Primarily in my life ive been a console gamer. Starting with the ps1 and owning every system released since. Never did much pc gaming even when i had access to a decent rig. For the past few years ive been a collector. Going for rare and cool retro games i always wanted to own. After about a year with the steam deck it all feel so… archaic? Like, i went and hdmi modded my ps2, but i find the idea of booting up pcsx2 on deck more appealing. I dont feel the need to have a new game in my hands physically, when i know its gonna take me months to play it anyway, i can wait for a sale, get it cheaper, play it portably with mods. Console gaming, especially in the last 2 generations, feels like a hinderance more than anything. Why would i want to be tied to one piece of hardware, with a dubious at best chance of carrying my games forward to the next gen every 6 years? The steam deck feels like its released me from the shackles of console gaming. I dont think ill get rid of my whole collection… but my ps5 and xsx have been doing a lot of dust collecting these days.
Anyone else feel the same? Or have i just had an existential gamer crisis?
It’s definitely solidified two things for me: if I want to get a PC game, I definitely want it on Steam rather than any other platform (though I was already 99% like that anyway when it comes to actual purchases), and I don’t mind if I doubledip and get a Steam copy of a game when I already have it on console, especially for JRPGs where I can see myself using handheld mode to grind out stuff when needed.
My dock hasn’t arrived yet but I’m interested to see if I end up actually playing games docked with the Deck instead of just my old way through Big Picture with my PC hooked up to my main setup via HDMI. The performance will definitely be worse if I use the Deck but it might be more convenient, and performance/graphics won’t matter for most of the games I choose to play on the Deck anyway.