- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
Now's the time for Xbox to do a handheld PC. Make it compatible with all digital Xbox games so your library carries over and they'd probably make a killing.
Valve introduces Steam Deck
- Thread starter The Marauder
- Start date
I'm not sure if Microshit is ever going to be committed to compete with Steam to do something like this
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
They could at least partner with them then so we can have Windows on Steam Deck by default. I know you can install it but it'd be nice to just have it.
And I want to play some of their games like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, if they'd just put them on Steam that'd be great too.
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2022
If they do make it, I would expect them to use a die shrinked Series S APU which is finally power efficient and cool enough to run in a handheld form factor. If they accomplish that and get a portable Series S, they will be a real threat in the handheld market.
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2021
That looks like a cool piece of kit. Whether it makes an impact or not depends on if Lenovo learned why the ROG Ally is a failure compared to the Deck.
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2015
I'm just glad more competitors are entering into a market that barely existed a year ago. The only other hardware manufacturers that were launching to market handheld PCs were niche Chinese companies like GPD and even then their offering were massively overpriced and produced in low volumes. Having big companies like Asus and Lenovo jumping in means greater capacity to produce in higher volumes and the chance for this hardware to be available in traditional retail space where regular Joe can see the product on store shelves. While $800 may sound like much you have to remember that even before the Steam Deck was announced, previously available handheld PCs from niche manufacturers would easily be in the $1200-$1400 price range.
Competition and retail availability together with future hardware refreshes will drive prices down across the board. The success of the Steam Deck has driven all this and you know this will continue because Valve has every intention of making the Deck a "generational" product, which means that they'll introduce a successor to the Deck further down the line.
Battery life unfortunately is a reality that all PC hardware with size, weight and power consumption restraints has to deal with, that can only be alleviated with more energy efficient chip designs because battery innovation has been stagnant for a long time.
I like the idea but settling with a device to just being a shrinked down Series S would limit its appeal and functionality, If MS wants to go toe-to-toe against Valve they would need to make a full fledged 100% Windows PC compatible device and MS already has a good grasp at producing portable PC hardware with their Surface Pro line of laptop/tablet hybrids.
The only thing they'll need to do is adapt that existing hardware groundwork of Intel CPUs with Iris Xe Graphics used in the Surface Pros into a handheld shell. They might as well partner with Intel to produce a special chipset like Valve did with AMD specifically for portable gaming in mind. A device of such characteristics would allow people to have access to all their PC games regardless of launcher plus all their Xbox games via Game Pass and Cloud and because it is a PC you can a have all your emulators and mods too. It would be a true 1-to-1 competitor to the Deck.
The big caveat being, as I mentioned earlier, MS would need to implement a native handheld mode to Windows so you can use the device without ever needing a mouse or keyboard for navigating the interface.
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2022
I doubt Microsoft has any interest on competing with the concept of a Windows PC handheld. If they were, they were long able to, they already diversified their Surface line into a bunch of form factors. A portable Series S is more in their wheelhouse, and it already has all the selling point it needs. Anything the Xbox already does, it can do, any games the Xbox already plays, it can play. If anything, they would prefer a more locked down system where they are the only store in town and you can't easily load any pirated games. All the ground work is already set up for them.
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2021
Hey boys just want to give a list of games I have played on the Deck that I don't often see people talk about. I will preface this list with saying I use a trackball mouse (thumb) so using the track pads as such was very comfortable. For all the games that work better with KBM, i spent some time creating a custom control scheme for.
Games that I have spent a significant amount of time playing and enjoying that i never see anyone mention:
Brigador - has a controller scheme, but I converted it to KBM
Company of Heroes - you would have to add some launch options, and for custom control scheme only thing I really spent time on was figuring out how to add the BREAK/PAUSE key. I am not particular good at RTS games, even though I love them, so pause was necessary.
Factorio - they added a control scheme, but I already set up my own and am happy with it. It is the perfect deck game imo. Excellent battery life, looks great. I fly a bunch for work, so autism simulator is perfect.
Grim Dawn - can't go wrong with this arpg, runs great.
