Yes there is, you’re just used to it. There’s all the Windows 11 annoyances, anti-virus, fiddling with controller setting and blue tooth, GPU drivers, DirectX crap. It’s easy for you but if your tech experience is basically just turning on your phone then that is a lot.
None of those are things people have to deal with except in very rare circumstances. All the driers are basically handled by windows update or are already in the kernel.
You do not need to do anything with antivirus these days.
Windows 11 makes you sign into an account, so do the consoles.
Pairing a Bluetooth controller technically is something you need to do, but let’s be honest. Is it really challenging?
All those things you have to deal with at least once.
So for someone who doesn’t know how to do any of them, it is a barrier of entry. Why should they learn when they could just buy a cheaper box and be done with it?
All the driers are basically handled by windows update or are already in the kernel.
Eh… There was an issue a while back with Nvidia drivers causing all sort of issues and requiring a rollback. While it’s not something you would have to deal with often, from the perspective of the technically inept, that one tine they may have to do this would ruin their day and also whoever they’re calling for support.
The average person is far less competent with technology than you may think.
This is still a stretch. Don’t consoles also have issues like this? What about the red ring Xbox 360s? Didn’t ps3 have issues with Skyrim saves becoming corrupt?
Can’t say I’ve ever had any of those consoles, just playing devil’s advocate here. Personally as a PC gamer who’s been called on for support countless times for driver issues, launcher issues and what not, that’s all I can attest for.
Once you set up a console it’s pretty much hassle free after that, compared to a PC which needs variable amounts of fiddling per game.
On console you simply buy the game, download it and then play. If you must know how it runs you can find that on youtube/forums/reviews etc easily for the vast majority of games.
On PC unless you have the top line specs you need to research how the game will run for your specific hardware. There may not be any public details depending on how common your specific hardware is, how recent the game is, etc. Then you need to understand the spec list, which implies you know about CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD concepts & the hardware generations to know a rough estimate of performance comparing your PC to the spec list (if the developers bothered to put a note with the expected performance of the minimum & recommended tiers, which not many do.)
Let’s say you don’t give a shit about all of the above. You go ahead and just buy and download it. It may come with a stupid launcher that you hate. Especially if it automatically sets itself to run on the startup and/or needs you to have an account. Then you need to also fiddle with the launcher to make it work as you want.
Once you finally start the game you’ll have to tune the settings if you want more FPS, or the game looks bad. There you gotta know about resolutions, vsync, models, shadows, render distance, postprocessing, etc. You may not know what these do since it varies per game and its engine, so it’ll be a bunch of trial and error.
Finally you also need to deal with tweaking the mouse and keybinds (unless you buy separately a console controller).
There’s more technical troubleshooting that goes beyond the scope of the typical tech illiterate human than you’d think. There’s a reason IT support requires no education and still pays decently well, because way too many people can’t troubleshoot at all.
That is the thing, consoles don’t experience issues for the user, like ever.
If they do encounter an issue, it is up to the developer to fix them, not themselves.
If it is a hardware issue, they just bring it into the shop where they bought it or buy a new one.
That is the power of having standardized hardware/software. You offload every single technical knowledge you should posses in order to use it to the companies.
It is the same with cars. Some people like to tinker with it. Others are afraid they will make it worse if they do anything themselves, including changing oil.
Call of Duty 2025 (whatever they’re calling it these days)
R6 Siege
Monster Hunter Wilds
PUBG
F1 2024
FC 25
Madden 25
Those are just a short list of popular titles that cannot be played on the deck, and in the case of BF and COD this year, possibly on your PC without tinkering. I don’t play most of these titles, just MH Wilds. I do know a LOT of people do play them though.
Consoles satisfy the lowest common denominator which covers most people. They’re easy and just work. Buy the game on a disc and put it in your PS5, let it update and you’re off to the races and very unlikely to have issues.
Windows PCs require minor tinkering from time to time, but they do need tinkering. Driver autoupdates in windows and you start crashing? Yeah, that’s happened a couple times in the past year. I had to get optiscaler going to keep framerate as well as settings high despite having very powerful hardware in Expedition 33 this year in windows, and it’s not even particularly demanding perf wise.
The deck though has tons and tons and tons of titles that need a little bit of poking or prodding, I love mine but it’s got many limitations. I’ve got games that just aren’t properly recognized by gamescope and thus no perf overlay works. After tinkering on linux i’m pretty sure this is a proton issue where it doesn’t properly recognize the game vs a launcher or anticheat.
