I think an important factor people seem to forget about the steam deck is that it won't simply cease to be supported like sony or nintendo do with their consoles. If a game comes out on steam and works on linux, it'll work on the deck. Considering the amount of people developing wonderful but lightweight games, I doubt you'll ever think 'this platform is dead".
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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Steam Hardware
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And if you buy a game on PC, it doesn’t stop being playable in a generation or two like consoles.
Speaking of consoles, if you buy a game for PC then boom, it’s also on your Steam Deck.
I pretty much always consider games through the lens of my Steam Deck. If it’s a cross-platform game that would run well on the Deck, then I get it for the Deck.
And this is primarily because I can freely install those games to other PCs. If my Nintendo Switch were to get destroyed, then I lose my games with it (outside of emulation, of course). I don’t want games being so temporary. I still play games that are nearing 50 years old!
But also Valve will support it.
I bought one of those physical Steam Links nobody cared about. They didn't do well and Valve ended it fairly quickly. 10 years later it still gets occasional updates from them and benefits from broader Steam Big Picture updates.
Steam Deck has been a huge success. Of course they'll continue to support it.
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Depends on what your usecase is.
My brother wants to play demanding AAA games on a big screen. He doesn't see the point of a Steam Deck and is about to sell his.
I play indie games and emulated retro games. The Steam Deck is perfect for me to play. I can sit with my kids when they play in the back yard. The hardware isn't going to go out of date for me for a very long time.
i play both AAA and indie titles. works fine, its just not going to run at 120fps with all the trimmings.
in most bigger titles I get like 25-30fps. which to me works perfectly. especially on such a small display.
performance doesn't annoy me. the size of games nowadays annoys me. i can't have more than one triple A title installed at any time because the damn things are like 200 gb now. i long for the days of 30gb downloads. even on big games.
but I can understand how if you're looking for a smooth experience, the steam deck might not be as powerful as a full desktop.
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can't agree more. I have no ambition to play graphically intense shooters on my deck. It's for chill controller games, which usually are not very heavy to run.
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It's an outstanding machine for little rogue-likes at the bus stop, or some Star Fox, but I'm not even going to try to load something like Expedition 33 on it.
I tweaked the settings for Expedition 33 and played it on the steamdeck beautifully. Did nearly everything. Runs great.
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The steamdeck still holds up well halfway through a console’s generation.
I have about 100 games i have yet to play on the SD - so, yeah, it holds up.
Steam Deck? Oh, you mean the Balatro machine!
Yesssss
I just wish Slay the Spire worked as well. I mean it works, but you can tell controller support was definitely an afterthought. But those 2 games are probably most of my played hours on it.
The controls for STS are very simple, you could get away with mapping keyboard keys to the controls or using the touchpad.
If you wanted to get fancy you could even map the touchpad to the card selection area (for easy card peeking) and use the buttons for everything else.
I'm more talking about peeking itself doesn't let you see everything. As in, everything is frozen in place while peeking, so if I'm checking enemy HP, it usually blocked by whatever card is selected, and you can't back out of the selection you're peeking through, so you're stuck. That is just a problem with the game itself though, not the controller support.
But selecting a card should be visually more obvious, at least for non attack cards. I can't count how many times I've selected a card intending to consider my move but accidentally playing it because I didn't see it was already selected quickly enough. Now that's maybe my fault for going too fast sometimes, but a better visual indicator would be nice.
Also, defaulting the enemy selection to the one I targeted last instead of the one closest to the left would also be super helpful.
I only play on the deck now since I found out about the recent Intel microcode issue the hard way, and I can't afford to replace the 2nd and 3rd most expensive parts of a computer. Fixed disability income means I won't get that done until I get my next job.
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My brother has a Lenovo Legion Go, and I can't lie, the much bigger 144hz display and more powerful chipset make the Steam Deck look outdated when side by side and running more graphically demanding games (RDR2 for example).
However, the ergonomics of the Steam Deck are superior. SteamOS as well, but that doesn't really count since you can get it on other devices now. Also the fact that you can actually buy replacement parts for the Deck is amazing.
