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.
and I say yes, without caveats.
Wtf kind of question is this? Of course it is. And in 10 years it still will be.
In 10 years I would expect a SteamDeck 2 with updated hardware.
10 years ago, maybe? It’s a 1 (one) megapixel brick.
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".
Well, Valve may drop support for the firmware. Edit: Gaben simps need to accept that vendors do drop support at some point.
The Deck is a regular computer and you can run any OS on it.
Not having firmware updates doesn’t mean software suddenly stops working on it.
And on the flip side, I wouldn’t be surprised if software still gets updated as Valve keeps its minimum requirements as low as possible. As long as the drivers work, there isn’t a reason for different editions of the Steam Deck to run different versions.
You‘ll need a community effort to continue driver development.
Thats kind of a “yes, and?” sort of statement though.
486 and first gen Pentiums are still supported, though I’d expect not for much longer. But you’re still talking 35 years after release.
Yeah, that’s called the Linux Community
True, but they make their money via game sales.
Other OEMs make their money via hardware sales.
Valve has a much bigger incentive in keeping their firmware supported than AYANEO or ASUS…Yes but thinking a piece of hardware will receive support for eternity is naive. That’s all I‘m saying.
The entire point was that you don’t have to rely on vendor support. With proprietary consoles, unless someone hacks it, you won’t get any support when the vendor drops support.
Bro it’s fucking Linux based. Did you not think before speaking?
I wrote and didn’t speak, did you think? The drivers will need maintenance.
The drivers will need maintenance.
And guess what the Linux Community is known for?
No they won’t
source: literally everything Valve has ever made still works.
It may work, but there are software dependencies that will become end of life. The first to go will probably be the GPU drivers. In 10 years or so, Linux will discontinue the GPU drivers and you will not be able to run the latest Linux kernel.
It seems there’s a lot of misunderstanding in this thread about how linux works and upstream drivers being in the kernel works. If it works it works, it will keep working.
Valve can stop develop wtv they want and it won’t change a thing.
Weird, my ten year old laptop still works.
Linux will discontinue the GPU drivers
It’ll be community-maintained at that point. If it’s worth updating and there’s demand for it, someone will bother, just like any console, and made all that much easier running open software.
I’d actually willingly bet anyone here $1500 that the Deck will be able to boot a mainline Linux kernel in 2035.
That’s no guarantee. It‘s naïve. And Steam stopped working on Windows 7 machines, so—
Microsoft is generally far more savage about dropped OS support than Linux. The latter undergoes fewer forced overhauls.
Yes, but this has nothing to with my initial statement.
Steam stopped working on Windows 7
You’re trolling, right? It wasn’t exactly up to Valve lmao. The world stopped supporting Windows 7.
Plenty of software still supports Windows 7. So literally not everything they made still works, there is no guarantee.
hugs Steam controllers
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!
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.
Ohhhh… yeah, fair enough.
I’ve faced both of these, especially the playing cards by accident bit. Hope they fix it in STS2.I can’t wait. I’m no expert player, I only have around ascension 4 done for each character. But it’s because I’m too greedy lol.
Slay the spire works fine on your previous phone. You know, that 3x lighter machine with 2x the pixel count you already carry everywhere anyway.
Not sure why you specified “previous” phone. I don’t tend to carry that around at all. The battery lasts a few hours if the screen stays off, said screen is cracked and it runs nothing “fine”. Everything haha and glitches around. It remains useful as a cat TV mainly.
Assuming that’s some kinda typo, the current one runs it much better, but getting the correct card when my hand is full is very unreliable, and the UI is cramped to hell since it is a smaller screen but can’t be scaled down as much due to readability. It does come in handy when the deck is at home though.
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.
not going to run 120fps with all the trimmings
Requires a separate gaming PC, but with Steam Link / Sunshine / Moonlight it can!
Don’t really see a reason to run games like Cyberpunk on low settings at 30FPS when I can pipe it in from the other room at 60FPS+ high / ultra settings
Came in clutch with the poor optimization of MH:Wilds. It was a struggle to run at my monitor’a resolution, but running at 1080P to send to my deck made for a decent experience.
indeed. if I owned another PC I would absolutely do it that way, but I install files locally for the time being.
but yes that is a great way to get insane fps on a steam deck. you just have to own more than one gaming computer lol.
I’d say that’s probably a better use case for a console like a PS5 than a Steam Deck.
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.
Graphically intense games can be good too, especially in bed, streaming from a PC in the other room.
