I would argue that the Steam Deck's emulation capabilities surpass the Xbox. It might not play the latest games at amazing quality and performance, but it covers a wide breadth of games, far wider than what Xbox supports.
Comment on The Xbox Series S Is More Popular Than The Xbox Series X
manapropos@lemmy.basedcount.com 9 months ago
Makes sense because the Series S is dumb cheap. Only the Steam Deck can compare in terms of value
Phanatik@kbin.social 9 months ago
Vordus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Depends on whether you’re willing to spend $20 to turn your Series S into a devkit, at which point the S can be an utter beast for emulation.
tal@kbin.social 9 months ago
The Steam Deck is more expensive.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Microsoft-SVP-00001-Xbox-Series-S-Game-Console-512-GB-SSD-AMD-Zen-2-3-6-GHz-10-GDDR6-SDRAM-RDNA-HDMI-1440p-Controller-HDR-Capable-DTS-Dolby-Atmos-Sea/1861650659?from=/search
Series S: $274.95
https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck
Steam Deck: $359.10
And that's for the low-end Steam Deck. The nicest one is $519.20, almost twice what the Series S runs.
pory@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Compete in terms of value, not price. The series S gets you Xbox’s current gen game library and a selection of 360 games, and if you’re willing to use dev mode a powerful emulation suite. Deck gets a huge percentage of Steam’s 20-year catalog as one-click installs, most other PC games that don’t use anticheat as slightly more involved installs, every PC game if you want to install windows, and also a powerful emulation suite. Plus it’s a dockable handheld instead of something that needs a monitor and controller.
The series S has better media apps and can be woken up from the couch, though.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 9 months ago
the steam deck is also just a regular ol’ PC so you can use it for non-gaming stuff like making a lil’ drawing on the go, or plug in some peripherals and just… use it like an honestly pretty okay performance desktop.
Desistance@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Steam deck is a mobile PC. That’s infinitely more valuable than a locked down platform device.
tal@kbin.social 9 months ago
I mean, I would rather have a Steam Deck too, but then we're getting into how much people value openness versus price, and that's definitely not a constant.
That said, if I were trying to compare Valve's offering and Microsoft's offering, I'd probably compare a desktop PC running Steam to the XBox, as they're more-physically-comparable in terms of what they can do; the Series S doesn't have one having to pay for mobility.
I still would say that the XBox Series S is going to be cheaper on the low end, though, than a desktop PC. You can get a $279 PC that can play games and a comparable controller, but I'd bet that it'd be more-limited than a Series S.
That being said, Microsoft sells the XBox at a loss, and then makes it back by jacking up the price of games:
https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-says-xbox-consoles-have-always-been-sold-at-a-loss
We know that consumers weight the up-front price of hardware disproportionately -- that's why you have companies selling cell phones at a loss, locking them to their network, and then making the money back in increased subscription fees. I assume that that's to try to take advantage of that effect.
If you wanted to compare the full price that you pay, one would probably need to account for the increased game price on consoles and how many games someone would buy.
Now, all that being said, I don't have a Series S or a Series X, and I'm not arguing that someone should buy them. I have a PC for gaming, so in terms of which system I'd rather have, you're preaching to the choir. I'm just saying that I don't think that I'd agree with the above statement that the Deck is as cheap as the Series S.