Linux user share on Steam ended 2024 on a high note
Valve have put up the Steam Hardware & Software Survey for December 2024, which shows that the Linux share ended 2024 in December with a nice boost.
Linux 2.29% +0.29%
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I'm always surprised by how small the Steam Deck playerbase is. It has such strong word of mouth, but the niche it supports seems pretty small.
Honestly it doesn't surprise me that much. Steam is such a MASSIVE platform that's been around for 22 years, while the steam deck came OUT in '22.
Arguably the handheld market is also much more of a niche in comparison to a gaming desktop. In the broader context of the size of the platform the Deck is doing pretty good.
The screen is small.
It’s an old person thing, probably, but I don’t enjoy phone sized screens beyond reading and such. I don’t know how people see an Apple Watch well enough to use it comfortably.
Laptop is fine most days but I really want that desktop screen when I can get it.
I can’t imagine Stellaris or AC or even Pathfinder on a phone or iPad mini sized screen. Like TV, most people aim bigger not smaller. I can still have portable games at 15” instead of 7”.
Oled is noticeable larger, on paper it's only 0.4"diagonally but it's obvious having my lcd deck beside my partner's oled one, plus the oled one just looks a lot nicer. I've had more issues personally with some games not letting me scale down the ui, rimworld is totally playable on the deck but I find the interface gets in the way.
Steam deck xl could be an idea but you'd probably have some weight/ergonomics issues. Deck itself already dwarfs my switch lite (and is more comfortable to use...), do find I prefer some games on a larger screen, but it does usually work well at the distances I hold it.
When I play on my Steam Deck, it's less than a foot from my face, so the practical screen size (i.e. what I see) is largely equivalent to my desktop monitor, which is more than a foot from my face. I tend to play laying in bed or on the couch instead of at my desk.
Play demanding games on desktop, and easy to pick up and put down games on the Deck.
Personally, I use mine just like that, except the Deck is mainly an emulation portable since I have the desktop for the more beefy games I play.
Don't knock it 'til you try it as they say!
I don’t know how people see an Apple Watch well enough to use it comfortably.
My sister struggles, I don't (not the Apple Watch, the small screen) . I have a decent set of glasses, she cant be fcuked.. I'm 58.
Steam Deck is on my list for '25
I'm the same age and the screen size is mostly ok. Some games are unplayable because of tiny text, but that's really a minority. My main problem with it has been learning to use a controller, as I'd never gamed on a console and never really used one on my various PCs.
Apart from that, the system is really solid, and the whole thing works great. It's really a great little machine. It's saving my life at the moment when I can't use my main machine (home being basically rebuilt) and I have nothing else to game on (laptop isn't at all suited to it).
I'm finally going to finish Fallout 4... It seems like it was designed for it.
if the small text isn't an UI thing where you have to be able to read it while doing something else in-game (like reading lore or item stats), the steam deck has a button chord for a magnifying feature (Hold Steam button + L1 for default, but can be mapped as a toggle to one of the back buttons or wherever you like) which is enough for a lot of titles.
True. I know about that. It's ok in menus for example.
I was thinking of a game like Lobotomy Corporation which really has a font problem.
Yep, right? We're talking about a pretty small number. Best guesses put it under 10 million lifetime, which is not only dwarfed by Steam's wider userbase, but by all home consoles. It's 10-20x less than the Nintendo Switch.
There are a ton more PC handhelds out there, and the backwards compatibility inherent on PC platforms probably means the share will grow over time... but it's not as big as techie nerds assume.
The Switch is a bad metric to measure against since it's on track to be the highest selling console of all time. Even if they have similar form factors.
Well, no, it seems to me that's why it's a good metric to measure against.
I mean, the Switch invented the big form factor hybrid handheld as we know it. The Steam Deck is a very obvious direct response to its success. Comparing how well the Valve version of it is doing is... actually a really good apples to apples thing.
Except for the fact that the Switch is largely an outlier in terms of total sales when it comes to all consoles and additionally has the benefit of having a strong list of exclusive IPs that require the purchase of the device to (legally) play. It was also a full $100 cheaper at launch than the Deck, allowing it to be sold to more people with less disposable income. And it has the benefit of being the first to innovate from a company with a good reputation for quality. The Deck, on the other hand, will never reach the same level of sale as the Switch, has no exclusives to draw greater adoption, is more expensive, and may be seen as a "knockoff Switch." I think that the form factor is really the only apples to apples aspect of the two devices - there are differences between the two devices that are too confounding for an accurate comparison.