Deserts of Kharak - another RTS that just runs well. Very little micromanagement in the campaign, cusomt controls with virtual menus, and action sets on LB/RB hold works really well.
PGA 2k21 - Runs great, nice to play when listening to an audio book.
Project Zomboid - Also great
SimCity 4 - A custom control scheme, and finding the right location to point NAM to, or add custom maps, and this was the only thing I played for a few weeks. Great city builder, runs well
Stellaris - Another custom control scheme. Runs really well, if a bit cramped.
Super Mega Baseball 3 - A fun arcade style baseball game
Tyranny - never played any of the obsidian crpgs, but this one looked particular cool, so I bought it and played it a bit. I took a bit of a break from gaming recently, but plan to play this one again on my next business trip.
Underrail - great game until I got filtered 12 hrs in.
Dawn of War 2/Chaos Rising - beat this game on the deck, just perfect with the right control scheme.
Inquisitor Martyr - A bit of tinkering has it running well at 45 fps, very fun ARPG if you like the 40k universe
Wartales - is a nicer looking battle brothers that runs well on the deck.
XCOM 2 - runs well, bit of a pain to get it working with mods, but eventually it works well.
Games that I have spent a significant amount of time playing and enjoying that i never see anyone mention:
Brigador - has a controller scheme, but I converted it to KBM
Company of Heroes - you would have to add some launch options, and for custom control scheme only thing I really spent time on was figuring out how to add the BREAK/PAUSE key. I am not particular good at RTS games, even though I love them, so pause was necessary.
Factorio - they added a control scheme, but I already set up my own and am happy with it. It is the perfect deck game imo. Excellent battery life, looks great. I fly a bunch for work, so autism simulator is perfect.
Grim Dawn - can't go wrong with this arpg, runs great.
Deserts of Kharak - another RTS that just runs well. Very little micromanagement in the campaign, cusomt controls with virtual menus, and action sets on LB/RB hold works really well.
PGA 2k21 - Runs great, nice to play when listening to an audio book.
Project Zomboid - Also great
SimCity 4 - A custom control scheme, and finding the right location to point NAM to, or add custom maps, and this was the only thing I played for a few weeks. Great city builder, runs well
Stellaris - Another custom control scheme. Runs really well, if a bit cramped.
Super Mega Baseball 3 - A fun arcade style baseball game
Tyranny - never played any of the obsidian crpgs, but this one looked particular cool, so I bought it and played it a bit. I took a bit of a break from gaming recently, but plan to play this one again on my next business trip.
Underrail - great game until I got filtered 12 hrs in.
Dawn of War 2/Chaos Rising - beat this game on the deck, just perfect with the right control scheme.
Inquisitor Martyr - A bit of tinkering has it running well at 45 fps, very fun ARPG if you like the 40k universe
Wartales - is a nicer looking battle brothers that runs well on the deck.
XCOM 2 - runs well, bit of a pain to get it working with mods, but eventually it works well.
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2022
A detachable controller is actually really nice.
Yeah, valve is already releasing steam os for free. An upscale variant of the steam deck would work if it wasn't just a windows laptop.
Yeah, and it also allows them to re-hash the Series S as a 1080p device, 720p on battery, throwing a bone to lazy devs. It's the smart business decision, which is also why I doubt the useless suits in the office will go that direction.
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2023
spotted a ROG ally at a Best Buy and played with it a little. I do admit that it feels really nice in the hand.
Honestly I'd be more then willing to replace my desktop pc with a system with this formfactor. I'd get a couple docks so i could plug it into my monitor setup or my tv, as I like to do most of my gaming on the couch. I don't think battery life will be as much of a concerned as any pc gaming I'd be playing plugged in anyways.
One thing about the Asus ally, it's top port is listed in it's specifications as a "ROG XG Mobile Interface and USB Type-C combo port", which is used on it's laptops to run an external gpu. It's possible to get a dock that makes it even more powerful when plugged in
I'm keeping an eye on the Legion Go. the bigger screen will be nice. It's expected to have an AMD Ryzen 7040 series APU, which the Ally's Z1 is based on.
