What is a better investment: a Series S or a Steam Deck?

So in most console generations, I go Playstation for most everything and Nintendo for a handful of exclusives

I've been really considering investing in a 3rd console to be able to play a few more exclusives, notably Hi-Fi Rush, Hellblade 2 and Kojima's just announced game OD among others. My laptop is kinda too crappy to really play games that are more intense than basic indie stuff but I don't care much for playing off a pc anyway

I'm primarily looking to play on a TV so the mobility of the Steam Deck isn't a big difference maker but I guess it's nice

Steam Deck
+ All Xbox games are on PC, but not all PC games are on Xbox, so there's more options here
+ Steam sales and humble bundles are usually better than regular console sales
+ I probably won't use portable screen all that often but it's nice to have
+ I already have a bunch of Steam games
- Significantly more expensive
- Requires more accessories, which adds to price (at the very least, an SD card and docking station)
- I've heard mixed things about its performance overall

Xbox Series s
+ Significantly cheaper
+ Low effort and convenient
- Considerably less overall games than Steam
- Paid online service (not sure how all the plans work offhand)

I'm torn on what direction would be best to go, since obviously the Xbox is like half the price of a Steam Deck but Steam Deck seems to have more going for it

Really feel like you should just pay the extra money for the Series X if you're going to get one. So if these are the only two options, get the new Steam Deck OLED

_Blur_ posted...

Really feel like you should just pay the extra money for the Series X if you're going to get one. So if these are the only two options, get the new Steam Deck OLED

well my thought process was that if I'm going to get an xbox instead of a steam deck, it'd be to save money. Like if I'm going to be paying 500 anyway I feel like I might as well go with the steam deck for the extra versatility

also considering an asus rog ally

Which Steam Deck are you trying to get? Because I just upgraded to the OLED and have a 1TB LCD I'm willing to get rid of (this is ChaosTony, not some random dude trying to solicit you loool).

AbsoluteUnit posted...

Which Steam Deck are you trying to get? Because I just upgraded to the OLED and have a 1TB LCD I'm willing to get rid of (this is ChaosTony, not some random dude trying to solicit you loool).

My thought was to get the 256GB with an SD card (since it's hard to justify the $150 price increase to the 512GB)

Although as I've been looking into it, Best Buy has a $400 ROG Ally, which is tempting

I wasn't planning on buying anything right away, just kinda planning it out, but idk now. I swear I'm always more likely to make stupid purchases late at night

edit: although now that I'm looking into THAT, apparently the discounted $400 ROG Ally isn't very good and you'd basically have to get the ROG with the Ryzen Extreme for $600, which at that point I might as well just be getting a steam deck anyway. I need to go to bed

one thing i've personally been saving for is that one steamdeck-like device that looks like a vita, forget the name lol. it apparently had considerably better specs? never heard how reliable/safe it was though

found it again btw, it was this one
https://www.gpd.hk/gpdwin4

Tag.

Up for the not 4am crowd

I went up against the same dilemma, ended up going with the Steam Deck as the portability of it and the dock fit my purposes better (needing to move it around to record gameplay footage). I do think it's the better deal on offer at the moment, as Microsoft is likely still going to be struggling with the Actiblizzard acquisition for a while, so any Xbox-specific advantages to owning the console other than price point are probably gonna be delayed for a while. My performance with it definitely isn't close to top-end for games that both would share (Psychonauts 2, for example, I got a consistent crash on a water-intensive level at lower graphical settings when passing through a certain point; avoiding the trigger let me get past it, but something just wasn't agreeing with it), but all in all, the games that I care about running fluidly do run fluidly.

I would check if there's any games in specific that you're interested in that are Deck verified, though. Still wild to me I can't play the Mega Man X Collection on the thing. Still, the option of "play Hitman 3 in bed until I pass out" has been an incredibly tempting and enjoyable one.

Kamekguy posted...

I would check if there's any games in specific that you're interested in that are Deck verified, though. Still wild to me I can't play the Mega Man X Collection on the thing.

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is also marked as unsupported, but it works (mostly) fine. Apparently it's considered unsupported because it won't boot if you're offline (even in offline mode). So you've probably already tried this but it may be worth verifying than X Collection actually doesn't work and isn't just marked that way for a reason that doesn't affect you.

... that's such a weird caveat to it. Why it be like that? Every semi-supported game has all of the reasons why it might have an issue listed.

Yeah it's bizarre. In general I've found that the verified/playable/unsupported markers are a useful starting point but not always accurate.

Kenri posted...

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is also marked as unsupported, but it works (mostly) fine. Apparently it's considered unsupported because it won't boot if you're offline (even in offline mode). So you've probably already tried this but it may be worth verifying than X Collection actually doesn't work and isn't just marked that way for a reason that doesn't affect you.

The best website if you're curious about Deck compatibility is ProtonDB:

https://www.protondb.com/app/743890

Legacy Collect 1 is "Gold", which means that you have to tweak a couple things and it runs basically perfectly.

As an aside, the rate at which Proton and the Deck get updated for compatibility is honestly so freakin impressive.

I'd be hesitant to limit myself to the specs of a handheld for playing on a TV. It's an impressive handheld, and always improving as has been said, but the main feature is portability.

AbsoluteUnit posted...

The best website if you're curious about Deck compatibility is ProtonDB:

https://www.protondb.com/app/743890

Legacy Collect 1 is "Gold", which means that you have to tweak a couple things and it runs basically perfectly.

As an aside, the rate at which Proton and the Deck get updated for compatibility is honestly so freakin impressive.

Oh nice, this is a good resource. I've usually just been checking the Steam forums for each specific game, there's almost always a thread about Deck compatibility.

paperwarior posted...

I'd be hesitant to limit myself to the specs of a handheld for playing on a TV. It's an impressive handheld, and always improving as has been said, but the main feature is portability.

More on topic: I love my Deck but agree with this. Aside from portability, the other big plus for me has been that generally you just click on a game and it works. There's rare exceptions (like the Mega Man collections we've been talking about above) but it feels closer to console gaming than PC gaming. I can't deal with the fiddly-ness of PC gaming and don't need a powerhouse for the games I play so it's been perfect for me.

Steam Deck for sure. I feel like Series S is gonna struggle with a lot of late gen games, plus the library is much bigger.

XBox is only worth it if you subscribe to Game Pass, which is $16.99/month.

Steamdeck

and get the oled tbh

RikkuAlmighty posted...

Steamdeck

and get the oled tbh

What's the advantage of the OLED if you're just gonna use it docked?

Oh just docked?

then regular lcd is probably fine

So not just docked, but it'll probably be a good bit of my playtime. I hardly ever use my Switch as a mobile console anymore, as an example

particularly for bigger games I prefer having it displayed on the tv instead of on the mobile screen

Why not spend $1200 and build a pc that's many times better than the Steam Deck if you aren't going to use it for portability

You could even opt to get a prebuilt for $1000 that's a much better value than the Steam Deck.

GranzonEx posted...

$1200

You get what you pay for. Your $1200 pc will last you much longer than either Series S or Steam Deck.

It's been said that the Steam Deck OLED has better performance. I think the RAM is the only difference when outputting to a monitor, but that's something. I still think it's kind of questionable. You're paying for the form factor and losing performance vs. any kind of non-portable PC. I was also expecting it to have the reliability of a console when I bought it, but it doesn't exactly. It's a handheld PC with some specific advantages toward running games. It's possible you could buy a PC for less than the cost of a Steam Deck that would serve your purposes better. Is space a concern? If you don't have a spot to put a desktop near your TV then maybe the form factor does help.

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1735007247519076701

If you're still deciding, this is maybe relevant