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The $950 Steam Deck Apparently Isn't Too Expensive, As it Sold Out in Under 24 Hours (www.ign.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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Valve recently raised the price on the Steam Deck, making the handheld gaming PC cost up to $949 for the 1TB OLED model. While that's a massive $300 increase over its original price, the Steam Deck is once again sold out.

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[–] 79 points 4 months ago (38 children)

I can't imagine paying $1000 to play my backlog of under $5 games.

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  • [–] 40 points 4 months ago (24 children)

    I mean...how big is that backlog and how much are you playing on the go? There's been no better device for handheld gaming, IMO, though I can see why it isn't tempting at that price.

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  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago (13 children)

    While the steam deck is a good device, it and every other modern handheld is designed like the switch which is more of a couch gaming experience rather theb a true portable for playing on the go

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    I think the difference is that in 10 years when the steam deck is on its final legs, we can still play our games unlike most other consoles.

    It might be a spare laptop, steam machine, or something else entirely. But we will presumibly be able to play.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    True, but thats also true for every other modern gaming handheld other then the switch/switch 2 since they all run windows, linux or android

    Either way doesn't invalidate my point

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    I can still play games on my 13 year old PS4, 20 year old Xbox 360, 30 year old N64, etc. What are you talking about? The PS5 is already 6 years old and shows no signs of not being able to play games.

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago

    At least until Sony and Microsoft shutdown the servers for the consoles and they can't validate themselves anymore.

    If Valve ever stops supporting the SD and you still want to use it so some reason, then just install a new clean OS or just leave it in desktop mode and move on with life.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    3DS, please come back!! The AYN Thor is trying. It would be cool if valve built something like it. Preferably with the autostereoscopic display. I know it's a gimic and nobody uses it much, but damn is it a cool gimic.

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  • [+] -8 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    ROG Ally is measurably better in every category and cheaper

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  • [–] 19 points 4 months ago (8 children)

    windows 11

    Lmao

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  • [+] -12 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    You can very easily downgrade to Win10 and there's a sizable community on r/LinuxOnAlly but it's also Microsoft/XBox so what else do you expect? Still beats giving Valve 45% more money so GabeN can buy another yacht company and sell kids gamble boxes.

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  • [–] 21 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Set your expectations accordingly. ROG Ally is only cheaper until they have to build more with today's component prices (if they choose to). And it's not like Microsoft executives don't have yachts or sell kids gambling boxes.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (3 children)

    That's all fair but it just seems weird to me to say "company X jacked their prices up $300 and company Y might, therefore they're both the same." Wait until the Ally gets a price bump and reasses. As it stands today, the Deck is now a substantially worse value

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    They will jack up their prices if they sell through their stock and decide that that demand will stick around long enough to justify another batch of them at higher prices. As it stands today, it is doing your fellow Lemming a solid to point out the current price discrepancy in favor of the Ally. When both of those devices are priced for stable market conditions, my recommendation leans heavily toward Steam Deck, but we are not currently in stable market conditions.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Tbh I can't be bothered to confirm who exactly is managing the Ally but XBox's new CEO is on a goodwill-gathering streak right now. Brought down the price of game pass and seems to want to bring people back to the brand proper. MS certainly has the capital to subsidize console costs to gain market.

    Again, all this is conjecture and came from me saying that right now, because Valve raised the price of the Steam Deck and MS hasn't done so for the Ally, the Ally is a better value. Today.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    XBox’s new CEO is on a goodwill-gathering streak right now. Brought down the price of game pass and seems to want to bring people back to the brand proper

    Oh, you sweet summer child.

    You do you. The Ally is a better value today. Good spot; pass it on until they sell out, because it currently looks like Best Buy is pricing it as a thing that's in their inventory and not selling. I would recommend that you don't trust that Xbox is going to right the wrongs of Game Pass price increases just because the removal of Call of Duty brought it down to still-higher-levels-than-it-was-in-the-very-recent-past. And definitely don't trust lip service to things the new boss is "thinking about" and "treating seriously". In a world where the next Xbox is definitely for sure just a PC that allows you to buy games from any store you like, and the Ally is that too, they're not subsidizing hardware. Neither is Valve, hence the price hike.

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  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago (12 children)

    If you're playing basic-ass games, an ARM/Android handheld may be a better bet anyway.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (10 children)

    Especially considering you could play something like 50k emulated games that span 4 gaming console generations on a handheld that cost $35.

    The SteamDeck is now a luxury.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    What's the best $35 handheld to get?

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    For $35 I'm guessing whatever on FB marketplace.

    Android phones tend to become pretty worthless after like 5 years, but are still perfectly good for emulation. Hell 10 years ago I was emulating the DS without any issues.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I want to get something with a physical D-pad and buttons off Aliexpress or whatever, but I have no idea how to sort through all the random no-name choices. The only other criteria I have is that I want it to be fully Free Software with no malware and the best value for money I can find.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    at that price point, the R36S clones on Aliexpress, i got one on sale for ~€22. they play everything up to ps1/dreamcast, n64 not so much though. the romsets they come with and their metadata are really bad, and the sd card is prone to die spontaneously, so it requires some tinkering

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    they play everything up to ps1/dreamcast, n64 not so much though.

    Wait, but Dreamcast is newer than N64. Did you mean Saturn or 32X, or is N64 weirdly hard to emulate for some reason?

    the R36S clones on Aliexpress, i got one on sale for ~€22.

    Is there anything to watch out for, other than price (and maybe avoiding paying extra for a bigger SD card, if they're unreliable anyway)? Do ones from different sellers have different software? Should I worry about trying to avoid malware, or just assume I'm going to want to wipe the thing and re-flash as soon as I get it, or what?

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    what i did is going for the smallest sd card, and buy a proper bigger one, then clone the "stock" card, and copy over roms and metadata from my nicely curated Batocera drive.

    it can be super tricky to get any OS that officially supports the R36S to run on the clones, so i run the OS it came with. the device isn't connected to the Internet so i don't worry too much about malware.

    dreamcast is simpler to emulate, n64 notoriously isn't, I've been struggling with this system during my Raspberry Pi 3 emulation era already. the "real" R36S apparently is a tad more powerful than the cheap knockoffs, but i can't seem to find it anymore - the closest available official one would be the RG35XX for $55

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Have prices stayed the same on those? Isn't valve funding arm support since their headset uses it. Maybe prices will drop and steam deck 2 will be using similar architecture to those instead.

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