ITT: people huffing unhealthy amounts of copium
PLEASE give the Steam Deck a try if you haven’t yet and are thinking about a Switch 2.
I have bought every Nintendo handhold since the gameboy colour up to the switch, but now that I have a steam deck I don’t have a single drop of desire for the switch 2.
The deck feels incredibly liberating, especially since you are not paying $90 for games that aren’t even as fun as indies
I wish there were a handheld competitor to the Switch Lite though. I don’t need anything powerful, I want a small screen for my small hands and can fit in my pocket. As much as I like my Steam Deck, it’s way too big and heavy for that use case.
With a Switch or Switch Lite, it’s still somehow light enough to use while standing on a train but with a Steam Deck, that’s just not feasible.
Only the Chinese emulation handhelds have such form factors now, too bad there are no games made specifically for such devices, so you just have old games and phone games
You’re referring to the Android based ones right? I’m looking for a Windows or SteamOS based one for my Steam library.
(Also the emulators fucking slap on steam deck, Switch 1 games and below run great)
PLEASE give the Steam Deck a try if you haven’t yet and are thinking about a Switch 2.
I’m definitely* going to purchase a Steam Deck (OLED) very soon. I know it’s a couple of years old but the amount of games being able to play and games being often on sale. Not to forget the Steam Deck (OLED) can emulate a lot of games and also play 🏴☠️ games on it.
I thought about the Switch 2 but the console is already expensive and then the games being each €70, €10 game update and DLCs being €10-30 each is insane. Though, I do realize that it’s probably similar on other consoles (PS5 and Xbox). Might be just spoiled being a PC gamer?
Yep my wife and I got OLEDs a month back. It feels modern - plays most of the latest games. Not that everything needs to be Monster Hunter Wilds (which we have nice gaming PCs for).
It’s honestly been a long time since hardware has wowed me, but us playing Borderlands 2 all the way through on the couch for $5 bucks was something I’ll never forget. It felt like the way the game was meant to be played despite releasing for PCs and Consoles.
100% this.
Good luck with that Nintendo after ruining your fanbase.
i know people here hate nintendo (for good reasons), but peeps, the switch 2 is already one of the fastest selling consoles of all time. nintendo knows what they’re doing, they’re making a bunch of switch 2’s because people buy them.
i too wish for their failure but y’all are setting yourselves up for disappointment
It’s called the Switch 2 because it has 2 games.
because it made me Switch 2 emulation 😂
I’m just not feeling it this time around.
I just hope someone manages to hack it and they Nintendo can’t fix it. Then another emulator rises.
I forgot the switch 2 came out… any good or just same same but different?
So far we have Donkey Kong Bananza and the upcoming Pokémon Legends Z-A game (it’s in the mail).
DK Bananza is excellent. It’s no Astro Bot or Super Mario Odyssey, but it’s a damn good game, and incredibly fun. I’d give it an 8/10. Pokémon… I’m optimistic it’ll be good overall. I’ve avoided spoilers so I’m looking forward to playing it once I finish my Cyberpunk 2077 playthrough.
Edit: Completely forgot about Mario Kart World or Tour or whatever it’s called. This one’s alright overall. Think I like Mario Kart 8 more, but I’ve been playing that once since it debuted on Wii U.
Edit 2: The console itself is very premium. Build quality is leagues better than Switch 1. Performance is very good and it handles games well. We play docked on the TV and my spouse plays it in handheld sometimes. Significant improvement over Switch 1. Would recommend it in the future once there are more games for it. We play PC, PS5, Nintendo, and Xbox.
Thank you for sharing :)
My pleasure! Overall it’s a fantastic console - just not the right time to buy if you want exclusive first-party games. There’s hundreds of ports and idies though! We only purchased one because of upcoming tariffs, and somehow my spouse got in the retail lottery draw to purchase one right when the console launched. Had the console in our hands maybe two days after launch day. Ideally we would have bought one when the console hit about two years old and there were more games to play. But to me, it’s not a big deal since we’re patient (and we have other consoles and PCs anyway).
It’s a nintendo launch: decent games at “fuck you” prices, anti consumer software restrictions, and overpriced hardware that probably will break on you and need replacement.
It’s the same form factor but a lot better hardware.
Note that “a lot better hardware” is still hella mediocre given the price tag.
I don’t think it is, it’s $500 w/ Mario Kart, $450 without, and if we compare to the Steam Deck at $400, it has:
- better screen resolution, faster refresh rate, and a larger screen (almost an inch bigger)
- is lighter, thinner, and overall smaller
- has better performance, at least in Cyberpunk 2, with generally better graphics
- plays Nintendo first-party games
The Steam Deck has been the handheld to beat. Some are faster, but no PC handheld is anywhere near the Steam Deck in terms of value (price for performance). The Switch 2 beats it in performance, and is a similar price, which is pretty awesome.
