6 mo. ago • 97%

Steam Deck game library now 29% larger than that of Nintendo Switch

www.pcgamesn.com Steam Deck game library now 29% larger than that of Nintendo Switch

Valve's popular handheld gaming PC recently passed 14,200 officially rated games, meaning there's never been a better time to own one.

This is just talking about games approved through Valve's verification process. There are a lot of games that work that are "unverified", not to mention the entire history of gaming available through emulation.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/21835717

PC Gaming @lemmy.ca Steam Deck game library now 29% larger than that of Nintendo Switch

84 comments

It plays way more than that, I play all sorts of "unsupported" games all the time - mostly they run fine or even great (never mind all the emulators lol)

86
- The ProtonDB Decky plugin is so much more useful than the Steam Verified one.
  
  14
  
  I have not even begun to fuck with games outside of Steam yet. My backlog of stuff I want to play is insane. I probably could not play through even just the fully supported games before I died, never mind all the other stuff.
  
  5
- What if you include the switch games it can play? Hehehe
  
  8
Does 29% include the 99% of switch games the deck can play?

50
- Nope.
  
  23
- Given that compatibility improvements can essentially only be expected from Ryujinx now though, does Ryujinx run as well as Yuzu on the Deck? Ideally I'd like to switch to it entirely unless a viable Yuzu successor emerges, but I've heard that it's not as resource efficient in comparison.
  
  8
  
  In my opinion it's not "as good" as yuzu, for now. That said it still runs about anything I throw at it, but yuzu did it better with higher frame rates.
  
  9
  
  Yuzu is better overall, but Ryujinx works weirdly better for certain games. Like, Mario Wonder runs about 40% better for me on Ryujinx for some reason.
  
  3
  
  There's suyu continuing yuzus work.
  
  3
spoiler

asdfasfasfasfas

33
- It has some value as a comparison, some people might be worried about buying a deck because they've heard that some games don't work on it because of linux. But no one would think the Switch is lacking in games.
  
  17
  
  spoiler
  
  asdfasfasfasfas
  
  9
- Given that most game developer don't even target the Steam Deck, it's quite impressive. The Switch and Deck have a lot of junk games too. And both are handhelds, capable of docking to the tv/monitor. While both systems are vastly different, they have lot of in common and people might buy only one of the systems. Therefore comparisons fair or not, are still comparisons people make and decide.
  
  5
  
  spoiler
  
  asdfasfasfasfas
  
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- I dont see why not. Especially with the switch 2 coming out eventually, I think the value proposition of the deck goes up for consumers who might want to make a choice
  
  1
  
  Well I think neither of the numbers mean much since in my opinion a majority of those games on both systems are just slop. So the numbers of available games is irrelevant to anything to me. It would be like stating or bragging about how many words can be made from the alphabet.
  
  6
I wanted to buy a switch for the longest time, but after Nintendo being cunts, I will buy the deck and simply emulate any and all Nintendo games. They don't deserve any less

32
My wife adamantly refused to get a Steam Deck for herself, saying that she would never give up her Switch.

Cut to one year out from buying one for her, and the Switch has been in a bin almost the entire time.

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The steam deck library includes the entire switch library via emulation, so Yeah Obviously. (Ik they're not counting emulation, but my point is that the steam deck is a PC, which makes it much more versatile)

27
- They just talk about Steam games that were verified by Valve's process. So yeah, as you said, it's much larger for people who are willing to do a tiny bit of tinkering 👍
  
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@Fubarberry My one wish is they (Valve, Nintendo, etc.) could make discovery easier and more useful. It takes a lot of effort finding new games to play that aren't the usual major releases and obvious indie titles.

Edit: The two resources I use are https://bestofsteam.com/ and https://steam250.com/

22
- Valve actually does a lot to make discovery easier, compared to Nintendo:
  
  Personalized recommended system based on played games: Interactive Recommender
  
  A dedicated explore list you can go through: Discovery Queue
  
  The numerous festivals: Steam Next Fest
  
  Listings for genres and other categories, examples: Action, Great on Deck, Local Multiplayer & Party
  
  A system where you can follow certain curators and games get recommended based on them: Steam Curators
  
  You really can't say Valve wouldn't do a lot to help with discovery.
  
  7
  
  @thingsiplay I've only been actively using Steam for about a year and wasn't aware of everything you mentioned. I appreciate the detailed reply. That's all very helpful.
  
  3
- I'll check those out. I've been doing the "steam discovery queue" for awhile now though, and it feels like if you do it enough you won't ever miss anything of interest. I think it can work pretty well for game discovery, you just need to invest some time in it every day to get through all the more "common" recommendations.
  
  3
- Thanks for these links!
  
  2
  
  @IDew sure thing! Best of Steam, especially, has been really useful for me when it comes to finding new games.
  
  1
- Steam has a built in discovery queue that contains a list of games it thinks you might like (and it it infinite, so it technically contains every game on the platform)
  
  1
Don't forget about emulation. You can basically emulate anything you like, including Switch games. Ryujinx supports over 3K Switch titles.

19
I don't game much anymore but when I do, I grab my Deck and go snuggle next to the fam while they watch dumb TV and I play dumb old single player games that run beautifully on the hardware.

