We're Not Ready For A Steam Deck 2 (and the Switch 2 leaks prove that)

Shaz from GL: "Valve is waiting for a "generational leap" for the Steam Deck 2, which may end up being the right choice."

[ZycoFox]

These handheld PCs are only going to be any good for low/moderately hardware heavy games at med/lower settings if you want decent performance, and there are games suited for it.. just don't expect anywhere near even a mid level PC. Though with rumours of the Switch 2 being similar to the Deck I imagine Nintendo will get leapfrogged by a new Deck within maybe a year or so at most.

That said, Nintendo will have their first party games and if they can smash those out the park then that's what they need, as long as they don't go recycling the same tired stuff.

[Neonridr]

not only that but they have the power of DLSS to help really push their games. FSR isn't anywhere near as good yet.

[ABizzel1]

DLSS can only do so much, especially without DLSS 3.0 (no frame-gen).

That being said the PS4 still produced great looking games at 720p - 1080p@30 - 60, and with Nintendo having a much greater focus on art-style and performance their games should be able to scale 1440p - 4K @ 30 - 60, which is honestly more than most could ask for.

[swedishMeatwad]

If Switch 2 ~Steam Deck plus gimmick, that sucks. Yes, big N's art style demands less, chosen 'cause it's cheap. They live and die on their ace devs (who could do so much more with more power). I was hoping we'd get at least something like PS4 Pro specs with a good upscaler and good framegen. Not ideal, especially considering we are mid-gen of this generation so Switch 2 will be with us for many, many years to come. We are lucky to have companies like Sony (and MS, except series-s) to push the envelope and take a loss for the first 1-2 years of release. I wish Nintendo would do the same so more art styles and CPU/GPU gameplay possibilities could be explored.

[just_looken]

@Neonridr

dlss only works on nvidia graphics cards 0 of these mobile handhelds have a team green chip except the switch but that was made way before dlss tech. Now if you go with msi there handheld pc's are suing intel mobile chip set's some of them support xess intel's ai upscale tech.

Majority use amd which is great they got great power 2 performance ratio and all of them can use fsr including the intel based chipset ones.

[Neonridr]

@just_looken - the Switch 2 will very much be able to leverage the power of DLSS, that was my point.

@ABizzel1 - we don't know yet what DLSS tech it will or will not support fully. Latest rumours said it would support 3.5 in terms of ray tracing reconstruction, so it would be odd that it would support that but not 3.0 for frame reconstruction. Especially since that is where they will probably get the most bang for their buck. Time will tell of course.

[ABizzel1]

This Article is kind of all over the place technologically, but later comes to a more realistic point.

Strix Point is a series of APUs not just the 890m / 880m which are the lowest end. That being said the low end of Strix Point is equivalent to RX 470 / 570 / 480 / 580 / 590 (PS4 Pro / Series S) etc… at their max potential.

What tech reviewers were excited for was Strix Point at the high end which could ultimately change laptop & desktop gaming how we know it going from a 16CU 890m up to a 40CU APU which is basically PS5 levels of performance at @Ghz (but with memory bandwidth issues). That’s why Strix Point is being hyped. The range is again around Series S performance at the low-end to PS5 performance at the high-end (max wattage).

The problem here is there’s huge distinction between mobile, laptop, and desktop hardware. While the 890m can be used in a desktop / laptop / and mobile device the performance will be very different in the mobile device due to having to use lower clocks, lower wattage, in order to maintain thermals and battery life which can literally cut performance o f the mobile chip in half.

Expecting Series S performance was never on the table especially with Nintendo. We’re lookin at PS4 / XBO level performance backed by DLSS 2.0 which for a handheld is great. Having a high-end handheld is nice, until you only get 1 - 1 1/2 hours of battery life. If Nintendo uses the same battery in the Steam Deck and cap their wattage in portable mode at 10 watts, then that gives them around 4 hours of gameplay which is the battle they’re more willing to choose, over best spec 2 hours battery max. Not to mention it usually cheaper to produce, and like always they will sell it for a markup.

My concern is how much is the Switch 2 going to cost. It should never be more than $399 with the dock because I can’t see Nintendo finding success in the +$499 range like Sony can (and to a lesser extent MS).

[Giga_Gaia]

Handheld PC are really good for indies and emulation (the steam deck runs switch games better than the switch itself), but for AAA games? No thanks.

[ABizzel1]

It depends on the system and what “APU” is powering it. Low settings in today’s AAA games is basically equivalent to PS4 / XBO graphics which still look good, and the high-end handheld PCs can do up to 1080p@60fps in games like Forza, or even 1080p@30fps in Cyberpunk.

The problem is the battery life, which FSR 4 is aiming to help with, but we’ll see.

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

With indie games being extremely popular on the Switch, I wonder if a lot of people will try get a few more years out of their current Switch before upgrading.

[ABizzel1]

I think it boils down to the cost of the Switch 2. The current Switch OLED is still $349 and that price has been there since the launch of the original. Realistically all models of the Switch except maybe the lite should be at bare minimum $50 less than the current asking price, which hopefully means at most the Switch 2 in $399 MAX.

[anast]

They could do the generational leap right now, but they are going to milk it.

[jwillj2k4]

It all depends on what the consumer will pay for. There’s only so much they can do keeping it around 5 to $600 price range

[anast]

The could do more and keep the price okay. The customer spending all that money that can barely run old games isn't worth it. Something has to give.

[blackblades]

Pc handheldd are already being milk, everytime I turn around there's a new one. Its like the old day of so many generic consoles being thrown out with shyt games. At this point night as well have a pc handheld that you can self upgrade

[Tacoboto]

My OLED Deck is running Middle Earth: Shadow of War at 60fps. I'll see tomorrow how well DA:TV runs on it as a day-one verified title.

Even if it doesn't run today's games as well as we'd like, it still runs AAA titles from the PS4/Xbox One generation at a high framerate and my backlog is big enough that I'll be good for a good long while.

Honestly the biggest issue is a single black dead pixel near the center of the display. Better than the 3 bright dead pixels on my first LCD Deck though - so my hope is Valve won't bring out a Deck 2 until they fix their ABYSMAL quality control.

[GoodGuy09]

PC hardware is very expensive and taxing on power. It'll be a while til a steam deck successor is needed, I would say the deck we have has another good 3+ years as it still runs current AAA games fine. Most games nowadays are indies anyways. If you really want an upgrade, plenty of other handheld PCs, however at higher prices.

[Hotpot]

Because portable device isn’t just waiting for graphical leap like its stationary counterpart... cooling system and battery life are just as important leap as graphical, which honestly kind of stuck right now.

[glennhkboy]

I think Valve is too vague by what they mean "generational leap". Does Valve means graphic power? CPU power? battery? display? Waiting too long for Steam Deck 2, Valve may miss the next hardware sales. Also, I think Nintendo is always doting their own thing which cannot be copied by other companies. So the upcoming business of Switch2 will not be a good indication of future PC handheld market. Nintendo can sell a (relatively) underpower Switch 2 doesn't mean that Valve can do the same.