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Steamdeck or.... (self.games)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by potate to c/[email protected]

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Looking for some advice. My Switch Lite is approaching the end of its life and given that a Switch 2 is basically the same price as an OLED Steamdeck I was thinking it might be a good time to jump back to PC gaming.

I'm not much of a gamer. I got the Switch Lite because of portability and the ability to wake it up, play for ten minutes and then toss it back in my bag. My only beefs with the Switch ecosystem is that you can't download DLC - for Cities Skylines I have the bare game on Switch but a pile of DLC on my laptop for example.

So - would going with a Steamdeck make sense? Any gotchas I should know about? Is there a better option?

Thanks all!

**edit: y'all rock. I'm ordering an OLED Steamdeck

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[–] magic 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Out of curiosity, what games do you play other than Cities Skyline?

If you just want something for portability + ten minutes of gameplay, what about an android phone you can emulate on + one of those phone controllers that turn your phone into a portable console?

[–] potate 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

To be honest - that's probably the dream setup. The challenge is that android games seem to all be low-effort ad delivery systems.

My happiest place is turn-based strategy and RPGs. XCOM, Total War: Warhammer, anything Baldur's Gate, 4Xs that sort of stuff.

I have several hundred hours killing time on Unciv on Android. Mindustry is fun but cramped. Polybridge was great until I finished it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago

Definitely go Steam Deck then. No question. You'll have far more to choose from, and the Deck's suspend and resume is shockingly good considering you'd never expect that feature to work on a Windows PC mid-game.

[–] magic 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Oh, in that case you might have a swell time with using an android phone for emulation. Just ignore playstore games for a minute.

I feel like you might not understand what emulation is based on you commenting that you aren't much of a gamer---basically, using a phone you can emulate different consoles. And they often don't have ads.

What type of phone do you have? On my S24 I can emulate up to Switch games, but a lot of phones can emulate up to the PS2 era. You can also look into something called "Winlator" where you can emulate windows games on the phone too.

[–] potate 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What emulators do you recommend? I have an S23 but am about to try swapping it for a Fairphone running e/OS

[–] magic 1 points 5 days ago

Haha honestly just go find a game that's been on your backlog for a few years, look on Wikipedia, then see if it has a console equivalent. Then go download a console emulator from the emulation wiki recommended in another comment.

For example, if I wanted to play the original Disgaea, I know it plays on the DS in addition to the PC. So why not play it on a DS emulator like Drastic?