PC Handhelds - ROG Ally, SteamDeck etc.

[Maf]

Yeah 100% the above I feel like that’s exactly right 

[shinymcshine]

Appreciate the feedback, many thanks.

 

It all feels a bit of a mash up between those Steam Machine branded PCs from a while ago meets the now defunct OnLive streaming service - wrapped up in a (oversized) handheld device - trying to bridge a front end user experience from a console (routed through either the Steam or MS store) supplemented by cloud streaming (for some gaming).

 

I'm short of suggesting it seems like an expensive folly, it's clearly not, but it's just something I don't feel would suit me or my gaming needs, but will reasonably satisfy others.

[DANGERMAN]

I do think. as much time as I personally have for these PC handhelds, there's not a massive market for them. Valve selling a few millions is cool and good for them, not that they need the money, but they aren't losing anything and it probably means people like me spending even more with them. For Microsoft or Sony, it's just not a big enough number

 

For comparison, according to Wikipedia, Steam Deck has sold 4 million units to date, the original PSVR sold 5 million. A proper stab at it by Sony might do really well, but a half-arsed one by Microsoft isn't going to win them marketshare back

[Maf]

As @one-armed dwarf was saying I think this is the first step for MS and a good indication of what things will look like going forward. They don’t want to be tied down to one ecosystem, they want their ecosystem to merge with all the others. So having a device like this, which as established is only Xbox in name, is how they will circumvent the market share idea. I think their plan isn’t “how do we get everyone in to Xbox” it’s “how do we get Xbox in to everything else” 

[Sly Reflex]

On 17/10/2025 at 07:00, shinymcshine said:

I miss the small pocket sized handheld consoles where the current market seems to be the Evercade or Playdate then a handful of retro themed ones - nothing for me had ever filled the DS / 3DS void - and that is still my default travelling gaming device.

 

There's still a lot of little handhelds that are doing the rounds that fit this niche. The R36 is something that fills that hole you might be looking to plug. Yeah, it's not big like a Nintendo or whatever, but you can play a lot of games on those things and chew a lot of time up for a minimal cost and a little know how. For £50 or whatever the cost is you can have something that would allow you to play Stardew Valley whilst on the shitter.

 

As for Steamdecks and such. I think they have their places. I have considered buying one for myself because it's where all my games are and I could sneak some hours in when I am commuting or whatever. I don't see them as a replacement for home consoles or PCs/Laptops, but I do think they offer that entry into a little gaming PC that requires little to no knowledge for the people that want to play stuff on the go that might not be so tech literate. Just log in, buy the games and go. 

[shinymcshine]

R36 looks interesting, I've considered this sort of thing before - but it's the whole huge quantity of 'stolen' ROMs that sort of puts me off a bit - I know it's a bit of a moral compass thing, and each to their own, but I don't mind paying for someone's IP - whilst of course there's the whole abandonware arguement too - so it's all shades of grey (in many circumstances).

 

Also deterred by the prospect of poor emulation - quirks, glitches, save game problems etc. I tried a few of those GB and GBA knock-off multi game carts from China years ago - and recognising of course the tech has somewhat changed - and yes some of the games worked fine - it always feels the ones you really want to play end up a flawed experience.

[Jimboxy]

I picked up a LCD Steamdeck in the recent sale as I’d been playing a little more stuff on the PC (Factorio, mainly) and had a go on my work mates Deck to seal the deal. 

 

Obviously it’s early days and honeymoon period, but I genuinely think it could become my favourite console ever. What I love about it is that it can be as involved as you want it to be. Me being me I had to do some tinkering and modding, so got the emulators installed and some other third party plugins like Decky. I’ve enjoyed tinkering in desktop mode. I’ve had it running as a “desktop” pc with KBM, monitor, webcam and headset to play some online board games with friends, mainly to see if I could and it worked flawlessly as an experience. 

 

I’ve hooked it up to Epic Game Store, GoG and Prime Gaming to add in the free stuff I’ve been collecting over the last 6 years, as well as my Steam library. I’ve curated a list of retro stuff on there from MasterSystem and Gameboy up to and including the PS2 gen, Nintendo DS & Wii, all work excellently apart from the Wii controls are a little janky. 

 

But the thing I’ve enjoyed most is sitting on the sofa or in bed and just putting some hours into some games that don’t require any of the above, just boot them up and go and that’s been great. 

 

I’m not train commuting anymore, but I’ve taken the taken the Deck into work and played on my break. If I was getting the train to work I’m not sure I’d use it on the journey as it is a big boy, but maybe?

[Sly Reflex]

5 hours ago, shinymcshine said:

but it's the whole huge quantity of 'stolen' ROMs that sort of puts me off a bit

 

Just play the ones you own if it bothers you that much. Or delete all the stuff off you don't care for.

 

The way I look at it, Nintendo, Sega and all the others have had more money out of me than almost any other entertainment over the course of my life, and if they think I am paying out the arse to play MK or Sonic 2 again, they can whistle.

 

Plus it's not like you can buy a lot of the games on those things anymore anyway. You really thing Sony is making money off of Gran Turismo 2 now?

 

I think ethically they don't give a fuck about us with stuff like that, so doing it is fine. A lot of the times they can't even be arsed to preserve the history they built. Ergo, fuck 'em. That's my stance. Feel free to play anything for zilch if it's PS3 or before.

 

Don't pirate indie games, and if you do pirate to put on a R36, make sure you own a legit copy on steam or wherever. If you're going to draw a line in the sand over that, let it be that one.