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.
Oh it’s possible, and it runs well, but I’d never recommend the SD for that.
But it’s all in your expectations I guess. I don’t use my SD for serious game sessions, I use it to goof off in bed, or on a plane or ferry.
A lot of people I’ve spoken to seem to think it’s a replacement for a ps5 or a full sized gaming computer. It’s enough to get by, but I wouldn’t tell anyone to chuck their setup and get one.
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
Can you recommend a good router for it? Even with an RAXE500 dropped packets are a nuisance with both on wifi.
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.
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.
And a USB-A wouldn’t hurt. Having just one port means you’re charging and that’s it unless you have a dock or splitter handy. Crazy.
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.
That’s true. I guess what I’m saying is, I personally want a powerhouse Steam Deck. If it costs twice the price of the current one, I’d still buy it.
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.
Yeah I’ve played it a bit myself and its dreadful. Its portability feels limited for this reason.
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.
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.
Time for a successor, though. Sometimes I think Valve really doesn’t like money. They could make a crapton by bringing out a new Steam Deck and a Steam console.
They upgraded the steam deck already. And the steam machine already failed once. I just don’t think that there exists a console that is high end enough and also cheap enough that pc enthusiasts are interested. I saw a prototype of an old steam machine and just the reactive halo light thingy is seriously so damn cool, but console people look at that and think: well a ps5 is only 600 dollars. PC players look at it and think: i could build something better for cheaper.
Steam machines were a long time ago. They could build something they can sell for $500-600 today, that can play any modern game at a decent frame rate. The console people will appreciate the huge game library and relative absence of enshittification. PC people will appreciate the simplicity. Obviously, people who build their own PCs won’t be interested, but that still leaves a huge addressable market.
What gives you this idea?
AMD just launched the 9700 and 9700XT earlier this year, with MSRP’s of $550 and $600. They’ve faced a ton of consumer backlash because MSRP cards were virtually nonexistent. Most of the graphics cards actually produced were retailed for hundreds of dollars more, and many were then scalped on top of that.
NVIDIA has been even worse, just cranking up their prices with very little performance improvement. Tons of issues with their power connectors damaging cards. Most of the company’s focus has been on AI, and gamers have been left out to dry.
So yeah I think now would be a terrible time for a steam machine. Unless Valve can somehow get their hands on some unreasonably cheap silicon.
Once you buy a few million of things, the problems of retail customers don’t tend to apply.
The Steam Deck, in all its variants, has sold under 4 million units as of February .
The PS5 has sold over 80 million units. Even the miserable Xbox Series has over 28 million units sold.
All use custom AMD APU’s. Valve is more than an order of magnitude away from even competing with Sony. And we haven’t even touched on laptops yet.
But also compared to desktops… I can’t find how much AMD in particular did, but I can see that 251 million desktop GPU’s were sold in 2024. I don’t know how many Deck’s were sold in 2024 by comparison, but given that the total fron the 2021 launch to early 2025 is estimated at 4 million units on the high side, it’s not even blip on the radar. It’s not a statistically significant amount. The Deck is absolutely miniscule in comparison.
That’s all true but doesn’t in any way contradict my point. AMD were happy to work with Valve on the APU for the deck and now the concept is proven, they’ll be even more happy to do it again.
a screen rivaling 2013 phones when
It’s a PC, essentially, so the hardware is always evolving, they could upgrade whenever they choose to. The advantage of any console, the Steam Deck included, is it offers a very consistent set of specs the developers can target for years. If Valve iterates too quickly, then two problems arise: One, there’s one performance goal for devs interested in making a portable game to work towards, there’s many. In addition, the Steam Deck Verified program gets a lot harder to maintain if there are too many flavors of Deck to manage. I think Valve is planing on a lifecycle similar to the major consoles.
The upside is it is all PC hardware, and there are other handheld manufacturers out there, some even running SteamOS, so if you want a higher performance rig before Valve’s ready for the SD2, you can certainly find what you’re looking for.
The steam deck is getting long in the tooth and will increasingly have trouble playing newer titles. In PC gaming, you can’t have console-like product cycles.
I would argue the Steam Deck was never really meant to target the newest and greatest.
Sure, but at some point it’ll be just too outdated.
Maybe outdated for future CPU and GPU hungry games.
The same emulators that run now will continue to do so as will very likely indie titles.
In the end it depends on what you want to do with the SD.
Do you have a steam deck?
Yes.