I game a lot. I have a 9800x3d and a 9070xt running Pop OS (linux) and I can play basically anything I want to play, but it’s certainly not everything. I definitely need to tinker to get stuff to work on Linux, but it’s fairly painless once you figure out you need to carte blanche apply a pulse audio 60ms setting, and you get a good proton switcher to go between cachyos/GE/Proton latest/Proton Experimental versions depending on the game to find one that works without extra tweaking. It’s not easy for a layman, though anyone who has been a PC gamer and has built a couple of systems can probably manage it with a heap of patience and a dual boot config to fall back on when patience fails.
There’s no doubt that the steam deck has made linux more approachable than ever for gamers but it’s hardly a perfect implementation. All PCs require tinkering, and windows sadly is still the easiest among them. It is nice seeing a green checkmark on the deck for a game, but as i’ve seen with Eternal Strands this year, that’s hardly a guarantee that the game will be enjoyable without tinkering if at all.
I mean sure, but should we also list all the games you can’t even purchase on consoles?
The “poking and prodding” is literally just settings that you are locked out of on consoles. Literally just purchase games that are verified steam deck compatible, and you’re golden.
If you can’t even purchase a game on a console, you will never struggle to get it to run or pick it up at retail only to find when you get home that your TPM/secureboot config isn’t up to snuff, which is the bleeding edge trend.
I wish the verification process was bulletproof, but it’s not. Stuff like Eternal Strands get released and manage that coveted green checkmark, but end up performing poorly and looking like hot garbage. Looks and plays great on a normal PC though.
Generally the verified deck games are great but the verified profile for that game just… isn’t. It’s certainly playable, but the framerate drops are frustrating in a game that isn’t very easy. There’s no particular objective measurement that gives a game a certain level that i’m aware of.
Then there are games that are given a black mark of “unsupported” by the Steam Deck verification system but run wonderfully like Ghost of Tsushima. There’s a multiplayer mode in the almost exclusively single player open world RPG that doesn’t work on the deck, so it’s entirely disqualified despite being completely functional, absolutely gorgeous and running at very solid framerates on the deck.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the deck and think it’s a giant leap in the right direction with PC gaming, making it a lot more console-like for the plebs. I am realistic for this though. It’s still a poweruser tier device, especially if you want to play niche games or indie titles. The best experience imo is when you tinker and get it to run all manner of programs from competing app stores… and then you’re completely away from the on-rails console-like experience. Even getting chiaki4deck going is a poweruser task.
I get you’re trying to dump buckets of rain on our entire thread here, but can you acknowledge that educating and inviting console users to the PC platform is beneficial for those users and the community as a whole?
There are definitely those who you can’t teach, can’t convince, who are too stubborn to believe there’s any other way than paying eighty dollars for games and spending hundreds of dollars on already obsolete hardware with a mandated walled garden.
However, there are many users who are simply not educated rather than inept, and when you show them the benefits of the PC ecosystem (Steam sales/alternate store platforms, no online fees, modular hardware, etc…), it is entirely possible to convince people to convert (I’ve done so myself), and they find joy in learning.
Additionally, there are solutions to the problems you listed that aren’t a flat out “won’t run” (Windows 10 IOT Enterprise LTSC comes to mind for a less bloated experience for those locked games, for instance), and while no solution is perfect, let us not make perfect the enemy of good here. Console users are fed up with their circumstances. Let us inspire them to join the other side, not feud.
I’m not trying to rain on anything. I’m just injecting some reality. It’s very approachable but you have to know how to research solutions occasionally, which is a pretty low bar. Nothing is flawless, not even consoles.
The deck is an amazing thing that is making PC gaming way more approachable for countless people all over the world. It’s something with a lot more support than any typical gaming PC build.
ProtonDB/Proton has been an amazing resource for streamlining gaming in the linux world, which I believe is the future of gaming some day.
Console gaming is also easy for casual gamers and people who don’t want to fiddle with tech.
I don’t think there is really much fiddling these days. It’s probably about as much as setting up a console.
If you build your own, then sure that’s more work. But people can buy prebuilt, laptops, or handhelds.
Yes there is, you’re just used to it. There’s all the Windows 11 annoyances, anti-virus, fiddling with controller setting and blue tooth, GPU drivers, DirectX crap. It’s easy for you but if your tech experience is basically just turning on your phone then that is a lot.
None of those are things people have to deal with except in very rare circumstances. All the driers are basically handled by windows update or are already in the kernel.
