Hey all, sorry in advance if this kind of post isn’t welcome in this community. I wasn’t really sure where to post this question and I didn’t see anything in the rules against text posts or questions. If there’s a more appropriate place to post I’ll take this down and repost somewhere else.
With the recent price hikes of game pass, Microsoft’s general inability to publish good games, and a deep loathing for AAA studios obsession with milking me for every dollar I have while delivering uninspired, broken slop, I’ve cancelled my game pass subscription and started considering PC gaming. I’m still on the Xbox one and haven’t bothered to get the one X due to these issues. I’m due for am upgrade and don’t feel particularly thrilled at the idea of spending that much money on a console that has little to offer.
I don’t have a lot of money, but I do have enough to afford a modest build (600-700 USD.). But with all the praise and broad support that the steam deck has been getting, I’m wondering if my money may not be better spent on getting one and using the extra for a dock, some peripherals, and a start to building my library. The steam deck would be living most of its life docked and plugged into a monitor. The fact that it’s a capable portable gaming machine is, for the most part, a bonus to me.
I’m curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on this. Is a steam deck a viable alternative to a budget gaming PC?
Given that you also need to build a library of PC games, this could swing the needle towards the steam deck depending on what games you want and how patient you are to buy them. But because you can build that library over time, and PC games tend to be cheaper than console games and have much better sales, I still lean toward suggesting you build a desktop.
I’m not in a rush by any means. Between working full time and being in college, I don’t have a lot of time to play games. I have a handful of AAA titles I’m interested in, but indie gaming has been a pretty large draw for me towards PC gaming in general. There’s so many interesting and innovative titles out there that I simply haven’t had an opportunity to play on my Xbox
I think a desktop will pay off in the future when it’s time to upgrade again because you can at least reuse the peripherals, case, PSU, fans, hard drives, typically the CPU cooler, maybe GPU unless that is being upgraded, and maybe even the mobo+RAM depending on the upgrade path. I think the AMD AM4 platform is currently the best bang for the buck, but will almost certainly require replacing mobo+RAM on your next future upgrade.