The switch did.

All handheld, all the time.

The steam deck means it’s less painful, and I can play more complicated games. My switch is basically untouched since.

Games are same and playtime is same. Linux gamer even before steam deck.

My neck is more often sore.

• Not really, but what device I play on has changed, more Deck now than main gaming PC.
• I play more indie games and single player games now. More emulated games like my old GBA ones mostly.
• Mostly same times, late lol. But around the house far more because of the portability.
• I play much more casually now. Less sweaty competition online, more zone out & chill games.

Ironically enough, it’s led to me playing more games on the living room television! The steam deck helped me adapt to playing with a gamepad, as opposed to mouse and keyboard.

Until they come out with a Steam Controller 2, I will say the best gamepad for steam is the Dualsense (a Dualshock 4 also works). It’s got one touchpad instead of two, but Steam lets you map the left and right half separately, which covers my primary use cases. I also installed the RISE4 remap kit, a hardware mod that adds paddles on the back of the controller which can mimic any face button. Not as good as having actual new buttons, but it does mean I can run and jump without taking my thumb off the right stick.

My first machine was a commodore 64, then Nes, SNES, Master system, Megadrive, N64, OG Xbox then Stopped gaming after the Xbox 360 end of life. Don’t have time to get setup in front of a TV or monitor or the inclination.

The switch came out and I got a chance of one cheap. Bought it loved that I could pick it up put it down and lock it so it was exactly where I left the game last time. BOTW was great played Skyrim again then got bored of the gimmick games with not many adult titles and Nintendo’s poor updates. And the joycons are completely shit.

The switch languished in a drawer for ages then I gave it to my 7 year old nephew.

I heard about the deck taking preorders so got my name down.

As someone who primarily plays 5 year or older RPGs it is an absolute dream machine. I can play it at work when I’m quiet, I can play it with the TV on in the background, I can lie in bed with it.

Put it this way if I broke the deck right now I’d go out and buy another tomorrow.

I really hope there will be updates to get starfield playable.

I will never go back to consoles that aren’t handheld again.

I play way more retro games due to packages like EmuDeck being so slick.

I’m playing a whole lot more GameCube games again

I’ve started playing PC games again! Previously I’d lock myself away in my gaming room at my PC and my partner and cats would never see me, so I stopped doing that. Now I can sit on the couch with them and game while we watch a show together. I also play games on my lunch at work, being able to play Starfield during downtime has been a dream come true.

I’ve played my Steam Deck exactly once since I bought it when it first released.

I take over the TV less on weekdays when I need me time after work. Means more time with my wife so it’s a win.

I’ve been playing on planes, airports, beach, outdoor.

But not much at home. There I still use the PC.

I went from buying and never playing PC games to playing them pretty often.

My gaming PC is in the basement. I rarely find the time to hole up down there with kids and family life. But I can hang in the living room on my couch and play now. Game changer.

I play so many more platformers and 2-d bullet hells. I never enjoyed the latency of a wireless controller, or the inaccuracy of wasd inputs, and wired controllers are a pretty big no no in my house (we love our animals more than our electronics, but electronic loss is so hard to handle), the steam deck is great with most games native controller support, and the community layouts make most non natively supported games work wonderfully.

I just wish it had a built in kick stand, I bought a little stand for it but the deck is just a bit too heavy when it’s almost vertical.