Curious how people view the steam deck and if most/all their games are supported?
The only things I’ve found that just straight up don’t work on the deck are things with draconian anti-cheat (which don’t work on Linux in general, not just the deck), and very old titles that have weirdly restrictive resolutions or control schemes or whathaveyou. Some games require some tweaking (mostly around controls, occasionally changing the Proton version, which is very easy to do within Steam), but generally that’s been minor. The things that don’t work well are typically things you wouldn’t expect to work anyway.
It’s worth noting that it makes it very easy to remap controls, even for games that don’t natively support controllers or don’t let you remap the controls at all normally. You can also invoke an onscreen keyboard as needed (for e.g. typing names). The controller mapping is very strong; it’s not limited only to single buttons; you can create custom contextual radial menus, for instance, so even games that need many more unique controls than the Deck has buttons work fine with some tweaking. You can also view / download / rate other users’ control mappings for any game that has them, so you don’t even need to do the work yourself.
It’s a fantastic piece of hardware for gaming. Looks great, feels great. It’s a bit large (won’t fit in a pocket, obviously), but that shouldn’t be a problem for anyone who would reasonably want a handheld gaming PC. It’s not a phone or a Gameboy.
I was without a desktop PC for a week or so due to a hardware failure, and was able to do everything I needed to do on the Steam Deck (with a USB mouse/keyboard, plugged into a monitor via a dock). So it’s a great piece of hardware even for that.
and very old titles that have weirdly restrictive resolutions or control schemes or whathaveyou.
This is correct, but as an addendum, for a lot of very old games (that don’t fall into that previous category), it’s usually easier to get them working under Linux than it is under Windows. Go figure.
I’ll just add that another, albeit smaller, category of games that don’t work are really new, demanding titles. There’s not a lot of them for now, but naturally the deck wasn’t the most powerful device to begin with and over time less titles will work well.
Starfield was pointed out to me as an example of one that can’t run on the deck for performance reasons (not that Bethesda is known for their optimization) and BG3 was only barely playable at the lowest settings in the more demanding areas of the game (i.e. Act 3).
That said, for its price point, and considering most games are using the proton compatibility later, I was actually very impressed with its performance.
The funny thing is that we started buying MORE games after getting it and filtering steam for the ones that work best.
It completely replaced the Nintendo Switch as our party platform, we have been adding piles of local multi player games to it and using multiple Xbox controllers with it docked around the main TV most of the time.
I think when it comes to how many titles work it is going to depend on your gaming preferences. If you play a lot of EA games or Ubisoft games it is clunky to get their store loaders going sometimes or at a min you get prompted to sign in via onscreen keyboard which is a PITA sometimes and there is lower support.
Steam native games however are great.
I bought my OLED deck a few months ago, and whatever the opposite of buyer’s remorse is, that’s what I have. I love it more every day and I think the ideal Personal Media Device. I travel a lot and I have tons of games, movies, and even ebooks on the device which completely changes the complexion of long flights for me.
It’s so customizable and versatile.
I love mine, but if you’re not a gamer it probably won’t be a good device for you.
The biggest advantages of the Deck (in my opinion) are it’s portability, and the ability to suspend mid game. I used to play games primarily on my computer, but as a father I had to mostly drop playing games. I can’t afford to lock myself away from my wife/kids for long periods of time, and there are frequently interruptions (kids crying, someone’s hungry, wife needs help, etc) that makes it hard to know how long I have to play before I need to be able to stop playing. Due to this, I had stopped playing PC games almost completely. I still played phone and Nintendo Switch games some, but these both have downsides (most phone games suck and the controls limit what games are viable, nintendo switch games are overpriced and I have to compete with the kids for it).
The steam deck solved my game issues, and really let me play games freely again. I can play for short bursts, and if I need to stop I can just suspend and pick up in the same place later. It’s been a great device for me, but I was someone who wanted to be playing games and lacked time/freedom to do it.
In comparison though, when I upgraded to an OLED deck I sold my LCD deck, and I know that the person I sold it to hasn’t gotten very much use out of it. He’s generally less into games than I am, and when he wants to play he can play on his PC without issues. He didn’t have much of a use-case for the Steam Deck outside of trips.
So in summary, the deck is a fantastic piece of hardware, but it’s really dependent on what you want out of a device that will determine if it’s something that will be good for you personally.
I use mine to play some Steam games and to run emulators. I haven’t had any compatibility issues, but I also tend to stick to games that are Steam Deck verified.
As far as how good it is, it’s the only handheld pc I’ve used personally, but from reviews and discussions I’ve seen, despite other handhelds being more powerful, Steam Deck is a solid contender because of its price point and SteamOS being purpose-built for a handheld, whereas Windows is not.
