Firstly sorry if this is like hundreds of other posts, but super torn and thought there wasn’t a better place to ask
So it’s nearly Christmas time and my mother is asking me what I want, I have literally no clue to the point where it’s bugging her but a friend suggested a steam deck and I mentioned it to her and she said she’d be willing to give me some money towards one (I’d never let her buy me it, far too much for Christmas). Okay, cool. Nice, with work, it’s affordable.
My only issue is, whilst I think the deck is really cool and I know I’d enjoy it, I don’t really feel I need one
I don’t travel too much (I did at the start of the month before breaking up w my partner), I have access to my PC a lot of the time and mainly would be worried that I wouldn’t get enough use out of it. I already own a switch but haven’t touched it in a while because I ran out of things to play and the cost of Nintendo titles was a no go.
I have a huge steam library and know there’s many games I could enjoy but just looking for some tips on if it’s actually worth spending the money and if people think it’s a good idea?
Cheers!
I was in a similar situation (except the part where a family member was offering to help pay towards it lol) I have been gaming for 35+ years but for the last 5-10 not so much. I have every console from my entire life from my first Atari, NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, Switch ,Gameboy color, DSi, 3ds xl, Genesis, Sega CD, NOMAD, Game gear, Dreamcast, PS1-3, Xbox, 360, and One S. Near the launch of Series X/S and PS5 I had pretty much zero interest in buying a next gen console. Then I heard about the SD did more than a little research and decided to buy one! And I can say that the Steam Deck has rejuvenated my desire to play again. And it’s not just about portability or its hardware or OS. The best feature is the Steam Deck community! I’ve never been so fortunate to have so many tools, mods, software, and tech support for a device I’ve owned. (And I’ve had quite a few) Not to mention Valve consistently rolling out support as well. In conclusion you can’t go wrong with “Getting a Deck” .
This is the best gaming outside of vr that I’ve had in years. Super portable so no more sitting at a desk. And with my AR glasses, no need to connect a monitor. Loving it.
I would say dont get a deck if you have a pc. But if your pc is going unused you can sell it. And if you are without a pc then i can recommend a handheld pc ie steamdeck. Just my opinion, dont like wasting money on redundant hardware.
Here are a few reasons I love the Steam Deck.
- It is so easy to pick up and play. If I have a few minutes I can jump on to whatever game is currently in standby and start playing. I don’t have to sit at my desk and wait for the PC to load the game. I have definitely chosen not to play before because I didn’t feel like doing that.
- The standby feature I mentioned above. I can pause any game for an indefinite amount of time, and continue later. I have played more open world games in the last 5 months than I have over the last 10 years.
- The control customization. I am only just dipping my toes into this, but you have so many options for customizing your controls. You can remap anything and you have several extra buttons, and pads that you can map controls to. You can create turbo buttons so you don’t have to deal with button mashing events. There are just a bunch of settings that I don’t even know how to comprehend the options I am presented with. I think it is the future of how we should configure controls in gaming.
I am rambling at this point. I’m not saying you should get a Deck, but I am saying that I have never regretted getting one.
I have a PC but I love my Deck. I do travel a decent amount, visiting my wife’s family is reasonably common, so I love it for that, but it’s also great at home. I play in bed quite a bit, and even more demanding games that don’t run as well as I’d like on the Deck, I can stream from the PC. As others have mentioned, the (mostly) non-game-breaking sleep feature is brilliant for enabling short sessions, there’s definitely times when I play something on my Deck where, if I didn’t have it, I’d never have gone up to my desk and fired up the PC, I’d have just doomscrolled on my phone for a bit.