You do not need to do anything with antivirus these days.
Windows 11 makes you sign into an account, so do the consoles.
Pairing a Bluetooth controller technically is something you need to do, but let’s be honest. Is it really challenging?
All those things you have to deal with at least once.
So for someone who doesn’t know how to do any of them, it is a barrier of entry. Why should they learn when they could just buy a cheaper box and be done with it?
Eh… There was an issue a while back with Nvidia drivers causing all sort of issues and requiring a rollback. While it’s not something you would have to deal with often, from the perspective of the technically inept, that one tine they may have to do this would ruin their day and also whoever they’re calling for support.
The average person is far less competent with technology than you may think.
This is still a stretch. Don’t consoles also have issues like this? What about the red ring Xbox 360s? Didn’t ps3 have issues with Skyrim saves becoming corrupt?
Can’t say I’ve ever had any of those consoles, just playing devil’s advocate here. Personally as a PC gamer who’s been called on for support countless times for driver issues, launcher issues and what not, that’s all I can attest for.
Steam Deck is as easy as any console, at least
No it is not. Computer gaming is easy peasy these days see my above comment.
Once you set up a console it’s pretty much hassle free after that, compared to a PC which needs variable amounts of fiddling per game.
On console you simply buy the game, download it and then play. If you must know how it runs you can find that on youtube/forums/reviews etc easily for the vast majority of games.
On PC unless you have the top line specs you need to research how the game will run for your specific hardware. There may not be any public details depending on how common your specific hardware is, how recent the game is, etc. Then you need to understand the spec list, which implies you know about CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD concepts & the hardware generations to know a rough estimate of performance comparing your PC to the spec list (if the developers bothered to put a note with the expected performance of the minimum & recommended tiers, which not many do.)
Let’s say you don’t give a shit about all of the above. You go ahead and just buy and download it. It may come with a stupid launcher that you hate. Especially if it automatically sets itself to run on the startup and/or needs you to have an account. Then you need to also fiddle with the launcher to make it work as you want.
Once you finally start the game you’ll have to tune the settings if you want more FPS, or the game looks bad. There you gotta know about resolutions, vsync, models, shadows, render distance, postprocessing, etc. You may not know what these do since it varies per game and its engine, so it’ll be a bunch of trial and error.
Finally you also need to deal with tweaking the mouse and keybinds (unless you buy separately a console controller).
Before the steamdeck my gpu was an rx 740.
I never needed to tweak settings on a per game basis.
Just go into game options and hit auto detect or select a preset.
It’s really that easy.
before you got a steam deck you hallucinated your imaginary pc with an imaginary gpu?
It is way easier than this to game on PC these days than this person is talking about.
Buy a gaming computer that has good recent ratings across a few sites like Google, Amazon, Tom’s hardware.
Thats its! Lower the graphics settings in the game if you are experiencing issues.
Thats it! Play most all games for the next 5 years before worrying about upgrading.
Then when you do upgrade components be fascinated about how easy it is with a tiny bit of googling how to build a computer/upgrade hardware.
Thats it!
TPM/Secureboot in BF6/Cod 2025
Windows Update Driver Updates -> System crashes
There’s more technical troubleshooting that goes beyond the scope of the typical tech illiterate human than you’d think. There’s a reason IT support requires no education and still pays decently well, because way too many people can’t troubleshoot at all.
That is the thing, consoles don’t experience issues for the user, like ever.
If they do encounter an issue, it is up to the developer to fix them, not themselves.
If it is a hardware issue, they just bring it into the shop where they bought it or buy a new one.
That is the power of having standardized hardware/software. You offload every single technical knowledge you should posses in order to use it to the companies.
It is the same with cars. Some people like to tinker with it. Others are afraid they will make it worse if they do anything themselves, including changing oil.
Steam Deck
Battlefield 6 (also bf2042)
Call of Duty 2025 (whatever they’re calling it these days)
R6 Siege
Monster Hunter Wilds
PUBG
F1 2024
FC 25
Madden 25
Those are just a short list of popular titles that cannot be played on the deck, and in the case of BF and COD this year, possibly on your PC without tinkering. I don’t play most of these titles, just MH Wilds. I do know a LOT of people do play them though.
Consoles satisfy the lowest common denominator which covers most people. They’re easy and just work. Buy the game on a disc and put it in your PS5, let it update and you’re off to the races and very unlikely to have issues.
