What people miss about Steam Deck's "loss" to Nintendo
What people miss about Steam Deck's "loss" to Nintendo
It’s silly to compare Switch 2 sales to Steam Deck sales.
The Switch 2 is a locked-down, vertically integrated platform. There are no ROG Switch 2s. No Lenovo Switch 2s. No Switch laptops or tower PCs with discrete GPUs. If you want to play Mario Kart World, your only option is to buy a Switch 2. Period.
Steam Deck, by contrast, isn’t a platform. It’s just one hardware option—one entry point into the sprawling, open ecosystem known as PC gaming.
Every year, around 245 million PCs are shipped globally. If even 20–25% of those are gaming-focused, that’s 49–61 million gaming PCs annually. Steam Deck is a sliver of that. So of course it won’t outsell a console that’s the only gateway to a major IP.
But that’s exactly the point.
PC gaming is too decentralized for any single device to dominate. The last “PC” that did was the Commodore 64, which sold 12.5–17 million units over 12 years because it was a self-contained platform, unlike modern Windows, Mac, or Linux machines.
That the Steam Deck has sold 4 million units despite competing with every other gaming PC in existence is remarkable. It didn’t just sell—it legitimized a category. Handheld PC gaming is now a thing. That’s why Lenovo, ASUS, and MSI have followed. Even Microsoft is getting in, optimizing Windows for handhelds—something they would never have done if the Steam Deck didn't hold their feet to the fire.
So no, Steam Deck didn’t outsell the Switch 2. It didn’t need to.
It won by changing the landscape.
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So no, Steam Deck didn’t outsell the Switch 2. It didn’t need to.
I don't disagree with the sentiment. I would still consider the Steam Deck a "failure" if it couldn't move enough units to justify its production cost, but it looks like they're still churning them out, so... eh, it's not great but its fine.
I would argue that merely comparing generic PC sales to Switch sales also misses the mark. At the very least, you'd focus on unique Steam installs or Active Steam Accounts if you're really interested in counting the success of Steam relative to Nintendo.
Even then, what you're really competing with isn't "SteamDeck sales v. Switch sales". I'd say its "SteamDeck sales per $1 advertising spent v. ..." Given that Nintendo spent around $730M in advertising last year and Valve spent under $100M, it seems that Nintendo has to spend roughly $50/unit to move a Switch relative to Valve coming in closer to $40/unit.
It's very difficult to compare popularity under two wildly divergent marketing strategies.
But I don't feel that Steam alone accounts for PC gaming.
Even on my Steam Deck, I use GOG, Epic, and itch.io quite regularly.
But I don’t feel that Steam alone accounts for PC gaming.
If we're putting the SteamDeck against Nintendo, I'd say the natural comparison is Steam exclusives against Nintendo exclusives.
Even on my Steam Deck, I use GOG, Epic, and itch.io quite regularly.
Sure. Because it is functionally just a computer with a Valve-branded Linux distro. But there are PC games ported to Mobile. I'm not going to count all Android phones to the "PC" side of the aisle just because I can install Balatro on my OnePlus.
The whole reason the Steam Deck exists is to compete as a portable full sized hand-held console comparable to the Switch. If you're not talking about portable consoles, you're not really talking apples-to-apples. Anyone crammed into the coach end on an airplane can tell you the quality of life difference between a gaming laptop and a hand-held.
If we’re putting the SteamDeck against Nintendo, I’d say the natural comparison is Steam exclusives against Nintendo exclusives.
This makes no sense because as you just mentioned, the Steam Deck is just a Valve-branded Linux distro. Really, what we should be doing is counting PC exclusives. And I say PC because Proton makes the difference between Windows and Linux moot -- Steam Deck plays Windows games, often better than Windows itself.
If we're talking exclusives, there are way more on PC than on Switch.
The whole reason the Steam Deck exists is to compete as a portable full sized hand-held console comparable to the Switch.
No, the whole reason the Steam Deck exists is to play your PC games on a handheld, and do it with a console-like experience.
What I feel you don't understand -- and I can't emphasize this enough -- is that there are games I've always wanted to play on a console that I just couldn't because they required either a desktop or laptop. Off the top of my head, here's just a few:
- Blood
- Septerra Core
- Jazz Jackrabbit
- Fate
- AquaNox
You know how many times I wanted those games to get ported to console? Decades later, it still hasn't happened.
What the Steam Deck does is make games that were previously inaccessible -- available on handheld and TV (via dock).
If we're putting the SteamDeck against Nintendo, I'd say the natural comparison is Steam exclusives against Nintendo exclusives.
I disagree. It would be more accurate to say:
If we're putting the Steam Deck against the Switch 2, the natural comparison is between Switch 1/2 compatible games, without jailbreak, versus any game that works on the Steam Deck hardware be it Linux Native, with wine/Proton and any emulator that runs games minimum original frame rate with minimal issues.
Bear in mind that the Steam Deck is a handheld Linux computer, and anything that will run on the level of hardware it has and plays nicely with Linux will run on the Steam Deck.
Even just with only installing Steam on the Deck, as of mid-May there is 18k Deck Verified games.
It's a handheld PC, a new product category. The switch isn't competing with it, it's just a toy.