Except for the fact that the Switch is largely an outlier in terms of total sales when it comes to all consoles and additionally has the benefit of having a strong list of exclusive IPs that require the purchase of the device to (legally) play. It was also a full $100 cheaper at launch than the Deck, allowing it to be sold to more people with less disposable income. And it has the benefit of being the first to innovate from a company with a good reputation for quality. The Deck, on the other hand, will never reach the same level of sale as the Switch, has no exclusives to draw greater adoption, is more expensive, and may be seen as a “knockoff Switch.” I think that the form factor is really the only apples to apples aspect of the two devices - there are differences between the two devices that are too confounding for an accurate comparison.
Well, as of right now, as far as we can tell, the Wii U has also outsold the Steam Deck, so there’s that.
But man, no, what are you talking about. I hate how confirmation bias-y some of the fanboyism gets. Suddenly “it’s a PC, it plays everything” is supposed to be a negative for the Deck? Why? Isn’t the case for it supposed to be that you already own tons of games for it up front instead of having to buy them from scratch? Does Valve not have “a reputation for quality”? Since when? Valve and Nintendo may well be the two most recognizable names in gaming, it’s not like Valve is this little startup thing.
Seriously, it’s fine to put things in perspective. The Deck got great reviews, from what we can tell it’s easily the most successful handheld PC out there and it cracked that market wide open, setting the stage for a new PC hardware segment in a way the Chinese handhelds released previously really didn’t do…
…but it’s also still a relatively niche device compared with traditional consoles and it’s an order of magnitude less popular than the device it’s chasing, which is the Nintendo Switch, despite being significantly more performant and having a ready-made preexisting library.
It will be very interesting to see how the Switch 2 does and whether it feels any of the pressure from the competition given that it’s all but confirmed to still be a hybrid handheld device with similar specs and form factor to handheld PCs. It’s not a matter of fanboyism, whether it sells incredibly well again or struggles with heavier competition nobody should be in denial about it.
When did I say that “it plays everything” was a bad thing? I said it has no exclusives. And that’s 100% verifiably true. Nintendo is all exclusives. Couldn’t give a fuck about Skyrim on the Switch. But I wanna play Mario Kart. So I’ll buy a Switch. Sure you could pirate it but depending on how you obtain that ROM then you could be breaking the law. Most parents don’t really want their kids doing that, so they’ll buy a Switch. And yes, Valve and Nintendo are likely the two most recognizable names in gaming. In gaming. In the surrounding culture at large, who even knows what Valve is? Sure, most people have probably heard of Steam. But your parents still call your Playstation a Nintendo. So they’ll buy a Switch.
And I want to make this very clear: I think the Deck is great and, as you’ve stated, is a huge innovation in handheld gaming. The only point I’m trying to make is that the Deck and the Switch are not readily comparable because of the aforementioned key differences.
As for the Switch 2, I don’t think it’s going to feel much pressure at all. Again, the presence of exclusives basically guarantees sales. It’s why the Wii U sold 13 million units despite its marketing woes and generally being underwhelming. But I also don’t think that the Switch 2 is going to see as many sales as the Switch because many won’t see a need to make the switch unless the Switch 2 is significantly innovative.
Man, I genuinely doubt that even anyone at Valve would dispute the Switch and the Deck being comparable. They sure as hell are more comparable than a PS5 and a Deck. I genuinely don’t understand the impulse to defend this take beyond being contrarian.
But hey, it’s good to know that you think exclusives are such a key to success. I guess we can agree that Epic’s focus on securing exclusive content is fully justified, then, right? Riiiight?
You’re gonna have to make it simpler, because I don’t get it.
Is securing exclusives the right way to go about building a userbase or not? Is your argument that Epic is just not having the right exclusives? Because they have the literal biggest game on the planet, so that one’s a bit dubious.