Honestly I'd be more then willing to replace my desktop pc with a system with this formfactor. I'd get a couple docks so i could plug it into my monitor setup or my tv, as I like to do most of my gaming on the couch. I don't think battery life will be as much of a concerned as any pc gaming I'd be playing plugged in anyways.
One thing about the Asus ally, it's top port is listed in it's specifications as a "ROG XG Mobile Interface and USB Type-C combo port", which is used on it's laptops to run an external gpu. It's possible to get a dock that makes it even more powerful when plugged in
I'm keeping an eye on the Legion Go. the bigger screen will be nice. It's expected to have an AMD Ryzen 7040 series APU, which the Ally's Z1 is based on.
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- Joined
- Apr 1, 2023
I'm somewhat torn on the Steam Deck. I bought it last year and it was fun for the first several months (having a portable gaming console that can play pirated PC games is something I never thought would happen). However, over time it has gotten to the point where I'd turn it on maybe once a month or so just to browse the Internet in desktop mode. It's not great for someone who's more of a keyboard + mouse gaming enjoyer, unless you can deal with having to haul a bunch of adapters and accessories with you, with makes it a tiresome experience. I suppose it's great for those of us who still enjoy playing games on regular basis wherever, but personally I'd rather just sit down and boot up my desktop PC for that.
Epoch
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2022
Well it's got a touchpad and a load of extra buttons, its got that going for it at least.
I'm probably biased by owning a Deck, but I don't trust the Ally at all. It seems very cheaply made and there were reports of it melting SD cards and the like. It's also missing a trackpad so its impossible to use the desktop without a mouse, and the high res high refresh rate screen is pointless and kills battery life. As a portable gaming system its a worse option than the Deck, as the only thing it has going for it is that its more powerful, but that advantage is lost against everything else the Deck offers in terms of being a portable system.
I think if you are after something just for general use and not gaming then its probably better to get a small laptop, or one of those GPD Win micro laptop things.
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2023
I mean I'm broke so it's a moot point, but the Legion Go is interesting. The main thing is, it has detachable controllers. You can take the controllers off and use it as a tablet, and in theory you could have controllers that have a built in split keyboard. You could have docks so you can used it as a desktop, maybe as a laptop but it might be too small for that.
That might not happen until future devices though, sadly.
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
that's just how it is, if you don't have the necessity or prefer the convenience, no reason to use it. being able to chill on the couch or in bed instead of sitting in a chair has it's value, but it really depends if you're willing to buy a steam deck for that.
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2019
I'm a fool that liked the Steam Controller, so probably biased here, but I can't imagine using a Steam Deck (or Deck-like device) without the trackpad. It opens up so many options to work with games that were made for a mouse. Especially if you emulate trackball mode, it's surprisingly usable.
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2019
I'll be here patiently waiting for the incoming Nintendo patent lawsuit...
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2015
Nintendo already was sued by a company called Gamevice back in 2017 over the concept of the detachable controller from that company's own gaming tablet like device (Wikipad) from 2014 so the concept is not new. It just so happens that Nintendo was successful in their implementation while Gamevice's product was barely a bleep in the radar.
Lawsuit
Wikipad
Tom Nook's Gloryhole
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 28, 2021
Gonna be switching to a job with a weekly hourly commute and tempted to get a cheap steam deck and upgrade the hard drive. Have any of you guys had experience with doing such a thing or do you just put a few games on and routinely wipe the cache?
Stasi
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2019
I've got the 512GB model but messed around with installing games and emulators on the microSD and honestly didn't notice that much of an issue with load times. Might be a bigger deal with huge AAA games, you could look up some youtube vids of people testing them. Maybe try a microSD first, could be a cheaper and less fiddly solution if you need more drive space.
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2019
No experience modding here. The SD card works surprisingly well, so unless you're trying to play Cyberpunk or newer/larger games off of it, I'd just go that route. A 1tb sd card is not expensive, at least compared to the Deck.
Edit: ah, ninja'd by Stasi.
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