I wrote an article like this a couple of months ago. When everybody, instead of arguing about the potential capability of the steam deck instead of playing one from hours on end like pure weeb fanboys waited for that letter and checked their porches every day for this thing like covert psychotics. Truth be told there are other choices. You most definitely could pick up one of these thief boxes that cost as much as a desktop pc, which by the way if you consider to do that since the manufacturer has to innovate that much more and engineer the factors of production so that something a fraction of the size that its supposed to be operates correctly... It sounds like a fools errand doesn't it? If you don't have the cash but you're willing to learn and your friends are genuine then that right there, no matter how cost effective the steam deck is compared to it's competition, is the way to go. The desktop wins hands down, made him, and if you drunk enough smooth tequila reclining in a gentleman's lounge somewhere north of el segundo Sith Master Newell would admit this to you.

The products pictured above aren't steam decks. They are nintendo OLED switches fitted with ergonomic rubber cases which, I believe, makes them, if not as comfortable, close to as comfortable as a good number of handhelds on the market. Probably because of established relationships, Nintendo decided to go with Hori but I believe Mumba makes the superior product because it can be docked without removing that case... and if you spend the extra $20, $30 dollars fitted once more, again without removing the ergonomic case, into a feature rich carrying case which seems to me to be even more effective at protecting it from a fall than the complimentary one offered with the steam deck.

Now let's get this correctly. The case you see in the picture above and in the blog picture is for improving the ergonomics and sturdy feel of the device alone, if you want extra protection in addition to the extended warranty you bought, purchase the case, also manufactured by Mumba and perform a little introspection as to why you are deriving so much pleasure from a device with what basically is a five year old tablet chip driving it. Ask yourself what alchemy this company has access to that enables them every time they create an ip. and then run back to your overpriced theif boxes. The first one, which any game fanatic could tell you is the the reason behind remakes and regardless of the deservedness, for some masterpieces of programming, the lack thereof. As the son of an absolutely average homogenous engineering, public transportation mechanic who was happy to drive his "sunday car," if you know anything about that compared to a nut who refuses to drive anything without a stick. Why do car fanactics use dynamos and tweak their engines? That's a tangent don't answer it. Regardless of the horsepower of the engine, there are still factors that play a role in how well it runs. It's not all theivery, to an decent extent, a game is only as efficient as its code... for that iteration of it, and that system it's running on. So Mr. Phil Spencer at the conference when he promised full backwards compatibility earned himself a shitload of headaches and needed an ambivalent outlet, maybe even a mentor.

The very short, obligatory open source, explanation from wikipedia

"Nintendo Co., Ltd.[b] is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.

'Nintendo was founded in 1889 as Nintendo Karuta[c] by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards. After venturing into various lines of business during the 1960s and acquiring a legal status as a public company, Nintendo distributed its first console, the Color TV-Game, in 1977. It gained international recognition with the release of Donkey Kong in 1981 and the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Mario Bros. in 1985.

'Since then, Nintendo has produced some of the most successful consoles in the video game industry, such as the Game Boy, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo DS, the Wii, and the Switch. It has created numerous major franchises, including Mario, Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Kirby, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Star Fox, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Super Smash Bros. Nintendo's mascot, Mario, is internationally recognized. The company has sold more than 5.4 billion video games and over 800 million hardware units globally as of 2022.

Nintendo has multiple subsidiaries in Japan and abroad, in addition to business partners such as the Pokémon Company and HAL Laboratory. Nintendo and its staff have received awards including Emmy Awards for Technology & Engineering, Game Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, and British Academy Games Awards. It is one of the wealthiest and most valuable companies in the Japanese market."

Ask yourself how such a relatively small, always the underdog, company... even when their wrong and doing stuff like the wii u debacle of splitting the video between the controller and the tv which, thank you for the correction my Lord was probably an empirical exercise that resulted in the underpowered creative powerhouse which is the switch... I have to say again, even when they're wrong, they're right. So here comes Microsoft, typical Americans, diddy bopping through the lunchroom looking for nerds to relieve of their lunch money... and even if it is a money thing, even if I'll never have a steam deck, even if at 5"4' I'm too small to game on one comfortably. Even when the man is wrong he's right, you remember Half-Life and the squeeze he put on you if you wanted play it, come to find out your computer couldn't ever boot the thing. Even when he's wrong, he's right... keep walking.