Windows PCs require minor tinkering from time to time, but they do need tinkering. Driver autoupdates in windows and you start crashing? Yeah, that’s happened a couple times in the past year. I had to get optiscaler going to keep framerate as well as settings high despite having very powerful hardware in Expedition 33 this year in windows, and it’s not even particularly demanding perf wise.
The deck though has tons and tons and tons of titles that need a little bit of poking or prodding, I love mine but it’s got many limitations. I’ve got games that just aren’t properly recognized by gamescope and thus no perf overlay works. After tinkering on linux i’m pretty sure this is a proton issue where it doesn’t properly recognize the game vs a launcher or anticheat.
I game a lot. I have a 9800x3d and a 9070xt running Pop OS (linux) and I can play basically anything I want to play, but it’s certainly not everything. I definitely need to tinker to get stuff to work on Linux, but it’s fairly painless once you figure out you need to carte blanche apply a pulse audio 60ms setting, and you get a good proton switcher to go between cachyos/GE/Proton latest/Proton Experimental versions depending on the game to find one that works without extra tweaking. It’s not easy for a layman, though anyone who has been a PC gamer and has built a couple of systems can probably manage it with a heap of patience and a dual boot config to fall back on when patience fails.
There’s no doubt that the steam deck has made linux more approachable than ever for gamers but it’s hardly a perfect implementation. All PCs require tinkering, and windows sadly is still the easiest among them. It is nice seeing a green checkmark on the deck for a game, but as i’ve seen with Eternal Strands this year, that’s hardly a guarantee that the game will be enjoyable without tinkering if at all.
I mean sure, but should we also list all the games you can’t even purchase on consoles?
The “poking and prodding” is literally just settings that you are locked out of on consoles. Literally just purchase games that are verified steam deck compatible, and you’re golden.
If you can’t even purchase a game on a console, you will never struggle to get it to run or pick it up at retail only to find when you get home that your TPM/secureboot config isn’t up to snuff, which is the bleeding edge trend.
I wish the verification process was bulletproof, but it’s not. Stuff like Eternal Strands get released and manage that coveted green checkmark, but end up performing poorly and looking like hot garbage. Looks and plays great on a normal PC though.
Generally the verified deck games are great but the verified profile for that game just… isn’t. It’s certainly playable, but the framerate drops are frustrating in a game that isn’t very easy. There’s no particular objective measurement that gives a game a certain level that i’m aware of.
Then there are games that are given a black mark of “unsupported” by the Steam Deck verification system but run wonderfully like Ghost of Tsushima. There’s a multiplayer mode in the almost exclusively single player open world RPG that doesn’t work on the deck, so it’s entirely disqualified despite being completely functional, absolutely gorgeous and running at very solid framerates on the deck.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the deck and think it’s a giant leap in the right direction with PC gaming, making it a lot more console-like for the plebs. I am realistic for this though. It’s still a poweruser tier device, especially if you want to play niche games or indie titles. The best experience imo is when you tinker and get it to run all manner of programs from competing app stores… and then you’re completely away from the on-rails console-like experience. Even getting chiaki4deck going is a poweruser task.
I get you’re trying to dump buckets of rain on our entire thread here, but can you acknowledge that educating and inviting console users to the PC platform is beneficial for those users and the community as a whole?
There are definitely those who you can’t teach, can’t convince, who are too stubborn to believe there’s any other way than paying eighty dollars for games and spending hundreds of dollars on already obsolete hardware with a mandated walled garden.
However, there are many users who are simply not educated rather than inept, and when you show them the benefits of the PC ecosystem (Steam sales/alternate store platforms, no online fees, modular hardware, etc…), it is entirely possible to convince people to convert (I’ve done so myself), and they find joy in learning.
Additionally, there are solutions to the problems you listed that aren’t a flat out “won’t run” (Windows 10 IOT Enterprise LTSC comes to mind for a less bloated experience for those locked games, for instance), and while no solution is perfect, let us not make perfect the enemy of good here. Console users are fed up with their circumstances. Let us inspire them to join the other side, not feud.
I’m not trying to rain on anything. I’m just injecting some reality. It’s very approachable but you have to know how to research solutions occasionally, which is a pretty low bar. Nothing is flawless, not even consoles.
The deck is an amazing thing that is making PC gaming way more approachable for countless people all over the world. It’s something with a lot more support than any typical gaming PC build.
ProtonDB/Proton has been an amazing resource for streamlining gaming in the linux world, which I believe is the future of gaming some day.