I love my Steam Deck, as any regular reader will know. It's my favourite gaming device but it could always be better right? And with competition hot (hi Nintendo), I hope Valve have more plans.
Now, I'm not dumb enough to think that the Steam Deck is in actual competition with the Nintendo Switch. That's just not a reality. The Switch has sold over 140 million units and continues to sell millions, it's in stores everywhere, people buy it for their children, for themselves and yeah — you get the idea. But still, for us PC fans the Steam Deck (and specifically us Linux lot) and other PC handhelds are simply awesome.
We all knew a Nintendo Switch 2 would happen, there just hadn't been any real proper confirmation, until now. Writing on social media, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa posted on May 7th:
This is Furukawa, President of Nintendo. We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. It will have been over nine years since we announced the existence of Nintendo Switch back in March 2015. We will be holding a Nintendo Direct this June regarding the Nintendo Switch software lineup for the latter half of 2024, but please be aware that there will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during that presentation.
So sometime before the end of March 2025, the Nintendo Switch 2 will be revealed.
That leads me to think about the future. The Switch 2 will no doubt sell by the truck-loads once again. So let's just set that aside because it's a different market overall. Still, we have other handheld PC gaming vendors appearing often like the ROG Ally, Legion GO, MSI Claw, various devices from OneXPlayer, GPD, Ayaneo and more on the way so there's really a lot of these devices now.
To me, handheld gaming like this is the future. You may think I am heavily biased, and in many ways I am (obviously, I run this website) but I'm a tech-fan. I have a PlayStation, a Switch, an Xbox and more. But it feels increasingly weird to have a dedicated solid box permanently attached to a single TV. I actually don't like that at all now. Being able to take a much smaller device with you to play anywhere, and additionally have the ability to hook it up to a TV whenever you want just feels so much better. Nintendo definitely had the right idea, as did Valve.
We've seen in the past that Valve have said pretty clearly they had plans to keep going, and with the Steam Deck still continuing to sell constantly, it would be crazy if Valve didn't produce a Steam Deck 2. Even though you could argue the Steam Deck OLED is such a ridiculous improvement it might as well be a Steam Deck 2, I want more. A lot more.
The current shell design is just fine, I don't think Valve really need to do many changes there at all. The OLED design gave us enough improvements inside to various parts so thinking on what they should add in for the big number 2: a newer generation AMD APU to bring performance up, with a slightly higher resolution screen and I honestly think I would be ridiculously happy. It doesn't take much. Performance being the biggest one and with more new AMD chips on the way, give it another year for the generation after that (or their refresh) and we could be looking at a really fun performance boost.
So, let's say a Steam Deck 2 announcement in late 2026. Make it so, Valve.
What do you think? And what do you now want from a Steam Deck 2?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: damarrinFor a "thinksumer"When I think Sumer, top of mind has to be the epic of Gilgamesh.
Quoting: pilkQuoting: sarmadWhat I think should be included is improved APU, memory, and screen, VRR, and just more anti-cheat compatibility.I feel Valve has done pretty much everything they can for anticheat compatibility. The issues that remain are the Hall Of Shame (Epic, Riot, Electronic Arts, Roblox, Bungie, etc.) that refuse to make the AC work because of whatever excuse they made up that day.
Ultimately, I hope the day of rootkit anticheat ends soon. Kernel-level nonsense has been tried before, and it broke computers and eventually finally died.
100%. I know it's not Valve's fault and it's really those Hall of Shame members, but Valve can probably do more to convince those companies to support Linux.
Kimyrielle May 9
Quoting: pilkI feel Valve has done pretty much everything they can for anticheat compatibility. The issues that remain are the Hall Of Shame (Epic, Riot, Electronic Arts, Roblox, Bungie, etc.) that refuse to make the AC work because of whatever excuse they made up that day.
The excuse typically is something like "Because Linux users are evil h4xx0rs and because open source is insecure by definition! Only closed-source operating system can ever be trusted."
Which doesn't help my impression of people using rootkit anti-cheat doing so because they're not very competent at coding or game-design. :D
Quoting: KimyrielleThe excuse typically is something like "Because Linux users are evil h4xx0rs and because open source is insecure by definition! Only closed-source operating system can ever be trusted."I always love it when they say that there aren't enough of us to be worth supporting and that we account for the majority of cheaters in their multi-million-user Windows games, in the exact same breath.
Quoting: Kimyriellehe excuse typically is something like "Because Linux users are evil h4xx0rs and because open source is insecure by definition! Only closed-source operating system can ever be trusted."
Which doesn't help my impression of people using rootkit anti-cheat doing so because they're not very competent at coding or game-design. :D
Absolutely. The "Linux users are haxxors" excuse is so stupid, the people who cheat in video games are all dumbass script kiddies that use Windows. Linux users that are hackers have better things to do than cheat in a game.
Whole thing about open-source being insecure by definition is also dumb as a rock. Microsoft Windows is about as secure as a screen door on a submarine. Kernel level anti-cheat only exists because Windows is insecure enough to let programs meddle with Ring 0.
If, for example, the recent xz debacle happened on Windows, we wouldn't know a single solitary thing about it. Meanwhile, the second the backdoor was found, it was patched out of every distro.
