Last time I wrote some 'Thought's on' I wrote about mobile gaming. This time around I thought I'd write some thoughts on the Steam Deck.

 

Why did this happen? well recently I had a short break from work and in that time I dug up my old hand held consoles like my Nintendo DS, DS lite, 3DS and my PS vita. It was pretty fun to play and bought back a lot of nice memories. 

 

Handhelds are really practical since they are so portable and is one of the reasons I love them so much. I can go travelling and entertain myself on the flight or when visiting family, and I’m bored. Sure, mobile phones now have some great games and handheld and console game ports, but it doesn’t beat having a real controller rather than using touch screen controls. 

 

The most recent home console and handheld made by Nintendo, the Nintendo Switch, really appealed to me has I could have console sized games, but I could take them on the go and be able to finish them rather than having to wait till I get home. Sure they had indie titles too, but this just added to the appeal has I got the old school style games I liked from the last few handheld eras.

Valves Steam Deck

When Valve announced the Steam Deck I wasn’t that interested in it. But post launch has it got into the hands of others and I saw the reviews I found that I started to get interested in it mainly has I started to learn that the Steam Deck could be used has a handheld or be connected to a monitor or TV in the same manner has the Nintendo Switch.

What’s the appeal?

I think one of the main appeals to me is that the system is based on an open platform allowing different OS’s (Steam OS based on Linux seems appealing to me) and can be used with emulators, etc. Whereas on my older handhelds I would have to use some sort of custom firmware, this machine could have something tailor-made for it, meaning I could revisit a lot of old games on this. 

 

And also rather than having to start from scratch with my game collection like I’ve had too with every generation of handhelds and consoles I have access to my steam library, it really saves me on money and games but not all games have controller support. 

 

Saying that, a lot of my games I own on Steam are quite old, so can run on low-end hardware quite easily. I also play a lot of Visual novels and side scrolling games, so the Steam Deck would really be tested by this hardware wise.

I wish I could get one…

As much as I want a Steam Deck, I just haven't pulled the trigger one one...yet and I'm not sure why.

What are the alternatives?

Aside from the Nintendo Switch, which is the right form factor and has the unique Nintendo Games you come to love, I took a look at some alternatives. 

These were: 

• Ayaneo Next Advance - features an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U CPU, AMD Vega 8 GPU clocked at 2GHz, 16 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and 2 TB SSD and more powerful than the Steam Deck but way too expensive for me. 
• GPD Win 3 - The GPD Win 3 takes Steam Deck and Switch's basic layout, and adds a full Blackberry-style QWERTY keyboard, so you can type with your thumbs. It’s a bit smaller than the Steam Deck, with a 5.5-inch, 1,280-by-720 touch screen, but it packs an Intel Core i7 16 GB RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. It uses Intel Iris 12 integrated graphics, which might be less powerful than the Steam Deck. 
• Ayn Odin – An ARM-based Android device with loads of potential, and low prices across full line. It uses an eight-core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor; 4 GB of LDDP4 RAM (8 GB on the Pro model); and 64 GB of onboard storage (128 GB on the Pro model).

Out of the ones I checked out, the Ayaneo Next Advance and GPD Win 3 were way out of my budget, and the Ayn Odin was pretty expensive for an ARM device and would mean I can't access my steam library (but I could find emulators). 

There are some newer alternatives coming out as these alternatives were released around the same time as the Steam Deck.

My own alternative

I ruled out all the alternatives for cost reasons and the Steam Deck due to availability, and instead created a Steam top. Basically, I used an 11-inch laptop with Steam installed has a substitute and carried an Xbox controller in the laptop bag. Not exactly has portable has the Steam deck, but it's about the size of my tablet. 

 

If I need anything smaller, I have a phone (ARM based) I installed games on and have a blue-tooth controller to use with it. 

 

I might blog about my experiences of what I did, and how things faired in the future.

 

It's been a whilst since I've had to write but recently I've been thinking about mobile gaming.