Well, as of right now, as far as we can tell, the Wii U has also outsold the Steam Deck, so there's that.
But man, no, what are you talking about. I hate how confirmation bias-y some of the fanboyism gets. Suddenly "it's a PC, it plays everything" is supposed to be a negative for the Deck? Why? Isn't the case for it supposed to be that you already own tons of games for it up front instead of having to buy them from scratch? Does Valve not have "a reputation for quality"? Since when? Valve and Nintendo may well be the two most recognizable names in gaming, it's not like Valve is this little startup thing.
Seriously, it's fine to put things in perspective. The Deck got great reviews, from what we can tell it's easily the most successful handheld PC out there and it cracked that market wide open, setting the stage for a new PC hardware segment in a way the Chinese handhelds released previously really didn't do...
...but it's also still a relatively niche device compared with traditional consoles and it's an order of magnitude less popular than the device it's chasing, which is the Nintendo Switch, despite being significantly more performant and having a ready-made preexisting library.
It will be very interesting to see how the Switch 2 does and whether it feels any of the pressure from the competition given that it's all but confirmed to still be a hybrid handheld device with similar specs and form factor to handheld PCs. It's not a matter of fanboyism, whether it sells incredibly well again or struggles with heavier competition nobody should be in denial about it.
When did I say that "it plays everything" was a bad thing? I said it has no exclusives. And that's 100% verifiably true. Nintendo is all exclusives. Couldn't give a fuck about Skyrim on the Switch. But I wanna play Mario Kart. So I'll buy a Switch. Sure you could pirate it but depending on how you obtain that ROM then you could be breaking the law. Most parents don't really want their kids doing that, so they'll buy a Switch. And yes, Valve and Nintendo are likely the two most recognizable names in gaming. In gaming. In the surrounding culture at large, who even knows what Valve is? Sure, most people have probably heard of Steam. But your parents still call your Playstation a Nintendo. So they'll buy a Switch.
And I want to make this very clear: I think the Deck is great and, as you've stated, is a huge innovation in handheld gaming. The only point I'm trying to make is that the Deck and the Switch are not readily comparable because of the aforementioned key differences.
As for the Switch 2, I don't think it's going to feel much pressure at all. Again, the presence of exclusives basically guarantees sales. It's why the Wii U sold 13 million units despite its marketing woes and generally being underwhelming. But I also don't think that the Switch 2 is going to see as many sales as the Switch because many won't see a need to make the switch unless the Switch 2 is significantly innovative.
Man, I genuinely doubt that even anyone at Valve would dispute the Switch and the Deck being comparable. They sure as hell are more comparable than a PS5 and a Deck. I genuinely don't understand the impulse to defend this take beyond being contrarian.
But hey, it's good to know that you think exclusives are such a key to success. I guess we can agree that Epic's focus on securing exclusive content is fully justified, then, right? Riiiight?
Fall Guys != Mario, simple as
You're gonna have to make it simpler, because I don't get it.
Is securing exclusives the right way to go about building a userbase or not? Is your argument that Epic is just not having the right exclusives? Because they have the literal biggest game on the planet, so that one's a bit dubious.
It's a combination of exclusivity and IP. Mario, Zelda, etc. are beloved IPs with multiple great games based on them. They're also bound to Nintendo consoles. People will buy Nintendo consoles because they want to play those games. Fortnite, on the other hand, can be played on anything except Linux. It's not driving sales for anything except Windows keys. Furthermore, Epic exclusives aren't even fully exclusive (certain titles barred). Hitman 3 was exclusive on Epic Games for all of two minutes before it launched on Steam.
What it boils down to is that if you own an IP that is in high demand, you can gate that IP behind another product because you have what's effectively a guaranteed market. If Epic pulled Fortnite from Xbox, Playstation, and PC and then released it on the Epic Games Assblaster 5000, I'm sure people would buy that to access Fortnite. Maybe even Fall Guys, though I doubt it.
But, I suppose it could go a different way. Imagine the uproar if Valve released Half Life 3 as a Steam Deck exclusive lmao.
First iterations of a console always start out small. It's the second iteration that has the consumer confidence and you get a boom in sales. If the Steam Machine drops this year. I expect it to sell 10 million consoles in the first year.
