Buying multi-platform games was an easy decision for me: I almost always got them on the Nintendo Switch because of how easy it is to play games on both TV and portable mode. Steam Deck threw a wrench into this decision-making process. A gaming handheld might be heavier, have worse battery life, and not come with an easy switch-like docking station to throw my games on a bigger screen, but since I feel that I can count on Steam games being available for a much longer time in the future I have to make a tough choice to buy games from Valve’s storefront instead of Nintendo.
There’s one important thing to state up front: I hadn’t owned any gaming PC until I got the Steam Deck in April. For a long time, I mostly played video games on Nintendo platforms, and only started seriously digging into the PlayStation and Xbox libraries with the onset of the pandemic. (I got a PS4 just to play Final Fantasy VII Remake and things escalated from there.)
Seeing nearly 200 games in my Steam Deck was exciting
While I’ve bought a lot of Steam games on sale or in Humble Bundles, I’ve only actually played a few of them, and only on old work laptops or my personal MacBook Air. The Steam Deck, on the other hand, is a far more capable gaming device than any laptop I’ve ever owned. Once I set it up, I suddenly had access to nearly 200 PC games that I had previously bought or requested, and could play them on my couch or connected to an external display. I knew this would be the case when I made my Steam Deck reservation last year, but actually seeing the games on my own device was exciting.
However, with Switch games, there is no guarantee that they will work with Nintendo’s next big console. Right now I just have to cross my fingers that Nintendo chooses to make this console backwards compatible with my Switch purchases. Personally, I’m not counting on it — Nintendo likes to find new ways to resell old games.
I would love to transfer Mario Kart 8 from my Wii U to the Switch, but in order to be able to play it with my colleagues during the pandemic, I had to cough up the full price of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Access to retro games is one of the main benefits of a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, but all the Virtual Console purchases I made years ago are not available on my Switch. And Nintendo isn’t afraid to close storefronts.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/The Verge
With Steam, on the other hand, I can be pretty confident that almost anything I buy that works on Steam Deck now will work fine on any potential next Steam Deck or gaming-capable PC I buy well into the future (just since the game supports whatever OS I’m using of course). I’m taking a big guess that Valve won’t be acquired or suddenly disappear from the face of the earth — anything can happen in the video game industry, so maybe I shouldn’t tempt fate — but Valve seems to have a good thing going.
I should also say that in my Steam Deck I generally gravitated towards smaller and indie titles like Hotline Miami, Inside and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. I suspect these are the types of games I’ll personally want to return to at some point in the future, and it’ll be a lot easier to just re-download them on PC instead of having to dig out my Switch after it inevitably loses its place on my tv stand.
Despite how much I love Steam Deck and the potential that the Steam platform will allow me easy access to games for years and years down the line, I’m still not fully committed to the Valve ecosystem because it’s a hassle to play Steam Deck games on my TV. Part of the Switch’s magic is how seamlessly it switches from handheld to TV mode when you place the device in its dock, and while the Steam Deck can connect to external displays, there’s still no option quite as simple as the experience of Switch.
I wish the Steam Deck dock hadn’t been delayed
I was looking forward to the official Steam Deck dock to see if this could happen, but since it’s been delayed, I’ll have to keep waiting. But while I don’t expect the Steam Deck to ever be as easy to play on a TV as the Switch, it might be worth the slight inconvenience to be able to play decades of PC games on the big screen at home and know that whatever I buy now will probably work to other computers down the line.
Right now I still choose Switch for a lot of games. (And of course there are big games like Zelda and Metroid that are only available on Switch.) But what used to be a no-brainer is now something I have to give serious thought to, and as Valve continues to improve the Steam Deck, the choice in the future may be even more difficult.
Add Comment