First, it would be worth noting I own a lot of consoles and games (I'm a collector in some ways and quite a sentimental individual) and have been gaming for many years now. Recently I've been playing a bit more on my mobile and this made me think and wonder firstly why this is and also what is the state of mobile gaming now.

For one thing, there are now more and more games that I want to play on the mobile platform. Why is that well for that we have to take a look at the existing portable gaming market.

The current handheld market

Currently, there is only one handheld occupying that space. It's the Nintendo Switch and its smaller cousin the Switch Lite. There are indie games on there and also big titles but for some people including myself I see it as a home console first that just happens to be portable and something I can carry with me when travelling overseas since it can be something, I start playing on when at home and then carry on playing when I'm away from home.

Despite the launch of the Switch Lite, both handhelds are very expensive for your average consumer and likewise the games and outside that there are no other handhelds.

The Nintendo 3DS and Playstation Vita are now retired (despite having stellar games made for both platforms).
In the past parents most likely bought their kids the DS, 2DS, 3DS to entertain them but nowadays this is unlikely to be the case. The easiest way to get into gaming outside of PC gaming which you can do using STEAM, GOG and other stores is gaming on your smartphone.

Thoughts on Mobile gaming

Gaming on your smartphone is probably the easiest way to game nowadays, more and more people are gaming on their smartphones whether it be IOS or Android games and big companies are now investing in this platform because of this boom.

The barrier to entry is quite low as any developer can develop a game for Android or IOS whether they are a lone individual or a large company and hardware is cheap especially Android phones.

In previous years big companies ported their games to Android from handhelds or older consoles such as the Final Fantasy games but more and more they are creating games for this platform such as Nintendo with their recent venture with Mario Kart, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp amongst other franchises.

On the other hand, there are also games that cost money to progress, Gacha games, games with ads, and endless runner/endless games, tower defense games and more. I'm not a fan of these games though with some Gacha game or games with micro transactions such as Fate Grand Order, SAO Alicization Rising Steel, SAO Intergral Factor, SAO Memory Defrag and Honkai Impact 3rd games I dont really mind.

I think it is still possible to enjoy yourself as long as you focus on the story and trying to complete it rather than trying to get every hero and spending money when you don't need too in order to progress or get further. Sometimes it is just worth playing these games for 5-10 minute short bursts too.

There have been some pretty cool games such as Pokemon Go too which combined gaming with real-life and managed to get me to game on the go. It's quite a rare occurrence.

The indie scene is thriving too especially with good games like Monument Valley and other rare gems so in some ways there is something for everyone, there are plenty of genres and plenty of games to suit you whether you are a 'hardcore gamer' or 'casual gamer'.
And outside of all of this, you can also emulate older handhelds and consoles on your phone (especially if it is android based).

I guess the smartphone is the device we carry everywhere with us, it's our camera, our MP3 player/music device, our map, it's basically a swiss army knife and it makes sense we can also game with it too.

In some ways, smartphones have come a long way now and even budget phones can play games with relatively good graphics like PUBG and Call of Duty compared to a few years ago and are now accessible to everyone from every background and every country including developing nations which some companies refer to as the next billion.

For me, I suppose if you look at it as smartphones are the spiritual successors to handhelds like the Gameboy and the DS lines from Nintendo. Phones are portable, and we carry them everywhere we go, we game on them and they have casual games much like the DS used to have. Likewise, it is the same with the games that come out graphically some games like Stardew Valley are the kinda games you'd expect to see on those platforms. My only complaint is the lack of physical buttons but you can buy a Bluetooth controller to solve that.

What's next?

I can see it carrying on as it is at the moment though with changes such as loot boxes falling out of favour and micro transactions being retooled differently.

Microsoft's Xcloud, Google streaming project we might be able to game on our home consoles on our phone via these streaming services which means if you own something compatible with these platforms it wouldn't really matter about the phone hardware any more.
There is also subscription service gaming which is pretty new and something that's just been introduced on both IOS and Android after some success on the home console platform with Xbox Game Pass.

Do you think mobile gaming is going to be the future of gaming?
Let me know your thoughts and comments.