Such a weird article from Nintendo Life trying to defend the Switch 2 over the Steam Deck. And itās so cringe.
First letās talk about the contention that the Switch 2 has better value because itās comes with a dock.
Look, I can hook my Steam Deck up to my TV using a USB-C to HDMI adapter and use the Steam Deck itself as a controller. As for a dock itself, sure the official Steam Deck Docking Station costs C$109. However, I can buy a 3rd party docking station off Amazon for C$40. So thatās not much of an argument.
The Switch 2 has a bigger screen that runs at 1080P. That great. But the Steam Deck has an OLED panel which the Switch 2 does not.
In terms of performance, the Switch 2 probably has a better GPU. However, it lacks the Steam Deckās CPU power. And it only has 12GB of RAM compared to the Steam Deckās 16GB of RAM. Will games look better on Switch 2? Only if CPU and RAM donāt serve as bottlenecks.
The next thing: Switch 2 is supposedly better because a joy-con can act as a mouse. But theyāre really grasping at straws here because I can use an actual Bluetooth mouse with the Steam Deckāone which is more ergonomic too. Oh, and unlike the Switch 2, I can also use a Bluetooth keyboard too with a Steam Deck.
Apparently, the Steam Deckās touchpad so ātoo awkwardā compared to the Switch 2ās mouse. But you donāt use a mouse in handheld modeāno one does. Touchpads, on the other hand, do work in handheld mode. And I find them much more suitable for FPS and RTS games than an analog joystick.
Now for the articleās final point: the Steam Deck canāt play Switch 2 games. This is actually the most legitimate point. However, it cuts both ways too. Switch 2 canāt play decades of PC games, all which are accessible on Steam Deck. And I should know because Iām able to run literally thousands of games on my Steam Deckāmany which donāt even run on Windows anymore without lots of modding.
Can Switch 2 play F.E.A.R. without needing to jailbreak and emulate it? Nopeāso in terms of game library, Steam Deck has the win.
But ultimately, this is a silly comparison because the Steam Deck is already three years old at the moment. Of course the Switch 2 will be able to do some things better than Steam Deck. It shouldāitās the newer piece of hardware.
However, when the Steam Deck 2 comes outāprobably next yearāhow will the Switch 2 compare? I donāt know, but it will likely have all the advantages that the Steam Deck still has but with giant generational leap in terms of performance.
Right now, if I wanted to, I could get a Lenovo Legion Go S. And it would be leagues better than a Switch 2. It has a AMD Ryzen Z2 Go APU, 32GB of RAM, and 1 TB of storageāwhich absolutely wrecks the Switch 2 in terms of raw performance.
But the reason Iām holding off is because I think the Steam Deck 2 will be even better.
This doesnāt even touch about many points that makes the Steam Deck just plain better. The games are cheaper. You donāt have to pay for online multiplayer. You have access to multiple storefronts like GOG or itch.io. You can use it as a PC in desktop mode. I can go on.
Now do I think the Switch 2 is totally lacking in value? No. If I had a young child, Iād probably get them a Switch 2 simply because itās more kid friendly.
However, Iām a full grown man. As for my kid? Sheās turning 12-years-old in a few weeks so I think sheāll do just fine with a Steam Deck.
Thatās not what that says.
It says āif you canāt get the other thing (ā¦) AND your frontal lobe is too squishy to cope with the FOMOā.
Iām not saying you need to buy both, Iām saying if youāre an adult you can live with a cool thing existing and you not needing to have it immediately without resorting to taking sides based on marketing bullet points like a toddler.
Most people need to choose one or the other, so they should be cognizant of what provides the most value for them.
I happen to think Nintendo Life was misrepresenting the actual value of a Switch 2 over a Steam Deck.
If youāre an actual adult, you should appreciate that other adults often have to make financial decisions regarding what they will buy. Especially in this current economy.
Well, let me solve that for you right away.
You need neither of these things. Games and entertainment are not a priority if youāre in a āthis current economyā type of situation.
If you already have one, thatās the right one for the money, probably.
Was Nintendo Life āmisrepresenting the value of a Switch 2 over a Deckā? Myeeeeh, not sure. Iāll say I agree with their premise that āSteam Deck fans Seriously Underestimating the Switch 2ā. In somewhat petty, immature ways, as demonstrated very well here. Does the Steam Deck āobliterate the Switch 2ā? Probably not, no. Iāll tell you for sure in the summer, I suppose. That said, their listicle is brand shilling as much as this post is.
Are these two things different and have different sets of pros and cons? Yeah, for sure. Itās even a very interesting exercise to look at the weird-ass current handheld landscape, because itās never been wider, more diverse or move overpopulated. The Switch 2 and the Deck will probably remain the two leading platforms until whatever Sony is considering materializes, but theyāre far from alone, from dirt cheap Linux handhelds to ridiculously niche high end laptop-in-a-candybar Windows PCs.
If you want to have a fun thread about that Iām game, but fanboyism from grown men is a pet peeve of mine, and even if I didnāt find it infuriating Iād find it really boring.
For the record, between these two? Tied for price, Switch 2 will be a bit more powerful and take advantage of specifically catered software from both first and third parties, has better default inputs, a better screen and support for physical games. Current Deck is flexible, hugely backwards compatible, can be upgraded to a decent OLED screen and has fewer built-in upsells.
And as a bonus round, Windows handhelds scale up to better performance than either, have better compatibility than the Deck and some superior screen and form factor alternativesā¦ but are typically much more expensive and most (but not all) struggle with the Windows interface and lack hardware HDR support.
We good? Because thatās thatās the long and short of it.