Yep, you can play games from other stores on the Deck, though we're not sure how finnicky the process is. In Steam I can easily invite friends to games, stream my games to them, or even play certain games with them remotely. Meanwhile, the Deck does everything the Steam client does: voice chat and text chat, friends lists with custom tagging and sorting features, groups to join and curators to follow. Xbox Live was doing it better back in 2004. I have no hope of ever playing a game with my friends on a Nintendo console. Nintendo locks their hardware down, masquerading limitations as conveniences.
There aren't any third-party apps like Discord to install either. Adding friends requires exchanging what amount to phone numbers. To chat with friends while playing Switch games, you need to use Nintendo's app on a smartphone. With the Steam Deck there's no need to pay for online functionality, not that Nintendo's online services are useful to begin with. I'm still in awe of Nintendo's total fumbling of basic online functionality in 2021, a year where fridges and picture frames have better ways to talk to friends.
It's difficult to remember playing games without a vibrant social group to hang with in-game or on Discord, but I often do remember because every time I play a Nintendo game I'm punted back to isolated 1998 gaming. The Deck has better hardware, software, and online features Whether you buy the Deck's base model at $400 or the 512GB model at $650, the OLED Switch at $350 really isn't much cheaper, and you'll make back the difference several times over through what you save on games.
Today, it costs $180 to buy Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, all released over a year ago.Ĭompare that to the last Steam sale, where I put together my own bundle of PC Gamer's Game of the Year winners over the last eight years for $100. Any game I already own and want to play on the Switch means buying the damn thing again, often at a higher price than on PC. Nintendo's first-party games rarely dip below 50% off, even years after release. There isn't a single Nintendo game that doesn't have an equal, or at least a decent knock-off, on PC.īut the best part? Steam games are far more affordable than Nintendo games.
Pokémon has Monster Hunter Stories 2 and TemTem. Advance Wars has Wargroove, Into the Breach, and Valkyria Chronicles. Animal Crossing is covered by The Sims on PC, with indie spins on the life sim genre en route via Ooblets and Hokko Life. Deus Ex, Prey, Cruelty Squad, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and dozens more. The systems-driven Breath of the Wild is basically an open world expression of the immersive sim, which you can play the entire history of on PC. It costs $180 to buy Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, all released over a year ago. There are a dozen great platformers on the PC for every Mario game, from 2D greats like Super Meat Boy and Celeste to 3D takes like A Hat in Time and Psychonauts. Fire Emblem's tactical battles and melodrama are right there in Wildermyth and XCOM. Hollow Knight is a better Metroid game than Super Metroid. (Image credit: Worldwalker Games)Īnyone can find the essence of Nintendo's games on PC pretty readily. The people that grew up playing Nintendo games are just making their own now.