Information to text ratio pretty low and assumes some background knowledge I don’t actually have about the current state of Steam hardware offerings but I gather it’s because they’ve introduced new, more expensive hardware and no longer wish to have a budget item whose price is too far off from it.
I think the Deck's capability to be relevant for years into the future depends entirely on whether PC game developers target it as a platform. Many of the top best selling video games from the past few years struggle on the deck even on low settings (Baldur's Gate 3, Oblivion Remastered are a couple I've tried with rough results). Of course there's still a massive PC backlog and ample lower spec games released each year.
Is anyone here aware of whether developers are using the Deck as a minimum spec and thus their technical constraints?
Part of the point and usefulness is having a stable target for developers to aim at, that they can test performance on. Also, most phones these days are roughly equivalent from the end-user perspective to ones from 2 or 3 years ago, the only difference is increased waste. So... no, no thank you.
Does anyone want to buy a phone every few years? No, I don't think they do.
You don't have to buy it with each iteration, but at the same time if I'm buying one, I don't want to buy hardware that's many generations behind current one.
If I build a new PC myself - I don't have such problem. With laptops - it's a bit behind (usually one generation for AMD with their APUs approach). I don't think anyone complains that there is a choice.
And somehow above doesn't prevent games being released that can scale according to the hardware and aren't tied to a specific hardware generation target. So I don't really see why this has to dictate handhelds to have way slower refresh cycle.
> And somehow above doesn't prevent games being released that can scale according to the hardware and aren't tied to a specific hardware generation target.
In theory, sure. In practice... just look at pretty much all software out there and you will be proven wrong. Every. Single. Time.
A counter argument - the Switch gave game devs a solid platform to target without being the latest and greatest without compromising the usability or fun factor
I've heard that argument before, but I don't buy it. Whole PC gaming is a counter argument. Let developers make games that scale according to hardware, instead of excusing things with weak specs.
Even in PC gaming, the performance target tends to be the lowest performing current gen console, not the best PC.
Which is a totally reasonable approach and has given my PC years of usefulness even though better equipment is out there.
The cutting edge of PCs is such a tiny minority of users, even amongst PC gamers it's still a fraction of users.
That was not always the case for PC gaming, on modest means in my teens I could at least keep up with graphics card releases. I don't bother with that now, because I don't have to and gain very little from doing so.
> Even in PC gaming, the performance target tends to be the lowest performing current gen console, not the best PC.
I would have said "even static websites don't care about older hardware". I am very happy that Valve doesn't refresh the SteamDeck every year exactly for that reason: developers can target "the SteamDeck" instead of "the latest 3 SteamDecks" and force me to buy one every 3 years.
Phones try to emulate PC refresh cycle. Is it healthy? You get new generation of CPUs / GPUs roughly once in two years. I'd say it's OK.
You can easily skip a generation and upgrade say once in 4 years or even less frequently. But at the same I think it's good that there is an option to get newer hardware at that cadence.
> You get new generation of CPUs / GPUs roughly once in two years. I'd say it's OK.
If you look at sustainability, it is obviously not okay.
And for what? Websites and mobile apps that get bulkier and less efficient slightly faster than the refresh cycle. I recently replaced my smartphone - not because I wanted to, but because the main app I use (like banking, nothing that should require a big CPU) were lagging so much that they were unusable. A banking app is supposed to print a few numbers to the screen, and yet it doesn't work on a 5 years old smartphone.
honestly at this point, phones and personal computers probably should move to a 2 year cadence. The R&D costs are going up and the performance benefits are decreasing.
There were news/rumours that it was originally designed for Magic Leap 2 and Valve got the leftovers for cheap: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/steam-decks-... .
If they're going to spend a premium on ordering a new batch, they might as well order the APU for the OLED model they charge full price right?
Is anyone here aware of whether developers are using the Deck as a minimum spec and thus their technical constraints?
May be it shouldn't be as frequent, but still more frequent than what it has now.
Does anyone want to buy a phone every few years? No, I don't think they do.
If I build a new PC myself - I don't have such problem. With laptops - it's a bit behind (usually one generation for AMD with their APUs approach). I don't think anyone complains that there is a choice.
And somehow above doesn't prevent games being released that can scale according to the hardware and aren't tied to a specific hardware generation target. So I don't really see why this has to dictate handhelds to have way slower refresh cycle.
In theory, sure. In practice... just look at pretty much all software out there and you will be proven wrong. Every. Single. Time.
I'd love that, but I would argue that the evidence shows they don't do it.
Which is a totally reasonable approach and has given my PC years of usefulness even though better equipment is out there.
The cutting edge of PCs is such a tiny minority of users, even amongst PC gamers it's still a fraction of users.
That was not always the case for PC gaming, on modest means in my teens I could at least keep up with graphics card releases. I don't bother with that now, because I don't have to and gain very little from doing so.
I would have said "even static websites don't care about older hardware". I am very happy that Valve doesn't refresh the SteamDeck every year exactly for that reason: developers can target "the SteamDeck" instead of "the latest 3 SteamDecks" and force me to buy one every 3 years.
You can easily skip a generation and upgrade say once in 4 years or even less frequently. But at the same I think it's good that there is an option to get newer hardware at that cadence.
If you look at sustainability, it is obviously not okay.
And for what? Websites and mobile apps that get bulkier and less efficient slightly faster than the refresh cycle. I recently replaced my smartphone - not because I wanted to, but because the main app I use (like banking, nothing that should require a big CPU) were lagging so much that they were unusable. A banking app is supposed to print a few numbers to the screen, and yet it doesn't work on a 5 years old smartphone.