It’s a combination of exclusivity and IP. Mario, Zelda, etc. are beloved IPs with multiple great games based on them. They’re also bound to Nintendo consoles. People will buy Nintendo consoles because they want to play those games. Fortnite, on the other hand, can be played on anything except Linux. It’s not driving sales for anything except Windows keys. Furthermore, Epic exclusives aren’t even fully exclusive (certain titles barred). Hitman 3 was exclusive on Epic Games for all of two minutes before it launched on Steam.
What it boils down to is that if you own an IP that is in high demand, you can gate that IP behind another product because you have what’s effectively a guaranteed market. If Epic pulled Fortnite from Xbox, Playstation, and PC and then released it on the Epic Games Assblaster 5000, I’m sure people would buy that to access Fortnite. Maybe even Fall Guys, though I doubt it.
But, I suppose it could go a different way. Imagine the uproar if Valve released Half Life 3 as a Steam Deck exclusive lmao.
They launched Alyx exclusively, which didn’t do much for SteamVR.
In any case your argument is genuinely confused. You yourself estimated the value of Nintendo exclusives at the Wii U’s sales level, so if 13 million people will go to Nintendo to get their exclusives no matter what, then you still have to explain 90% of the Switch sales, because people really seemed fine with skipping Mario Kart 8 when it was stuck in a potato. On the Switch it is one of the biggest games of this generation… despite being a last-gen game. Ditto for Breath of the Wild.
Not that it matters. Obviously the two devices that provide the exact same function with a lot of the same games and comparable non-overlapping releases are comparable. An argument that they aren’t is either pushing or suffering from some sort of aggressive bias, but I’m increasingly unclear on what bias you’re even dealing with here, because none of the piecemeal arguments you’re making seem to make any sort of concerted case in favor of… anything.
Look, ultimately the point is that the Deck is a very successful handheld PC, but still a handheld PC, and still relatively niche compared to consoles and very niche compared to the kickstarter of the entire hybrid handheld space. Yes, you can compare the performance of gaming devices against each other and yes, that does recontextualize the success of the Deck. That’s all fairly common sense and we can skip relitigating it because the whole “but they have Mario!” thing is a borderline non-sequitur.
Except for the fact that the Switch is largely an outlier in terms of total sales when it comes to all consoles and additionally has the benefit of having a strong list of exclusive IPs that require the purchase of the device to (legally) play. It was also a full $100 cheaper at launch than the Deck, allowing it to be sold to more people with less disposable income. And it has the benefit of being the first to innovate from a company with a good reputation for quality. The Deck, on the other hand, will never reach the same level of sale as the Switch, has no exclusives to draw greater adoption, is more expensive, and may be seen as a “knockoff Switch.” I think that the form factor is really the only apples to apples aspect of the two devices - there are differences between the two devices that are too confounding for an accurate comparison.
Well, as of right now, as far as we can tell, the Wii U has also outsold the Steam Deck, so there’s that.
But man, no, what are you talking about. I hate how confirmation bias-y some of the fanboyism gets. Suddenly “it’s a PC, it plays everything” is supposed to be a negative for the Deck? Why? Isn’t the case for it supposed to be that you already own tons of games for it up front instead of having to buy them from scratch? Does Valve not have “a reputation for quality”? Since when? Valve and Nintendo may well be the two most recognizable names in gaming, it’s not like Valve is this little startup thing.
Seriously, it’s fine to put things in perspective. The Deck got great reviews, from what we can tell it’s easily the most successful handheld PC out there and it cracked that market wide open, setting the stage for a new PC hardware segment in a way the Chinese handhelds released previously really didn’t do…
…but it’s also still a relatively niche device compared with traditional consoles and it’s an order of magnitude less popular than the device it’s chasing, which is the Nintendo Switch, despite being significantly more performant and having a ready-made preexisting library.
It will be very interesting to see how the Switch 2 does and whether it feels any of the pressure from the competition given that it’s all but confirmed to still be a hybrid handheld device with similar specs and form factor to handheld PCs. It’s not a matter of fanboyism, whether it sells incredibly well again or struggles with heavier competition nobody should be in denial about it.