The games, however, are really expensive, but we’re talking about hardware value here.
Fair points, but I’d argue to the contrary in light of the following:
- The steam deck was developed and released at the beginning of 2022. That’s a ~3.5 year difference in hardware and what was considered good value. (As a person buying a lot of hardware I might be a tad biased on this point so I acknowledge it)
- I did hear mixed things about the screen itself from a friend that has it, heard that it’s extremely scratch prone and that the battery doesn’t hold on for very long, but maybe that depends on the title you’re playing, the brightness and refresh rates.
- it can do 120hz, which is nice, but that’s game dependent and there’s no guarantee that it’s implemented or enabled for every game. From what I read previously, cyberpunk only does 30-40 fps on switch2 so that’s pretty much entirely out of the question for that title at least. I won’t make any guesses or misleading statements about other titles since I haven’t seen the benchmarks and haven’t been following the news on those.
- the fact that it’s robust and convenient to use in your hands is a perk imo, not a demerit, perhaps this is something more catered to the younguns which I don’t wholly understand though.
- also in regards to the above point, the controllers, albeit a little larger now, are still pretty bad and still experience the same issues as the previous generation thereof) subpar mechanism, no upgradeability, and no repairability besides having to send it to a repair center/replacement. Meanwhile should you experience any issues with your deck, the instructions and parts to fix it are available on the ifixit website at extremely reasonable prices should you wanna do it yourself.
- performance… I haven’t tried cyberpunk on my deck, so I can’t really comment on it specifically, but as far as a good chunk of the 100+ games that I’ve played on it are concerned, it’s been running extremely well in all aspects of the games, even the ones that weren’t fully steam deck verified… meanwhile even first party games like DK have lag spikes when you open the map on the latest and greatest… to me, that’s unacceptable.
- and while I understand the premise of people wanting to play first party games from Nintendo, similar to the above point the quality has been going downhill, and some of the newer IPs (Nintendo and even Sony) are being developed as more of cross platform release or ported to pc eventually (often with enhancements, optimizations and bug fixes)
I am going to briefly mention the subscription requirement for Nintendo online, some switch 2 versions of the games costing extra vs the switch 1 versions, as well the exorbitant prices (and lack of discounts even down the road) for any games sold on their store, and the fact that if you want to tinker with any of that, you can get hardware banned from online services entirely.
These are, as you mentioned, not hardware related, but are still quite hefty anti consumer practices and while not the main topic of the above hardware discussion, should carry a lot of weight in the decision to buy into that ecosystem.
The Steam Deck and the Switch target very different demographics, to the point where comparing them doesn’t make much sense. I wouldn’t get a Steam Deck for a young child, but I would get a Switch, because the Switch is a much simpler experience.
I bring up the Steam Deck only to talk about value. People complain about Nintendo gouging their customers, and that’s absolutely true for their games, but their hardware has almost always been good value. Performance is similar (of not strictly better) to the Steam Deck, which is already incredible value, and they add some extra value with removable controllers, better refresh rate, etc, all with similar battery life.
If you like/want the Switch 1 and are considering whether the Switch 2 js a worthwhile upgrade, there’s your answer. It plays Switch 1 games, often with a perf upgrade (e.g. higher-framerate lock), and it can play current gen titles at respectable framerates (e.g. Cyberpunk on Switch 2 is better than the Steam Deck).
But that’s where the comparison should end, because they’re very different ecosystems with different target markets.
The decision tree is very simple:
- if Nintendo first party titles or games “just working” is a top priority for you and you’re fine with a smaller selection and paying more for games, the Switch 2 is a great option
- if you don’t mind or even like tinkering a bit and you’d consider doing small repairs/upgrades yourself if provided a guide, or even if the vast back catalogueof PC games excites you, the Steam Deck is a great option
There’s not a lot of overlap in those two groups, so the comparison is only relevant to get an idea of performance category.
I own a Switch 1 and a Steam Deck and I’ll likely get a Switch 2 at some point. Why? I have kids, I like Nintendo first party games, and I like playing casual couch games with friends and my kids. If I didn’t have kids, I probably wouldn’t value playing couch games with friends (we’d just play online), and I probably wouldn’t get a Switch and just emulate the handful of games I want to play (mostly Zelda games). My Steam Deck is for my personal time, the Switch is for time with my kids and friends.
Likely the same just more expensive
Great. Maybe I’ll actually buy when when they have to cut the price in half
Exactly. The Mario Kart bundle in Canada is almost $1000. As. Fucking. If.
Article next year: how 20 million unsold Switch 2 consoles finally killed the world oldest videogaming company.
Good. I hope they fail.
I hope they succeed in manufacturing 25 million Switch 2s
To then cause the biggest mass burial of electronics since ET.
I hope they exceed their production goals.
Just buy Steam Deck or Legion Go S.