18
- I haven't touched my desktop in months, but my steam deck usually gets a little love every few days, it really does make it easier
  
  1
Only 29%? The fuck does Nintendo even have on there?

15
- A tremendous amount of bloatware and ports of iOS games.
  
  15
  
  That's not fair. The switch is a great console for indie games.
  
  Obviously, so is the Steam Deck, but that doesn't discount the Switch for having a solid library of games outside of the usual Nintendo shite.
  
  7
  
  To be fair, some of the mobile ports are improved with controller support added to them. It's just frustrating that some of them aren't subsequently ported to PC as well.
  
  1
According to Wikipedia, there are less than 5000 games for nintendo switch, while the Steam Deck is far beyond 10k games.

9
- According to this website, there are about 11k switch games. There are some duplicates on that list though, games which have multiple "editions" will have an entry under each version. For example, Xenoblade Chronicles DE is listed 4 times to cover different regional collectors editions.
  
  8
  
  Thanks you for the clarification!
  
  3
I just hope this kicks off a revolution of not needing stupid GPUs requirements.

7
I like the Deck, but lately been using my Switch again because I like the battery life and the smaller form factor sometimes. I hope Valve releases a Deck that is a little easier to slip into a bag and that can do a bit better than 1.5-2.5 hours of battery life.

I’ll still use my Deck, but in some cases where the same game I want is available on Switch and I am traveling, I will choose the Switch for its form factor.

7
- For me, I have come to appreciate switch lite form factor to be honest. I like the deck too but its too bulky for me personally. I fucking love vita and 3ds lite but small size has it cons such as underpowered cpu, battery etc but damn it i like it fit enough on most pocket and easily slid into bag.
  
  4
- Battery life seems a tad low unless you're playing somewhat demanding games. The Steam Deck does have some power optimization settings you can use to up your battery life, and you can set them on a per-game basis. I haven't played with them myself, but I think they're in the menu that comes up with the ... Button on the right side.
  
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That difference seems far lower than I would have guessed.

Oh. The "verified" status accounts for the difference. That's fair.

My initial mental math was including unverified Indie games I already bought for my PC, most of which happen to work perfectly.

I expect that difference to go up fast over the next few years as more indie devs discover that they don't actually need to change many of their old games to get verified.

5
- Yeah, even the "playable" tag i have to check what they mean by that. Psychonauts 1 and 2 are "playable" but both need you to manually pull up the keyboard and show xbox controls... Like okay? That's all? They play perfectly.
  
  I also downloaded an indie game "tonight we riot" and its not even tested. Want to geuss how well it plays? Spoiler, perfectly fine.
  
  I'm genuinely greatful for steam personally pushing for more games to work well in linux even if the game needs a compatibility layer like Wine or proton.
  
  3
  
  spoiler
  
  asdfasfasfasfas
  
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I really hope to get one of these at some point

5
- I'm tired of waiting for valve and soon will be getting one on the grey market.
  
  2
  
  Waiting for what?
  
  0
Nintendo switch is just a money grab.....they made it so you can't do anything other than play games....they blocked the access to Internet browsers which is where the steam deck excels over the switch......as someone pointed out the games library is far greater than 20 plus percent due to emulators....basically it excels over the switch in all departments, even graphics power is far better......if someone wants to waste thier money on a dud then fair enough.....personally I think the people who say they're going back to switch is the ones who struggle with Linux and give up....

4
- Uhhh yeah of course it's a cash grab, it's a product from a for-profit business. They want to make money from it. Valve is trying to grab cash too.
  
  And eh, the deck isn't better in all departments. It costs significantly more, it's far bulkier, you can't share your physical game cartridges with friends/family, the battery life is worse, couch gaming isn't as refined, detachable joycons are great, the switch is better at split screen gaming especially considering you don't need to buy any extra controllers to do it, etc.
  
  I have a Switch and a Steam Deck, I've played on both for thousands of hours. They're both good devices.
  
  Liking one doesn't mean you have to hate the other one. They're not even directly comparable. Sure they seem similar on the surface, but IMO they're pretty different devices with less overlap than you'd expect.
  
  10
  
  I agree with most of what you said, especially the multiplayer part. I had a switch almost exclusively to play Mario kart with friends. It's just a much simpler experience on the switch especially with the controllers I prefer to use. The one thing I still disagree on is sharing games. You can share steam games, even triple A titles with friends and family. It's not a easy as just handing them a cart, but how many people still buy physical games anymore with how easy digital distribution is. I know I do, because I'm old. I'm glad I did too since that gave me the ability to give my copy of Mario kart to one of my nieces and my switch to another.
  
  1
- This is a really weird rant. Nintendo and Steam operate in two different markets. Nintendo is on the game console industry. Valve is on PC gaming.
  
  Yes, you can play Nintendo games on PC, and by extension, Steam Deck.
  
  But in no way is Nintendo interested in PC gaming.
  
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even more if you account for ahem nes archival sites

3
It doesn’t matter that much as long as Nintendo switch is considered more cool for general public which it still is due to deck being kinda black and nerdish

Is deck objectively better? Sure but the power of social conformity is near limitless as we can see from apple stock valuation

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