There’s one important thing to mention up front: I didn’t own a gaming PC of any kind until I got the Steam Deck in April. For a long time, I primarily played video games on Nintendo platforms, and only started digging into the PlayStation and Xbox libraries in earnest with the onset of the pandemic. (I got a PS4 just to play Final Fantasy VII Remake and things escalated from there.) Seeing almost 200 games on the Steam Deck was an eye opener for me While I’ve bought a lot of Steam games on sale or in Humble Bundles, I’ve only played a handful of them, and only on old work laptops or my personal MacBook Air. The Steam Deck, on the other hand, is a far more capable gaming device than any laptop I’ve ever owned. Once I set it up, I suddenly had access to nearly 200 PC games that I had previously purchased or claimed, and could play them on my couch or connect to an external monitor. I knew this would happen when I pre-ordered the Steam Deck last year, but actually seeing the games on my own device was an eye-opener. However, with Switch games, there’s no guarantee that they’ll work with Nintendo’s next big console. Right now, I just have to cross my fingers that Nintendo chooses to make this console backwards compatible with my Switch purchases. Personally, I don’t count — Nintendo loves finding new ways to resell old games. I would have liked to have ported Mario Kart 8 from Wii U to Switch, but in order to be able to play it with my colleagues during the pandemic, I had to cough up full price for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Access to retro games is one of the main perks of a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, but all the Virtual Console purchases I made years ago aren’t available on my Switch. And Nintendo isn’t afraid to close shop. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/The Verge With Steam, on the other hand, I can be pretty confident that almost anything I buy that works on Steam Deck now will work just fine on any possible next Steam Deck or gaming PC I buy in the future (as long as the game supports whatever functional I am, of course). I’m making a big assumption that Valve doesn’t get acquired or suddenly fall off the face of the earth — anything can happen in the video game industry, so maybe I shouldn’t tempt fate — but Valve seems to be going through a good transition. I should also say that in my Steam Deck, I’ve generally leaned towards smaller and indie titles like Hotline Miami, Inside, and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. I suspect these are the types of games I’ll personally want to return to at some point in the future, and it’ll be a lot easier to download them back onto PC instead of having to dig out my Switch once it inevitably loses a spot on my TV stand. As much as I love Steam Deck and the possibilities the Steam platform will allow me to easily access games for years and years to come, I’m not fully committed to the Valve ecosystem simply because it’s hard to play Steam Deck games on my TV . Part of the Switch’s magic is how effortlessly it switches from handheld to TV mode when you place the device in its dock, and while the Steam Deck can connect to external displays, there’s still no option as simple as the Switch experience. I wish the Steam Deck dock hadn’t been delayed I was looking forward to the official Steam Deck dock to see if it could get any closer, but since it’s delayed, I’ll have to keep waiting. But while I don’t expect Steam Deck to ever be as easy to play on a TV as a Switch, it might be worth the hassle to be able to play decades of PC games on the big screen at home and know that whatever I buy now will probably work to other computers on the line. Right now, I still choose the Switch for a lot of games. (And, of course, there are the big games like Zelda and Metroid that are only available on Switch). Steam Deck, the choices in the future may be even more difficult.
