this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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What people miss about Steam Deck's "loss" to Nintendo (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 days ago by atomicpoet@lemmy.world to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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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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[–] Donjuanme@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I mean...

I haven't read anything about a console "beating" my deck, I've not really kept up with consoles since getting my deck.

I'm not upset if something sells more than the deck, it's a different environment, should I be annoyed i-phones are more popular than the deck?

I don't think Nintendos success will have any bearing on the next deck, be it design, marketing or release window, if anything the Nintendo coming out right now is great holdover/low market time between the deck and whatever comes next. If anyone was looking to buy new hardware right now it would be apt to compare the two products as the Nintendo would probably have better hardware, even though the product you get is so much different that 9 times out of 10 the honest & correct answer is 'deck'.

Whatever is driving this theory/controversy is baiting for your attention. I'd recommend taking it with a grain of salt and focusing on the bigger issues right now (especially if in America)

[–] dark_arc@pie.packetloss.gg 3 points 3 days ago

Yeah that's a good grounding point; there are too many things out there that seek to sow division with "hot takes" and a lot of them are highly ignorable.

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

This is a gaming comm. Not a politics one also the switch 2 Is more like a sidegrade to the steam deck.