Tag Archives: portable

But what about the Steam Deck?

The keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed I failed to mention the the technically-handheld, borderline-portable, Steam Deck in my last retro handheld post. And it’s a curious omission of the handheld that arguably kicked off the portable-computer-as-handheld-gaming-console era that we have today. What makes it downright weird is that I’m arguably part of the ideal target market for the Steam Deck. I have a large, expansive Steam library that’s a mix of triple-A titles (although there’s much less of that these days), some of the most popular indie games, and plenty of releases from years gone by, and yet somehow, I haven’t picked up a Steam Deck in the two and a half years that’s it’s been on sale.

And while there are a couple of reasons for that, including how the Steam Deck isn’t officially available in Australia, so I’d have to import it myself, and if I’m not importing it myself, I’m paying a markup tax to the Australian company that is importing them, which adds to the already significant cost of the Steam Deck, I’m just not sure about the Steam Deck as a product I’m really interested in. The other major reason I don’t own a Steam Deck is that it’s kind of expensive for what it is. It’s a fairly serious investment on the same level as buying a new home appliance, a new graphics card, or even an iPad, all of which you would probably get more use from. If you already have a good-to-great gaming PC, the only drawcard the Steam Deck has for you is being able to play titles portably, and even away from your home.

And the crazy thing is, the specs aren’t even that good. Phones from the same era have high refresh rates 1080p displays, but the Steam Deck is stuck with an (admittedly larger than normal phone size) 7.4-inch, 800p display at 90Hz. But if you compare the Steam Deck to what it can do, then yes, maybe the cost is justified. Being able to play triple-A titles without shelling out for a complete gaming PC is a pretty impressive drawcard indeed.

The problem with doing this, particularly when you already have a great gaming PC, is that playing games portably sounds like a good idea until you realise it’s a compromise in basically every way. Playing away from home sounds like a good idea, at least for the few hours of battery life that you get if you’re playing heavier titles. Sure, you can extend your battery life by turning down the graphics options, but then it becomes a question of how much of a trade-off between battery life and graphical fidelity you’re willing to make. And while you can get perfectly fine battery life if you’re playing lighter, easier-to-run games, you’re really telling me you forked out for an entire Steam Deck so you could play Stardew Valley outside your house? I’m not one to yuck someone else’s yum, but that seems like a pretty wild decision to me.

But none of this is new if you’re a member of the PC master race. There’s always been this dichotomy of what you can run acceptably on your current hardware, and in particular what settings you can tweak to make it run at an acceptable frame rate versus still having enough graphical bells and whistles to make you feel immersed. If there’s one thing Valve really accomplished with the Steam Deck, it was that they put this power of choice in the palm of your hand. Well, hands, given how large the Steam Deck is.

While consoles have mostly been immune from this, in the past few years we’ve definitely seen games that have started giving console gamers the choice between lower resolution, less graphical effects, and a higher frame rate, or a higher resolution, more graphical effects, and a lower frame rate. It’s becoming increasingly more common to see games offer the choice between 4K at 30 fps, or something like 1440p but at 60 fps or more.

What’s interesting about all of this is that if it’s retro emulation I’m interested in, the Steam Deck has been able to play GameCube and PS2 portably since it launched, and I hear battery life when playing retro consoles is even acceptable. Not great, mind you, but acceptable. But one of the major draw cards of the Steam Deck, and why it commands such a high price in the first place, is because it can play PC games. Again, you can do what you like, but buying a Steam Deck for retro emulation seems like a strange decision when there are other devices that can emulate retro consoles just as well as it can with better battery life. Well, one or two, and only since the last year.

But as someone from the Game Boy Pocket generation (I never owned one personally, but friends did), the Steam Deck is huge and ungainly by comparison. Yes, all that gaming goodness has to go somewhere, not to mention the battery to power it all AND get acceptable battery life for what is essentially a smaller laptop, and a lot of the size is dictated by the screen size of the device. But there’s just no getting around just how cumbersome the Steam Deck, and most other PC-based handhelds including the ASUS ROG Ally, the Lenovo Legion Go, or the MSI Claw, really are. I don’t think handheld gaming consoles have to be pocketable, necessarily, but I don’t to want to draw attention unnecessarily in public by pulling out a Steam Deck and gaming on the bus/train/plane. It’d be like taking an iMac to a Starbucks. Sure you can, but do you really want to? Do you really want to be that guy?

