into the sniper gameplay of Children of the Sun, but I can see the appeal!

That's basically been me these past couple years, a mix of emulation and generally older titles I missed out on. It's a good life; you'll probably never run out of good games, and your backlog will remain enormous for years to come.

Same here!

Modern gaming has offered me relatively little for an extremely long time - and it's not that my tastes are all that unusual, it's just that they're not what makes headlines and social-media buzz about DLC and subscriptions so that the publishers can milk people for more money.

My favourite series is Bomberman (it's the one and only series where I'm there for launch, because the games are dependable and complete, and I know what I'm getting), and the modern entries have proven themselves to be profitable multi-million sellers, but being brutally honest here, I accept that if Konami doesn't step it up with the marketing sometime soon*, then even that series will go away sooner or later, given what's likely to happen in the gaming space. I don't want that to happen, but I would be a fool if I didn't prepare for that possibility.

*They are seriously missing a trick here - they've got trademark filings covering merchandising and a streaming-show, both of which the series in its modern form is perfectly suited to, and yet they're not doing anything of the sort!

There's nothing especially important in getting the latest and the "greatest" of games if you think about it, once you wrap your head around that concept and ditch that FOMO feeling, you realise time doesn't amount all that much to art, and graphics aren't even close to being everything in a game.

You're preaching to the choir, friend! I was never fooled by that whole attempt to paint the "AAA" label as representing good quality, when it's self-evidently always represented buggy, unfinished experiences, and I've never had any fear of missing out, because an awful lot of games simply aren't aimed at me anymore (and for the sorts of things that I like, as long as good art-direction is in play, the graphical requirements really haven't changed in 20 years and rightly have no reason to).

To be quite honest, even way earlier than that I was never impressed by "It's 3D! And you can RUN AROUND IN IT!", either - it takes more than that to make a good game, regardless of format. And don't even get me started on folks who say that they want to get into the games industry and then proclaim "I've written the story and come up with all of the characters already!" but then give you a blank look when you ask about their dream game's rules, mechanics, and goals, or how everything will be structured and balanced.

... Man, now I sound like I need to go and tell a bunch of damn kids to get off my lawn.

Anyway, hopefully this stuff will lead to more activity in the emulation section of the GOL forums!


Last edited by Pengling on 9 May 2024 at 12:10 pm UTC

I was never fooled by that whole attempt to paint the "AAA" label as representing good quality, when it's self-evidently always represented buggy, unfinished experiences

That's not at all what it means. "AAA" means "likely to make money" by analogy with the bond market. Blockbuster big-budget games with a variety of well-established mechanics, ideally as a tie-in to a popular brand or a sequel to a previously-lucrative game, are the safe bets that the industry has discovered over the years, since they'll draw in the widest audience. And since some people get addicted to gambling (which is very lucrative - ask the mafia) having mechanisms to hook some whales is also a safe bet for making money. And, yes, when you're min-maxing revenue you'll want to maximise non-refunded sales for the minimum of QA outlay. The term has never meant good quality.

I was never fooled by that whole attempt to paint the "AAA" label as representing good quality, when it's self-evidently always represented buggy, unfinished experiences

That's not at all what it means. "AAA" means "likely to make money" by analogy with the bond market. Blockbuster big-budget games with a variety of well-established mechanics, ideally as a tie-in to a popular brand or a sequel to a previously-lucrative game, are the safe bets that the industry has discovered over the years, since they'll draw in the widest audience. And since some people get addicted to gambling (which is very lucrative - ask the mafia) having mechanisms to hook some whales is also a safe bet for making money. And, yes, when you're min-maxing revenue you'll want to maximise non-refunded sales for the minimum of QA outlay. The term has never meant good quality.

Aye, I'm aware. That's why I said "that whole attempt to paint the "AAA" label as representing good quality" - and that certainly is a thing that happened, regardless of the term's true meaning, and there remain plenty of gamers out there who believe that it pertains to quality.

With the strong Apu's Being released from AMD a tiny cube steam box might be great along with a new deck in the coming years

Ok, not read the whole thing or posts but how many SD's has Valve sold to date?


Edit:

Am a ***** Only just realised you can like articles


Last edited by pete910 on 9 May 2024 at 2:49 pm UTC

Ok, not read the whole thing or posts but how many SD's has Valve sold to date?

Only Valve (and probably their suppliers, and that guy that trudges around delivering them all) know for sure; we can only guess. I guess around five million.

Pictured: Steam Deck delivery.
!link


Last edited by CatKiller on 9 May 2024 at 3:43 pm UTC

Only Valve (and probably their suppliers, and that guy that trudges around delivering them all) know for sure; we can only guess. I guess around five million.

Pictured: Steam Deck delivery.
!link

Finally, the reason why Steam Decks aren't sold in Australia: they haven't built the zipline yet.

What I think should be included is improved APU, memory, and screen, VRR, and just more anti-cheat compatibility.

I feel Valve has done pretty much everything they can for anticheat compatibility. The issues that remain are the Hall Of Shame (Epic, Riot, Electronic Arts, Roblox, Bungie, etc.) that refuse to make the AC work because of whatever excuse they made up that day.

Ultimately, I hope the day of rootkit anticheat ends soon. Kernel-level nonsense has been tried before, and it broke computers and eventually finally died.

For a "thinksumer"

When I think Sumer, top of mind has to be the epic of Gilgamesh.

What I think should be included is improved APU, memory, and screen, VRR, and just more anti-cheat compatibility.

I feel Valve has done pretty much everything they can for anticheat compatibility. The issues that remain are the Hall Of Shame (Epic, Riot, Electronic Arts, Roblox, Bungie, etc.) that refuse to make the AC work because of whatever excuse they made up that day.

Ultimately, I hope the day of rootkit anticheat ends soon. Kernel-level nonsense has been tried before, and it broke computers and eventually finally died.

100%. I know it's not Valve's fault and it's really those Hall of Shame members, but Valve can probably do more to convince those companies to support Linux.