Comment by JKCalhoun
3 days ago
I'm out of the gaming platform loop but assume the timing of this post is related to the Switch 2 announcement?
Others have suggested the Switch 2 is one of the best endorsements for buying a Steam Deck.
(Not really a gamer, despite having written games, ha ha, but I picked up a Steam Deck a couple years ago to test a game I ported to it — and was duly impressed.)
For me, the switch is the only console I trust to leave my kids alone with. Nintendo builds great games for kids, but you pay for them. I mean, launch games like Mario Odysee and Breath of the Wild are still sold at full price, years later.
I have kids, and have had a Nintendo switch since launch. I cannot even let them play Mario kart alone without them being prompted to visit the store to buy levels or more characters. My 4 year old cannot go a few minutes without ending up back on the home screen, stuck in the settings menus or in the controller reconfiguration menu, asking me to get them back into the game (because they pressed the Home button)
Nintendo has lost it's way in regards to sandboxing a child in a safe environment. I looked at the new console and all I could think about is "another button I have to teach the kids to avoid"
Call me old fashioned, but I have purchased Nintendo DS lites for each of them as that is the last handheld I could find that doesn't introduce a browser or storefront with internet connectivity.
> Others have suggested the Switch 2 is one of the best endorsements for buying a Steam Deck.
If Nintendo charges $80 for games, this will normalize it, so everyone else will too. It won't be a difference between the consoles for long. The console, from the footage they've shown off, seems more powerful than the Deck, if the Cyberpunk footage is authentic.
Meanwhile, a detachable controller has already been their single leg up on Steam Deck, and now it's also a detachable mouse. This will actually be a better experience than the Deck (assuming the mouse doesn't hurt your hand). The Deck has best-in-class controller support as well as touchpads, but if the game does not seamlessly support simultaneous controller and KBM inputs, then you have to either map the touchpad to a control stick and deal with curving which sucks, or map all the buttons to keys and the left stick to WASD, and sticks for non-analog input also sucks. Whereas on the Switch, the mouse is just a mouse.
It's sticker price shock for sure. Historically speaking, this will just smooth over and people will set their sticks in the sand. If the 900 dollar PS5 pro can shrug it off, then I doubt there's much issue here.
> I'm out of the gaming platform loop but assume the timing of this post is related to the Switch 2 announcement?
Author here. Not really, it was a coincidence. I wrote this post around 8 months ago, and posted it on HN before but people didn't notice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41151392
A licensing deal between Nintendo and Valve. Once could dream. Get the entire Steam lib on your Switch, then Valve gets a "Zelda: Breath of the Wild 3 - Only on Nintendo" store listing on Steam.