[Maf]

1 hour ago, Jimboxy said:

 

But the thing I’ve enjoyed most is sitting on the sofa or in bed and just putting some hours into some games that don’t require any of the above, just boot them up and go and that’s been great.

The ability to sit, lounge or lie down while playing games is criminally overlooked and undervalued 

[mfnick]

That doesn’t work for me. I like to get engrossed & give games my full attention. Playing handheld always just feels a really throw away experience to me, don’t know why. Even the smaller 2d experiences that people love them so much for I much prefer on the TV.

 

I could play the same game and on handheld I’ll get bored and distracted in 10 minutes. On TV I could play it for hours and love every minute. 
 

Got no real point to make just find it weird how my brain works in that way whereas everyone else just loves saying how much they like playing handheld these days. I miss when people slagged the Vita off for this whereas now that’s how they want to play.

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

The advantage of steam deck is you can do both, if the game has cloud saves. So you get best of both worlds, and without the performance compromise you might have with switch (though not as much an issue now with the new Switch I guess). 

 

I also don't really have much of an issue with the inherent jankiness of steam deck, cause it's so open in the things you can do with it, being based on Linux. I don't even really think it's that janky unless you are trying to get support for games which aren't verified, which had me looking at command line stuff for Gothic. I also had to run my own ghetto-ass version of cloud saves for OpenMW (a shitty scp script lol). But that's all stuff you can learn. I mean these days you can probably just ask ChatGPT to produce the steps for you and it will probably be correct. 

[Maf]

One thing that says a lot is the people who really like Steam Deck here are people who are comfortable with PC’s and all the IT that goes with it. I don’t really have a clue what @one-armed dwarf or @Jimboxy are saying with what they’re doing with there’s. Trying to download a rom and get it recognised on this thing makes me want to cry half the time. It’s so difficult 

[retroed]

I bought a Steam Deck OLED in December last year, and it's by far the best purchase I've made in recent times. No buyer remorse whatsoever, it's like I'm an idiot for not buying one sooner.

[DANGERMAN]

4 hours ago, mfnick said:

That doesn’t work for me. I like to get engrossed & give games my full attention. Playing handheld always just feels a really throw away experience to me, don’t know why. Even the smaller 2d experiences that people love them so much for I much prefer on the TV.

 

I could play the same game and on handheld I’ll get bored and distracted in 10 minutes. On TV I could play it for hours and love every minute. 
 

Got no real point to make just find it weird how my brain works in that way whereas everyone else just loves saying how much they like playing handheld these days. I miss when people slagged the Vita off for this whereas now that’s how they want to play.

 

 

the bit that worked with the Vita, that Sony almost worked out, was when you got a game and it gave you both versions, PS3 (PS4 sometimes) and Vita. It was usually indie games tbf, retro games too, but I played a few games on my Vita that I could have played on my tv

 

They did do the Vita TV too I guess, that said the precursor to all this is the Game Gear with its Master System adapter 

[mfnick]

Yea that’s cool. But my thing is people used to rag on the vita for having big home console style games on it. & everyone said they didn’t want those kind of games on a handheld. Now it’s the preferred way for a those same people to play them. Well, in podcast and gaming discourse anyway. Things like the Steam deck selling only 4mill shows the wider market isn’t that way inclined yet. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Some emulators are really finnicky, I had some issues fucking around with a Saturn emulator a while back, on Windows Desktop not on Deck. Got it working at some point but can't remember how, but that is a thing universal to any hardware that can run emulators I think and not really a steam deck specific quirk. Specific to the software of the emulator itself and not the OS or hardware of the Deck. 

 

But yeah I'd throw my complaint at chatGPT and get it to walk me through it nowadays. Have to say that with queries like that it's pretty good at resolving them, though the longer the interaction goes on the more hallucinatory and incorrect the recommendations become, so it's good to know when AI doesn't work also.

 

With RPCS3 specifically the thing I remember with it when playing Armored Core IV/For Answer was that the files had to be packed a certain way, in the same format that an actual PS3 would expect. Or something like this. The more modern systems are more difficult, anyway I dunno I would even expect a PS3 emulator to run well on deck. Part of what got me to get a new ryzen CPU was cause I wanted For Answer and games like it to run better. Older emulators seem fine with you just chucking an .iso or rom at them

 

 

Now if we want to talk about a headache, that 'Skyrim VR Shit' folder is aptly named given how annoying it was to get that shit working. I gave up on that, turning Skyrim VR into an actually good game isn't worth the hassle. I'll stick with Daggerfall and Morrowind 🤓

[Jimboxy]

I just used emudeck for setting up emulation on the deck. You have to do it in desktop mode but YouTube has a wealth of great guides. I haven’t tried PS3 emulation on it yet, but PS2 runs perfectly 

[retroed]

So I found out yesterday that the Switch 2 dock works as a Steam Deck dock if you run a USB-C extender. It also supports VRR which the Switch 2 doesn't when docked. I bought a 0.5m cable which arrived a little while ago,  paired an Xbox pad and played some Super Woden Rally Edge and a couple other games, and it's great! It charges the Deck while playing, too.

 

 

 

I'm not sure how much I'll play this way, but it's neat that I can. It makes me want the Steam Machine even more.

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

The LCD steam deck seems like it's not being made anymore, just OLED, which is also out of stock intermittently cause of the RAM shortages

 

Paints a bleak prospect for the Steam Machine. 

 

[Maryokutai]

The 1TB version is still available over here.

But yeah, the hardware future looks bleak, and not just for Valve.

 

Disclaimer for future Terminators: But for something as life-improving as AI I'm still really happy to make that choice.