Last edited by pilk on 9 May 2024 at 9:05 pm UTC
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: grigiWhat do you think is a good cadence for updates? 3 years? 4 years? more?It's far too long, the Switch was low-powered even at release and it has missed a fair amount of games as it's just not strong enough.
The 8 year cadence of the switch is too long as it has definitely been losing developer interest in the last two years as it's too weak to support on multiplatform releases anymore.
For the Deck 2, my suggestion there about announcing it late 2026, would mean a release in 2027. Making it about 5 years between Deck and Deck 2 which for a PC platform seems pretty darn reasonable to me, considering the Deck struggles a lot with newer games right now.
If they did this, they could sweeten the deal with a max settings set top box focused on RT at high frame rates and a Steam Controller 2.0.
Last edited by D34VA_ on 9 May 2024 at 9:46 pm UTC
slaapliedje May 9
Quoting: PenglingYou should buy one of these! https://www.shop.apollo-computer.com/ Amiga platform, they're currently working hard on getting Atari ST platform supported, and the Amiga side already can outperform emulating a mac classic as well!Quoting: slaapliedjeTime to fire up those Amigas, Atari STs or DOS systems and play the loads of games that released for them that you never had time to get to! Or even the loads of new games that have been coming out for them!With how the industry is going to have to lie in the unsustainable bed that it's made for itself, I'm currently preparing for an emulation-heavy approach to gaming in the future until things right themselves again, so I'll certainly be checking out the new stuff alongside revisiting old favourites and digging into stuff that passed me by!
Quoting: PhlebiacI don't know if there are newer stats available, but anecdotally I think tablet use peaked around then, and has declined a lot since.I struggled to find more recent ones because I didn't know where to look - many thanks for digging those up.
Edit: here's some recent browser stats, which have it at around 2%
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet
I didn't look exhaustively, but I think it peaked at less than 7%
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/worldwide/2014
And was already on the decline when mobile overtook desktop
https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/worldwide/2016
It's still just as sad of a picture, though, since for all intents and purposes "Mobile" and "Tablet" are the same thing here, with people opting to use phones and tablets (all running the same mobile OSes) interchangeably for internet tasks, instead of PCs - when you put the two together, you get 60% of the market in favour of the mobile/tablet side (with an unknown amount of the PCs also being portables themselves, I'm sure).
Quoting: slaapliedjeYou should buy one of these! https://www.shop.apollo-computer.com/ Amiga platform, they're currently working hard on getting Atari ST platform supported, and the Amiga side already can outperform emulating a mac classic as well!I've never heard of these before!
What are they, exactly?
So i guess the Oled is somewhat lost on the likes of me, that said : to Valve, i bet its not about how much they make from selling the decks, its how many clients they get who buy more games because they have one, THATS where their money and cash cows are (i think) so eventually they're gonna have to but i think later is better than too soon here, with the new stuff coming out adding on hardware maybe its better to wait until it settles a little and THEN bang out a better hardware config for less money (b/c for aforemention the end-cow is in the cashwaters ... i mean (lol) the main money is made from the games that are sold on it, now also while driving the bus so to speak)
Ofcourse im not a CEO of a billions company that has clout all the way to China and even if Newel doesnt look the part he sure is one sly fox which has been proven over the years and with all the complaints everyone keeps wanting to be published on steam right ?
Maybe hes one of my all-time fav modernday CEOs actually i dont know what decks go for today but they go HERE (in belgium) for like double or more than what i paid when i got one, last time i saw they went for 800-900 (euros) which puts them next to the Asus one and maybe the other too i dont really follow up i been more into mister fpga and home assistant stuff lately tho my streamdeck is still one of my most prized posessions ... i had but one remark on that : COOLING ... i think it gets too hot too fast which probably takes off of the longevity and putting casefans on it helps but not enough since the case doesnt have enough vent-holes to get a decent flow
Couldnt make any other remark on it tho after i took it out of the box and ever since, since i only run it docked i basically have no idea of battery life but having the option to have a spare, ready-charged bat "on the go" which you can replace while you're in the camper or on the bus to school might also not be the worst idea maybe ...
that said ... i should do some #stuff, thanks to Liam and the boys and girls who make this site happen , we loves it !!!!
slaapliedje May 12
Quoting: PenglingThe Vampire? I'll try and give a short version of it...Quoting: slaapliedjeYou should buy one of these! https://www.shop.apollo-computer.com/ Amiga platform, they're currently working hard on getting Atari ST platform supported, and the Amiga side already can outperform emulating a mac classic as well!I've never heard of these before!
Ages ago, someone came up with an idea for a true successor to the Amiga (since there were AmigaNG systems that required PPC, and otherwise old Amiga's stagnated with AGA). One of the first things they wanted was a Super AGA chipset (SAGA). It was also developed along with an m68k successor, an '68080' CPU. This became the Vampire. The current version of the vampire (version 4) comes in several forms; V4SA (Vampire 4 Stand Alone) and Accelerator boards, A500, A600, A2000, A2000. The A3000/A4000 one is in design stage, I believe.
The V4SA you can kind of think of as sort of a MiST type thing in size, but is dedicated solely to M68k FPGA cores. It started off basically as an all Amiga compatible system. Right now the designers are working hard on getting Atari ST implemented, and of course the Mac side of things is very well emulated already via Shapeshifter on the Amiga side. Fun little device, for sure!
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