So when you ask me “what about the Steam Deck?” I say that while it’s may be a reasonable product at a reasonable price, it’s not for me. It’s not even that I prefer playing most games with a keyboard and mouse, or that I don’t have any games that wouldn’t be suitable for playing on it, or even the fact that it’s large, bulky, and kind of pricey. It’s really all of those things, which make it unsuitable for what I’m looking for in a portable handheld console.

Now if and when Valve decide to release something like a Steam Deck mini, I would definitely be interested depending on the compromises that they decide to make for a smaller form factor. But for the time being, the search continues for my perfect handheld console.

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard

Now she was dead…

Alternative title: “that’s not what she said!”

I’ve been thinking about buying a 3DS XL for Fire Emblem Awakening, but Nintendo’s decision to region lock their hardware is making it harder than it should be.

In an ideal world, I’d be able to walk in to any good gaming retailer in Australia, pick up a 3DS, and be on my merry way. And in theory, I can totally do that — provided I’m happy with missing out on a massive (okay, decent) selection of games.

Thanks to a combination of region locked 3DS hardware, strange decisions by publishers, and the very nature of a Japan-centric games company, if I buy an Australian 3DS it means I might not ever get to play titles that are released in the US. That’s crazy.

To be fair, this has always been an issue for Nintendo. I completely understand when games are released for the Japanese market that aren’t available in other regions, as much as I want to play the latest Phoenix Wright or Professor Layton title at the same time Japanese folks get to. I get that titles need to be localised for non-Asian markets, voices need to be re-done, etc. But when titles suffer lengthy delays or aren’t released for other markets outside the US, then that’s when I start to take notice and get angry. Fire Emblem, for example, was released in the US back in February. Europe and Australia, however, didn’t get it until late April — why? What possible reason could the publishers have to delay a title that was already localised for English markets an entire two months after the US release?

No possible reason that makes any kind of sense.

I already own a PS Vita, and for the record, Sony does a lot better on the region locking front for the simple reason that the console and its games aren’t region locked. At all. The US and Australian PlayStation Stores are different regions as you might expect, but I’m no stranger to that — the iTunes Store is exactly the same. If you buy a Vita, you can set it up with the US PSN store pretty easily, and your console will buy and download games no problems. Switching between the two stores can be done, but doing so frequently isn’t practical as it involves a device reset every time. In the year or so I’ve owned a Vita, I’ve never wanted to switch to the Australian PSN, and I can’t see this changing anytime sooner — the game selection on the US PSN is far superior to the titles offered on the Australian PSN, games are released earlier, and they’re usually cheaper, too.

If I want to access a larger selection of games and games released months earlier (and, not to mention, cheaper), then it seems the obvious solution is to import a 3DS XL from the US, right?

Well, kinda.

Nintendo, in their infinite wisdom, also region-lock their games. A US Vita can play Australian-bought games just fine, but a US 3DS will only be able to play games bought from the US. No problem, I can just download them directly from the eShop and call it a day, right? Wrong — I don’t know whether it’s a publisher thing or just a Nintendo one, but for some crazy, insane reason, about half of 3DS titles sold at retail can’t be bought from the eShop. Again, don’t ask me why, because I just don’t know.

In contrast, the PSN offers a much wider selection of games than are offered at retail: not only Vita-exclusive titles, but also PSP ones, PS One classics, “minis”, and the best thing about it is that every title released at retail is available for direct download on the PSN. Like it should be.

So if I do buy a 3DS from the US, here’s how it stands. I won’t be able to buy local titles. No big loss, but it does kill off that instant-gratification factor that comes with buying from a brick-and-mortar. Any game I do want to buy which can’t be bought from the eShop (about half of all the titles available), I’ll have to import from the US — although given the lead times for Australian games so far, any delays in getting the game due to shipping will still mean I get the game before it’s released locally.

My point in all this is that it shouldn’t be this hard. The Vita and its games aren’t region locked in any way, and that’s a massive plus in my book. Anything else is making it harder than it really should be.

Now, if only Amazon had the colour 3DS XL that I want in stock, and if only they would ship it to Australia. But that’s a tale for another time.