This article includes sales estimates for different handhelds from market research firm IDC.
They place total handheld PC sales of the Steam Deck, RoG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw at almost 6 million units for the past 3 years. It’s estimated that the Steam Deck makes up between 3.7 to 4 million of those sales, more than all the other major handheld PC manufacturers combined.
A year and a half ago, I was looking for a handheld gaming device. I narrowed my search down to the SteamDeck and the Switch. In the end, I picked the Switch as I’ve had much more fun and entertainment with the Nintnedo environment vs the PC gaming world. I really, really want to love the SteamDeck and its abilities but it’s just not happening for me yet. Can someone sell me?
I’ve had a Switch since it launched. For the most part, it collected dust - it saw use around certain major game releases and that’s it.
My Steam Deck has completely displaced my high end (well, for 2021) gaming PC - anything that doesn’t run well natively is easily streamed over the network from that PC. I can hang out in the living room watching TV with my partner.
The emulation capabilities have allowed me to conveniently tap back into my entire childhood of gaming, even extending into some titles that I had missed.
The biggest thing has been having access to the entire PC gaming content library. Sales, free Epic games, Amazon Prime Gaming - it’s all there. It’s a far better value proposition than the Switch.