When did I say that “it plays everything” was a bad thing? I said it has no exclusives. And that’s 100% verifiably true. Nintendo is all exclusives. Couldn’t give a fuck about Skyrim on the Switch. But I wanna play Mario Kart. So I’ll buy a Switch. Sure you could pirate it but depending on how you obtain that ROM then you could be breaking the law. Most parents don’t really want their kids doing that, so they’ll buy a Switch. And yes, Valve and Nintendo are likely the two most recognizable names in gaming. In gaming. In the surrounding culture at large, who even knows what Valve is? Sure, most people have probably heard of Steam. But your parents still call your Playstation a Nintendo. So they’ll buy a Switch.
And I want to make this very clear: I think the Deck is great and, as you’ve stated, is a huge innovation in handheld gaming. The only point I’m trying to make is that the Deck and the Switch are not readily comparable because of the aforementioned key differences.
As for the Switch 2, I don’t think it’s going to feel much pressure at all. Again, the presence of exclusives basically guarantees sales. It’s why the Wii U sold 13 million units despite its marketing woes and generally being underwhelming. But I also don’t think that the Switch 2 is going to see as many sales as the Switch because many won’t see a need to make the switch unless the Switch 2 is significantly innovative.
Man, I genuinely doubt that even anyone at Valve would dispute the Switch and the Deck being comparable. They sure as hell are more comparable than a PS5 and a Deck. I genuinely don’t understand the impulse to defend this take beyond being contrarian.
But hey, it’s good to know that you think exclusives are such a key to success. I guess we can agree that Epic’s focus on securing exclusive content is fully justified, then, right? Riiiight?
Fall Guys != Mario, simple as
You’re gonna have to make it simpler, because I don’t get it.
Is securing exclusives the right way to go about building a userbase or not? Is your argument that Epic is just not having the right exclusives? Because they have the literal biggest game on the planet, so that one’s a bit dubious.
It’s a combination of exclusivity and IP. Mario, Zelda, etc. are beloved IPs with multiple great games based on them. They’re also bound to Nintendo consoles. People will buy Nintendo consoles because they want to play those games. Fortnite, on the other hand, can be played on anything except Linux. It’s not driving sales for anything except Windows keys. Furthermore, Epic exclusives aren’t even fully exclusive (certain titles barred). Hitman 3 was exclusive on Epic Games for all of two minutes before it launched on Steam.
What it boils down to is that if you own an IP that is in high demand, you can gate that IP behind another product because you have what’s effectively a guaranteed market. If Epic pulled Fortnite from Xbox, Playstation, and PC and then released it on the Epic Games Assblaster 5000, I’m sure people would buy that to access Fortnite. Maybe even Fall Guys, though I doubt it.
But, I suppose it could go a different way. Imagine the uproar if Valve released Half Life 3 as a Steam Deck exclusive lmao.
They launched Alyx exclusively, which didn’t do much for SteamVR.
In any case your argument is genuinely confused. You yourself estimated the value of Nintendo exclusives at the Wii U’s sales level, so if 13 million people will go to Nintendo to get their exclusives no matter what, then you still have to explain 90% of the Switch sales, because people really seemed fine with skipping Mario Kart 8 when it was stuck in a potato. On the Switch it is one of the biggest games of this generation… despite being a last-gen game. Ditto for Breath of the Wild.
Not that it matters. Obviously the two devices that provide the exact same function with a lot of the same games and comparable non-overlapping releases are comparable. An argument that they aren’t is either pushing or suffering from some sort of aggressive bias, but I’m increasingly unclear on what bias you’re even dealing with here, because none of the piecemeal arguments you’re making seem to make any sort of concerted case in favor of… anything.
Look, ultimately the point is that the Deck is a very successful handheld PC, but still a handheld PC, and still relatively niche compared to consoles and very niche compared to the kickstarter of the entire hybrid handheld space. Yes, you can compare the performance of gaming devices against each other and yes, that does recontextualize the success of the Deck. That’s all fairly common sense and we can skip relitigating it because the whole “but they have Mario!” thing is a borderline non-sequitur.