Steam Deck ?!

[bayonetbrant]

https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck


uh...  can you get the Civ games to play on this thing?

[bob48]

Its rather expensive, innit.

[Tolstoi]

Is Steam trying to compete with the Switch? I can see some games working well on this and others, like Tabletop Simulator, not working so well.

[Bison]

I have played CIV on the Switch. I just found the move from keyboard/mouse to control buttons and the significantly smaller screen size to be annoying. I choose to play Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and Diablo 3 over it every single time. Just not a fun experience.

[Sir Slash]

I hope it's sturdy enough to not be broken when I throw it against the wall after Rome 2 kicks my ass. 

[Martok]

I have played CIV on the Switch. I just found the move from keyboard/mouse to control buttons and the significantly smaller screen size to be annoying. I choose to play Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and Diablo 3 over it every single time. Just not a fun experience.

Yeah, I can't see myself playing any sort of serious strategy games on that thing.  The controls alone would drive me insane, nevermind the tiny screen.  I'm guessing it'll be better-suited to more casual and/or action-oriented titles. 

I hope it's sturdy enough to not be broken when I throw it against the wall after Rome 2 kicks my ass. 

...And it *will* kick your ass if you try and fight battles with those controls.   

[Tolstoi]

Okay, still not sure if Steam is trying to compete with Nintendo and I found out a wee bit more about the Steam Deck.

The Steam deck is truly a hand held computer. According to the Steam Deck's hardware webpage and PC Gamer's brief write up about it, you can install a different OS, such as Windows, (maybe even Apple's OS?) and you can install other programs, such as a web browser.

Nintendo is very restrictive about what you can do with the Switch. There is no official web browser to surf the web with the Switch, nor are there other apps to do things like watch streaming services. Steam is like, "Hey, it's your computer now, do what you want!" Steam even suggests you could install a competitor's game store apps to play games from other online services. With the Steam Deck docking station, (sold separately), that will attach to monitors and televisions, and looks like it has ports for other peripherals, you might be able to play Rome 2 the way you are accustomed to playing.

Steam is selling a very small form factor, (console form factor?) computer to people to allow them to play their games on the go or with their docking station, and perhaps to do other computing tasks too. It will be interesting to see if this is successful and what other computing projects people dream up for the Steam Deck. I can only image the headaches the current chip shortage must be causing Steam.

[rickbill]

of more interest to me ... can you install TTS on it? and would it be usable? (not too small to have more than just a small percentage of the gameboard available at a time)

[Tolstoi]

of more interest to me ... can you install TTS on it? and would it be usable? (not too small to have more than just a small percentage of the gameboard available at a time)

From what I've read, the answer is yes; however, I have my doubts about how well TTS would operate on this tiny computer.  With the docking peripheral, you can attach it to a larger monitor and have a mouse and keyboard attached. There are two USB 2.0 ports and one USB 3.0 ports, so that would be enough for a keyboard and mouse. The main processor and graphic's chip are getting decent reviews and it is still very early days. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

[judgedredd]

Never could get into hand helds. I think I'm one of the ever reducing population of people that don't use their phones to play games.