The sooner we get another Steam Deck, the better. Pls Valve, bigger display and more power. And a second USB-C port. That's all I ask.
It's over 200% of the price though, comparing the cheapest options. I payed 320 for a refurbished SD. Cheapest Legion go I could find was 700+.
Bigger screen and another usb C would be great, agreed, but im gonna ride this Steamdeck all the way to hell if it'll let me .
The Steam Deck was never supposed to be a powerhouse. It was intended to be extremely high efficiency and long-lasting and to this day no one competes with them on that. Nor do they compete on peripherals or cost effectiveness.
We won't see another Steam Deck soon, and I think that's a good thing. Gives developers a hardware target for their games.
the steam deck fits a different market than a lot of PC gamers. they're used to upgrading every 2 years. they're used to obsessing over even the smallest fps or slight performance increase.
the fact that the steam deck wasn't made for that kind of consumer but is being consumed by them is why we get people crying out for an upgrade constantly.
they're trying to buy a compact version of their huge desktop gaming rigs. or trying to force a future where Valve releases a new model every year. that (as you said) is not what the steam deck was made for.
i am also glad that Valve is sticking to this model for as long as they can.
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Yeah, I have no problem running the games I’m interested in and no interest in buying a new handheld if it’s not a steamdeck 2.
I hardly play newer games anyway, so maybe I’ll just get a new battery for the steamdeck in a few years.
I have both and my biggest gripe about the Lenovo is the abysmal battery life. It feels like a portable that constantly needs to be near a plug.
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and I say yes, without caveats.
Got one last year for my bday
It's 100% worth imo
Even if you don't play games, it's a fully functional linux computer for like <$400 that can play most modern games and handle anything less intensive than gaming no prob
While I wholeheartedly agree. I do want to make one small note for anyone that reads this and thinks like I did.
Don't get one if you want to use it for professional audio work. It's a niche use case I know but I thought I'd be able to install Reaper and use it as a little music workstation since reaper is just right in the discover store. Unfortunately, the Steam Deck's audio drivers are basically only good for playing back audio. When trying to do audio work they were unusably buggy and had a bunch of latency.
If you want a little computer to make music with get a raspberry pi instead. Use the steam deck for gaming like it was intended for and don't be dumb like I was.
yeah you'd probably want to run JACK instead of PipeWire if you're doing audio workstation stuff, and with its immutable core there's no good way to swap them.
Wtf kind of question is this? Of course it is. And in 10 years it still will be.
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I have a decent desktop with a wide screen display, but I love the portability of the Steam Deck. It just works with syncing save files and continuing my game when I am not at home or want to lie in bed.
I know what I'm getting when I'm not at my desk, and want usability over specs.
I'll probably still be using my Steam Deck in 2035 lol. It's just so perfect for the types of games I play - mostly older stuff and modern pixel art / 2D games. I just beat Spiritfarer on it after beating Graveyard Keeper, and I'm nearly to the "end" of Stardew. I've played through FFVIII, FFIX, and FFX on it. My gaming time has quadrupled now that I can play all my games in bed or on the toilet or at the park. Just an amazing little machine.
There's also the fact that even in the future, you'll be able to have a current-for-the-time PC, and still be able to stream to the Deck locally anywhere in the house if you're playing then-modern games.
It just has the perfect form factor and ergonomics to be the champion of that job, and i don't see that changing any time soon.
I use it to stream from a gaming PC, super long battery life and no loud fan. Amazing way to use the deck.
Can you describe how you do this? I have mixed experience with in-home streaming via Steam (latency, disconnects, inability to connect when the host is running Windows with no monitor) but would be very interested in giving it another go with a Linux host and the Deck.
Like, what's your setup and how does your typical way of using it look like (startup, streaming, etc.)?
You can install Moonshine on the Deck, then install Sunlight on the desktop. Sunshine is an alternative streaming server software and Moonlight is the client. The setup has lower latency and is capable of 4k 60fps if your desktop and router can handle the throughput
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