Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck are different loves, or so Valve designers claim
“If you hold a Switch and hold one of these, you’ll know which one is right for you in less than 10 seconds.”
After months of rumors that seemed hard to believe, Valve’s most unexpected gamble came true. Steam Deck is here – or well, it will be in December of this year – and the new hardware from Gabe Newell’s company is nothing more than a portable PC console with hybrid capabilities to connect to the TV. Come on, a ” Nintendo Switch ” but for PC, although Valve defends that its Steam Deck and the Kyoto machine are different loves . They do not compete for the same audience, nor are they equal at the design level.
Speaking to IGN, transcribed by Nintendo Life, designer Greg Coomer explains that the design similarities between the Steam Deck and the Switch are simply the natural result of their development. They have focused on the audience that already has Steam when designing it and not on what other platforms did: “We tried to make all the decisions made on Steam Deck focused on that audience and that it was useful for customers who were already enjoying it. of the games that are on that platform, our platform . That’s how we guide our decisions. “
“We have ended up with a device that cosmetically shares some traits with a Switch , but that has been… It is, in its own way, a result of how we have proceeded with its design direction,” explains Coomer. For his part, the programmer Pierre-Loup Griffais reiterates that the differences between Steam Deck and Switch are clear once you have them in your hand. “I think Nintendo does a great job of targeting its audience with the content they have. And that’s going to be different.”
If you hold a Switch and hold it, you will know which one is good for youPierre-Loup Griffais“For example, when you hold this [Steam Deck], it feels a lot more ergonomic for those who are used to playing with expensive controllers, right? Because it’s bigger and bulkier than a Switch. And if we’re right, that one it is the correct modification to do for the audience we are looking for . ” In this, Griffais adds that “let me explain it this way. If you are a player, you hold a Switch and hold one of these, you will know which of them is good for you . And you will know in less than 10 seconds”.
After launching its pre-order campaign a few weeks ago, the first Steam Deck shipments will begin in December 2021 . A hybrid console that promises to run all Steam games at 30 FPS or higher and has taken steps to avoid the dreaded stick drift that plagues other consoles. Valve’s bet has surprised a large part of the community and a good example of this is the immense division of opinions about Steam Deck that you can find in the latest 3DJuegos survey.
