Steam Deck: This is where our gaming is going, special

Steam Deck

Steam Deck is exposing a great little-said truth among us "seniors": we are changing and it is hard to realize it. Perhaps it all stems from the fact that with PS4 Pro the magical cycle of home generations has been broken and we have realized, once again, that consoles are nothing more than upgradeable PCs. Many of us grew up thinking a console was an esoteric plastic box full of magical, almost alchemical, unknown components, an artifact built in the Far East and capable of spinning crazy exclusives, designed to experience them there and there only.

A little bit, perhaps, it was really like this, then these splendid experiences as unsuspecting children stopped resonating: that approach has disappeared for decades and we, fans of the past, find ourselves running after a gaming always more portable, hit and run - sometimes phoned and even boring - built in checkpoints and autosaves for those who have 20 minutes to play and fall asleep in the evening with the software paused.

Of course we are not talking to the guys who started playing with PS3, but to those who long, long ago pressed keys on a pad, those children of an era where armchair and cathode ray tube, in a room hidden from home, they were simulacra ousted from the clutches of mum and dad.

Valve has thought of it to tickle an ancestral thought, often repressed in the corners of the lives of those with family, work, perhaps a mortgage or an hour-devouring association: despite ourselves, we no longer have much time to sit down and play seriously. And gaming from the sofa, omelette and free belch becomes more and more a mental oasis difficult to realize, desire but not reality.

In this strange summer, a portable PC called the Steam Deck is causing us a great emotional mess, affirming its existence among deniers of downward compromises and enthusiasts who know that either this is done, or the years go by and that infinite backlog bought in twos will stay there forever. Is this the direction of the future of those who come from the dawn of gaming?

PC for everyone

Steam Deck In the end, if we think about it, it is a bit of everyone's desire: who wouldn't want to own a PC with bodywork where they can play well? What if that PC was portable? We remember the first sensations in front of the Switch well: it was January 2017 and knowing that you could play the Nintendo bombs practically at the same framerate both at home and in portability turned on a light bulb destined to remain lit for a long time. The "sofa" element - as we will call it forward - is a splendid, often festive legacy, consistent with an environmental vision of gaming: a nice TV, an audio system, a room where waves and refractions can be propagated, a ad hoc lighting, a comfortable sofa with people around, in short, a way of playing video games open to sensoriality and sociability.

But the world seems to be moving in a much more inclusive direction than those who simply do not have or cannot obtain all this. And maybe he lives with others, or he has children at home and only one TV, or more simply he is still with his parents who use that TV, or he lives in an apartment building with cardboard walls. Here, Steam Deck makes us think of this type of videogame newspaper, in which you can attack an indie or AA title on PC with an emblematic convenience: turn on and play, on that same sofa, but faster, more frenetically, decreasing the romantic factor. of those very long immersive sessions and also making PC gaming, notoriously for a few, something for many.

That this device is not the first, we have already reviewed Aya Neo: being able to play a lot of stuff everywhere with a very powerful device, maybe not so optimized, but certainly a window of a future that goes in that direction.

Clear, having a mouse and a keyboard is not like having to settle for two finger or analog trackpads or keys of a Steam Deck ergonomics frankly very questionable, but the equation of ease of access to that type of gaming , otherwise precluded by factors of reality, is tempting.

Sofa, oh my sofa

Steam Deck How many are willing to bet that, upon reaching that ever-closer evolutionary boundary of graphic limit applied to gameplay, will the game be played on being able to carry that kind of gaming around? The sofa factor could quickly undergo a huge downsizing of video game habits and that gesture of coordinating home technology for a prolonged session can change even more forcefully, evolving into an increasingly hybrid approach. Let's not look at the present, but 10 years from now, when maybe the time will be ripe for the theoretical PS6, Switch 3 or who knows what Xbox and the next-gen element will inevitably have met a technological limit.

Apart from the words and comparisons, the price and the specifications, here we are trying to ask ourselves if, with almost equal playful performances, playing in portability is not the only solution to continue playing video games for the world - and the market - which is taking shape, made up of a lot of work, smaller spaces and lives a little every day. Obviously there will be no lack of experiences capable of making us want the sofa and the TV, but it is a question that is right to ask ourselves, all together, also given the evolution of game design and construction of the videogame increasingly shifted towards a certain type of reading and of gameplay automatisms.

If tomorrow the Switch factor, or the ability - simplifying, eh - to play the same title in the same way in portability or in easy streaming on TV, could be moved to the PC world - also thanks to the Discrete video card issue - how many of you wouldn't jump aboard Steam Deck Pro 3 or whatever it will be fool-mouthed immediately, without wasting time wondering who we are, where we come from, when the exclusive PlayStation or Nintendo comes out have been waiting for years or how much does it cost to renew the Game Pass?

Because it is clear that the biggest problem in the PC world is just making the PC, then having to live with its upgrade costs and its specifications. But let's also say that all this was no longer a discomfort and a cloud that was increasingly developed and simple to use arrived, thus completely untying device from software and linking it only to the ecosystem: if that barrier, made up of a certain static, taken for granted and so dear to us seniors, should it fall magically and your PC library would be enjoyable, great, on a nice 7-8 inch screen, maybe OLED, and a device that doesn't weigh as much as a gym dumbbell?

Steam Deck We repeat it, we do not talk about today, it is still early, but we were already saying it with Aya Neo: it is assumed that we are just at the beginning of the waves of portable PC devices and with the evolution of mobile GPUs , deep learning algorithms and component miniaturization, what kind of accessories will we hold in our hands in four or five years? Will we have the strength and the will to invest money and space for a complete assembly or limiting consoles? There are those who say that once you enjoy quality portability, there is no turning back; Will the PC world be immune to it or will it become a safe haven even for those console gamers whose TV consoles can't enjoy them as much as before?

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