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?
Yeah I mean that has always been the advantage of PC gaming, the competitive game prices and the “portability” (in this case, meaning how easy it is to transfer games from virtually any kind of PC to any other kind of PC).
I’m just surprised more people haven’t come to that same realization
my last console was a ps2, my first a colecovision, got my first pc in 1995.
Unfortunately my last gaming pc died some years ago and with family, mortgage, children etc etc i wasnt going to splurge another 2-3k to something that lies in a room where i cant be for 99% of my time.
Brought a wii u a couple of years ago, this sparked a bit of return to gaming thanks to the big pad which i could use on the sofa after dinner, then the SD came.
The time hasnt magically multiplied, but for me it’s the perfect solution, i get a couple of hours of gaming every evening more or less, much more than i got when i had a big powerfull desktop.
For the price of my last gaming pc i will pull at least 2-3 or more steam deck iterations, much less noise, much less current drawn, if i need to stop playing just press the suspend button and i can take up where i left in one second.
I dont think i will return to a gaming desktop anytime.
I do too! When I got my first deck I wasn’t as excited as when I got the OLED version. Since I bought it I have played every day. Today, I am going into the office and all I am thinking to playing my games 😁
Its not changed my outlook, but its more not needing a console (though I still have several). Im going to build a steamOS based console for the home theatre over chrissie.
No it’s a fucking piece of plastic and electronic stop simping
It’s how i felt jumping to PC for the first time in 2015.
It’s genuinely just such a more customer friendly platform, being open, and not owned by a single company.
Genuinely the best decision I’ve made in life in terms of hobbies and entertainment.I use outlook for work only
I’ve been mostly a PC gamer for years now, the steam deck finally bringing it to a convenient handheld package has only rekindled my love for it. That being said I did go out and buy a PS3 last week because I wanted to play some exclusives and they didn’t emulate well
I just hope I recover my passion on gaming after getting mine. These last year’s I haven’t been able to hook onto a game for long times.
I’ve been having a hard time lately trying to enjoy gaming like I used to. Idk blame it on age but even with access to a good pc for gaming, my backlog has grown exponentially over the years. I JUST beat BotW on my pc after like 6 years, lol.
I bought the OLED on impulse and since receiving it in the mail, I’ve been having so much fun using it.
Easy to say that my SD has 100% reignited my interest in games and I only hope that with updates the software continues to improve the experience and further fuel that interest.
It’s replaced my consoles entirely.
I got a Steam Deck to get away from the AAA/PSN/Xbox OnePass or whatever it’s called mindset, and I’ve never had any interest in PC gaming.
Consoles evolved the way cable TV did. Early cable didn’t have commercials; you already paid for content delivery by paying for cable. Now cable TV has wall-to-wall commercials just like air TV and you pay for cable also. The main reason I haven’t watched any TV at all in … decades.
That’s how consoles work these days. Sony, MS & Nintendo want subscription fees, shark cards, all that bullshit, on top of buying the games and the consoles themselves.
I tried to give my PS4 to a relative and even they didn’t want it. ‘Last gen’ blah blah blah.
My Xbox is a dedicated DVD player ever since my DVD blu-ray player kicked the bucket.
I’m just happy to get back to handheld gaming. I have a Switch but don’t use it often, usually only when traveling. Before that it was the GBA for handhelds. I’m loving the emulation on the steam deck allowing me to replay a bunch of nostalgic older gen console games and I’m not tied to my desk with my PC.
Oh yeah my ps5 outside of FF16 “spider-men” 2 aint been used.
Absolutely and I never would have expected it. I’ve had consoles and PC dating back to NES as a kid. The SD has changed my entire outlook. And now, I find that I don’t care so much about the next generation of console gaming quite as much. I’m much more fascinated by what we could expect out of the SD2 and beyond.
Nah, not really. Made emulation a bit easier for some old stuff that hasn’t been ported but otherwise, I’m same old same old. I still like my games physically. Steam Deck is fun and Steam sales are nice but it’s never going to replace the feeling of having a physical object on my shelf that I own. And that’s often where I’ll end up playing them too, just where I bought the game physically. That’s not to say I don’t use my Steam deck but it’s more supplemental than anything.