A particularly fun bit:
So then, how about Fortnite on Linux / Steam Deck? Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said when it hits “tens of millions of users” that it “would actually make sense to support it”. We must be pretty close by now right? Why ignore a platform that’s sold multiple millions, and is clearly just continuing to fly off the shelves?
The article says “no need for steam deck 2”. Valve is on record saying they wouldn’t do an incremental upgrade, they want to wait until there’s a major advance in the available technology.
Even if they were working on it, they wouldn’t tell, otherwise a bunch of people would be waiting on the steam deck 2 instead of buying the current one.
They’re gonna make a Black Myth 2? We’ll shit, I can skip the first one.
Alternatively…
What if they might make a Steam Deck 3? Better skip the 2nd one as well.
Good. The only thing I imagine as being better, would be a framework like way to upgrade it.
Or it being 5 years in the future with significantly more efficient SOC’s and batteries
That being said, the Nintendo DS’s last US patents should expire in November. Maybe they could do a dual screen?
Why not 3 screens and a rear touchpad and a mic for blowing into and a camera attachment and a detachable keyboard and detachable left and right controls and a side crank and proprietary memory cards with their own screen and…
And what would that help with?
Are you telling me you don’t use multiple screens while gaming?
That would be absolutely wonderful. If they could somehow future-proof their board design even if you had to have tech skills to replace it, enthusiasts could do it on their own and people who don’t want to could take it to the local tech repair shop.
because itd be a pain for devs to optimize for a platform if said platform changes too often. one of the benefits of a console is that the platforms life is about 7-9 years so both audience and devs dont have to worry much about having to go through the decision of deciding which generation to support.
it would do a LOT of gen 1 steam deck buyers a disservice if a gen 2 one came out faster and a dev arbitrary targets the newer device as the baseline.
Once you commit to PC you’re already targeting an ever changing amount of components?
devs on pc have to decide which set of hardware to optimize for. it’s a step that they choose based on harwdare adoption trends. There is always a point where something is too hardware demanding that it would greatly hinder sales when making a decision. With a fixed hardware platform, devs have a concentrated point in hardware adoption to target.
For instance, say you developed a game where the minimum hardware requirement was slightly higher than a steam deck. If enough steam deck sales exist, the dev might have an incentive to optimize the game more just to get access to said market.
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Valve can be lethargic but they generally know when not to fuck with something that works.
That on its own is quite grand.
Wasn’t the steam deck OLED the incremental upgrade? I thought they did a sight spec bump along with the screen upgrade.
yeah, but same basic parts. Same APU, smaller node. slightly faster RAM
Specs are the same, the APU is just now 6nm instead of 7nm which is more efficient and lets it run a few degrees cooler and therefore boost a bit higher without overheating, and the RAM bandwidth went from 88Gb/s to 102Gb/s.
Consensus seems to be somewhere between 5-10% better fps, which means a game that ran at 50 fps might go up to 55, or one that ran at 28 might finally hit 30.
Okay, but, they did already do an incremental upgrade.
These new Snapdragon CPUs seem like a “major advance”, if they can get SteamOS working on them…
Also the new Ryzen AI chips are crazy efficient.
So I’d say we’re there already, but also hardware targets for devs are important.
I mean, I’m sure they have breadboards set up. It’s not like they are just sitting around waiting for manna from heaven.
I don’t know what this comment means.
It’s ironic that Tim Sweeney is against Linux as it would give Epic more independence from Microsoft. Doesn’t he want to avoid “gatekeepers” like Apple and Google.
He just wants the keys
I bet he has a Steve Ballmer like thinking “Linux is cancer” and cannot think beyond his preconceptions.
In his mind Epic doesn’t need independence from Microsoft because Microsoft isn’t taking a cut of his Fortnite money. Microsoft is bad but Apple and Google take it to the next level. Imagine if Microsoft needed companies to verify their software and with that verification Microsoft can take a cut of every purchase done in that software. So if Steam was verified games sold in the steam software would cost more than opening up a steam website and buying from there. That is Google and Apple in a nutshell. That is actually the case with Twitch subs, they cost more in the Twitch app because of the fee Google adds.
Valve are one of the major reasons that Microsoft’s attempts at the iOSification of Windows failed. Their investments in Linux are directly aimed at preventing what Apple is doing.
Tim Sweeney is a freeloader depending on companies like Valve to protect him from these threats to his company.
The steam deck is user repairable, has very good hardware, is reasonably priced, and has fully customisable software.
Obviously can’t speak for everyone but those reasons are why Valve got my custom. Personally I think it’s a fantastic device and I can’t praise it enough. Buying one was a no brainer for me.
(Apologies if this reads like an ad lol)
I’d like to tinker with the hardware but unfortunately it’s just not necessary. Love the device
That first paragraph is rough
I love my steam deck much more than I thought I would.
Same. I’m playing a ton more games I had previously just sorta forgotten about.
They’re selling well but I don’t think they’re in the tens of millions sold
