TL;DR: I ordered the Steam Deck a week ago, and UPS just delivered it. The Steam Deck celebrated its first birthday, and Valve discounted it by 10% during its spring sale that ended yesterday. This purchase represents a huge shift in my gaming and collecting habits. Read below for what went into the decision.
First, the Nintendo Switch demonstrated to me that a portable device with a 7" screen can be my primary gaming platform. I bought a Switch last year and have been gaming on it during the past six(?) months. The experience has been fantastic for three reasons.
Due to lower back and bulging disc problems, sitting on a chair to play games has been an uncomfortable experience, and that's where the Switch comes in. I could find a bodyosition to ease the pain or discomfort and play games with it.
The 720p on a 7" screen really works for me. My biggest disappointment with the handheld experience has been the Sony Vita. It has a great lovely screen and is a gorgeous piece of hardware, but due to the screen size and its relative high resolution, many games and text often appear too small for these old eyes.
It's the Hori Split Pad. They are replacements for the Nintendo joycons. They are about the size of a regular console controller (the part that you grip in your hand), and they have been very comfortable to use. They make the Switch much wider than with the joycons, but that's a tradeoff that I am glad to make. I've been using the Hori Split Pad since day 1, and the Nintendo joycons included with the Switch and the Nintendo Pro controller have remained in the box unused. My Switch experience told me that a similar sized handheld with 720p was a viable handheld gaming experience for me. So that takes me to the Steam Deck.
Second, I have not gamed on a PC for the past 5+ years, and I switched to consoles as my primary gaming platform 7-10 years ago (I think). I got tired of the cost of hardware upgrades and loved the idea of console gaming from a hardware maintenance perspective. However, I've wanted to get a gaming capable PC for a few years for doing stuff in addition to game playing. The only PCs I have had the past several years have been hand-me-down budget laptops from my kids, and I wanted something more powerful. In addition, using a PC sitting on the couch in front of the big screen TV has always held appeal. I briefly considered one of those micro(?) PCs when Metal Jesus featured them in one of his videos this year. However, a PC purchase wasn't something that was actively on my mind, but that took a quick turn when Valve put the Steam Deck on sale last week.
It caught my attention, and I looked into it. I liked what I saw:
1280x800 7" screen (I'm glad it's not 1080p)
Comfortable looking physical design
Backed by Valve who has hardware product experience
Nature of PC platform to be backward compatible (for the most part)
Flexibility of PC platform and emulation support
Considered one of the best PC gaming handhelds
The Steam Deck represents a huge shift for me and my game collecting both psychologically and financially. I am anticipating that using the Steam Deck will shift my purchasing habit, and the time will come in the near future when I will spend more money on digital than physical releases (some of you are probably there already). I anticipate limiting physical release purchases to console exclusives not available on PC or whatever game that I simply have to have the physical of (Final Fantasy 7 related stuff?). Great thing about the Steam Deck is that I already have a large Steam and GoG backlog so no need to go out and build a library right away.
Buying physical games has been a very expensive endeavor that I'm sure most can relate to. Over the past six or so years I've gotten into retro gaming, I have found myself becoming more a collector than gamer. Of course, that's not a bad thing depending on your goals. Shifting my attention from collecting physical releases will allow me to focus more on the games and playing them (I hope). At least digital purchases should be much cheaper than buying physical copies. I already find it liberating not to be obsessed with physical game releases by boutique shops.
What I'm talking is in regards to Switch, Playstation, and Xbox consoles. I still intend to spend money on homebrew physical releases available on Atari consoles and Vectrex. Moving the dollars out from modern consoles should make for more dollars available for homebrew support 🙂
When it comes to modern gaming, what platform do you play on primarily?