I had some fun with Steam games on Mac, but with recent OS updates, a lot of my library was outright incompatible with the platform, so I got a Gaming Laptop and ended up having a decent enough time, but lugging around a gargantuan clamshell just to play a simple game like Ys wasn’t always practical. See, I’ve used Mac for most of my content, and it’s my go-to for working on this very outlet I run. That’s why the Steam Deck being announced almost right after these rumors didn’t pan out led to the system being a very appealing idea. Sadly, that didn’t happen, and was proven to be a myth. Even games I enjoyed despite the concessions such as Ys IX, felt like they could have been optimized a bit better, but aging hardware has its limits, and the rumors of a “Switch Pro” gave me some hope that a N3DS style bump would come soon to help things out.

Games were coming out with abhorrent performance, low optimization, or just a weird lack of polish, even for games that seemingly shouldn’t have problems. Last summer, things started to get a bit rough for third party titles on the Switch platform. Since my reviews of both Evercade systems did decently enough, I figured, why not cover other fun systems I get my hands on? Thus, I figured since I’ve spent a lot of time with this thing in the past week, I might as well give first impressions and let you all know how I feel from a Linux newcomer’s POV. Release Date: Varies (before the end of Q1 23, if you order now)

Steam deck 64 gb