Friday, Mar 4, 2022 • 17min
We Wish Steam Deck Didn't Suck - Inside Games
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I wish Gaben would deliver Half Life 3 to my house instead.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/insidegamesYT
Lawrence: http://twitch.tv/sirlarr | Bruce: http://twitch.tv/brucegreene | Charlotte: http://twitch.tv/whatashow
Edited by: ShooklynTV
https://twitter.com/ShooklynTV
Written by: Lawrence Sonntag
Sources --
[GeekWire] Check out Gabe Newell’s insane knife collection - https://bit.ly/3sDVuM8
[YouTube, Linus Tech Tips] The Steam Deck is Incomplete - https://bit.ly/35Iv4Qq
[YouTube, The Verge] Steam Deck is a glorious mess - https://bit.ly/3IIU4po
[The Verge] Steam Deck Review: It’s Not Ready - https://bit.ly/3sHogM5
[PCGamer] Steam Deck Review - https://bit.ly/3HESfsi
[reddit] Experiencing stick drift on the right stick already… - https://bit.ly/3pvTEuX
[reddit] Valve's response on my stick drift/deadzone ticket. Firmware update which fixes calibration! - https://bit.ly/3vCGXlW
[The Verge] Bungie rejects Steam Deck’s Linux, threatens to ban Destiny 2 players there - https://bit.ly/35qZzdT
[Twitter, Time Sweeney] https://bit.ly/3Mfve2B, https://bit.ly/3MpCJ7g
[Ars Technica] Why the Steam Deck might be too “open” for Fortnite and Destiny 2 - https://bit.ly/375wRzT
[PCGamer] Look, it's Elden Ring actually running on the Steam Deck - https://bit.ly/3vD68Vd
[PCGamer] The Steam Deck is already the emulation system of my dreams - https://bit.ly/3MpCGs6
[Eurogamer] Steam Deck Nintendo emulation videos are disappearing from YouTube - https://bit.ly/3pA2sju
[Steam] Aperture Desk Job - https://bit.ly/3KejJGF
[Axios] Interview: Valve on the making of Steam Deck - https://bit.ly/3KiZwQf
[Game Developer] Newell: Valve in development on 3 new VR games - https://bit.ly/3Mxx2nR
[GamesRadar] Steam Deck 2 is already being planned out by Valve, and it will be even more powerful - https://bit.ly/3vyukIB
Music:
Switch It Up - Silent Partner https://youtu.be/r_HRbXhOir8
Get Back - Silent Partner https://youtu.be/iQYmgOrPEvs
Kula - Topher Mohr and Alex Elena https://youtu.be/0bywp0qTVNo
Walking the Dog - Silent Partner https://youtu.be/8lAx7o9wv_k
Funk Down - MK2 https://youtu.be/SPN_Ssgqlzc
Read more
Talking about
Speakers
(3)
Bruce Greene
Lawrence Sonntag
Charlotte Avery
Transcript
Verified
Break
Bruce Greene
00:09
Welcome to Inside Games, the only gaming news channel brave enough to say the
Steam Deck
rocks, but it also sucks at the same time.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
00:15
It's very brave to say both sides of the issue.
Share
Bruce Greene
00:17
That's not brave at all.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
00:18
And it makes it extra brave because I don't think either of us have even touched one.
Share
Bruce Greene
00:21
I have not, I have not touched, I pre-ordered it, but I'm never getting it.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
00:23
I got smudges all over my monitor trying to touch that thing.
Share
Bruce Greene
00:26
Lawrence, I did notice that you said "any of us" instead of "either of us". What do you mean? What's that all about?
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
00:32
Well, Bruce. Just as the gaming world's family of handhelds just grew a little larger with
Valve's
Steam Deck
. So too does our family at Inside Games grow today.Share
Bruce Greene
00:41
I'm so excited to reveal, thanks to your Patreon support, we are proud to introduce our third member of our brave, the bravest gaming team, Charlotte Avery.
Share
Charlotte Avery
00:53
What's up gamers? It's Charlotte Avery.
Share
Bruce Greene
00:56
You used my favorite word, Charlotte, my favorite word is gamers.
Share
Charlotte Avery
00:58
They said we need a cusp millennial Gen Z-er on this show.
Share
Bruce Greene
01:03
Well, we're glad you're here because we're gonna need the help breaking down the launch of I guess it's kind of a launch of the
Steam Deck
. It feels like a weird launch.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
01:10
Yeah, I guess some people have it.
Share
Bruce Greene
01:12
Yeah, I don't know.
Share
Charlotte Avery
01:13
Did the 30 people that were able to pre-order it get one?
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
01:16
I don't have a shipping update yet either.
Share
Bruce Greene
01:17
Yeah, me either.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
01:17
I felt so proud/smug, which is the way gamers should be. When I got my pre-order and still no
Gaben
at my door.Share
Charlotte Avery
01:24
Yeah, I haven't gotten any updates. I also didn't order it.
Share
Bruce Greene
01:27
Oh, well, that's the problem. We're still waiting on
Gaben
to deliver our Gabe gears, but that's not going to stop us from obsessing over Valve's
, chonky portable PC.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
01:35
Yeah, consensus seems to be that while the
Steam Deck
is a really cool ass gadget, it's not quite ready for widespread use just yet. And its weight and its battery life make it not the best portable system. It also falls into a weird middle ground where only a small group of people would really enjoy it to its fullest. Honestly, really, that's code for lazy dorks like us that would rather sit at a couch than hunched over a desk.Share
Bruce Greene
01:58
Yeah.
Share
Charlotte Avery
01:58
Linus Tech Tips
reviewed the Steam Deck
as "fundamentally incomplete", citing a host of annoyances with the system's UI and game stability. At the same time, they acknowledged that Valve
is on the case and rolling out updates all the time.Share
Bruce Greene
02:12
Unsurprisingly, the tuner PC aspects really appeal to
Linus
who passionately praised Valve
for taking "the guardrails off my console and let me do whatever I want with it, understanding that there might be some hiccups along the way and someone finally did it".Share
Lawrence Sonntag
02:23
The Verge's review was a little less starstruck with the techie aspects, calling it a "unfinished, infuriating, unpredictable buggy mess".
Share
Bruce Greene
02:31
Oh jeez, oh my gosh.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
02:31
Yeah, dropping the bombs, in their video review, and they scored it a 6.5 in their written review.
Share
Charlotte Avery
02:37
Chunky UI problems, compatibility issues that come and go, and the general PC experience of needing to fiddle with a game for up to an hour just to get it running like you want. All from the comfort of your toilet.
Share
Bruce Greene
02:47
They likewise point out more fundamental issues of performance and battery life, noting that graphically intense games like Control can drain the battery in under two hours when running at 60 FPS, which is what every gamer wants. Right, Charlotte?
Share
Charlotte Avery
02:59
It's only natural. That's what the human eye sees at.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
03:01
Wait, are we, are we recording video at 60 FPS right now?
Share
Bruce Greene
03:04
We better be, we better be.
Share
Break
Bruce Greene
05:00
Enabling a 30 FPS cap and running more modest games can boost that battery life to around 4 hours. Nobody wants that shit.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
05:07
Yeah, the
Steam Deck
, it's not really quiet either.Share
Bruce Greene
05:10
Is there a fan in it?
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
05:11
Yeah, a noisy one.
Share
05:14
Mild, annoying hum.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
05:16
So I gotta admit, I can feel self-conscious whipping out my Switch in a public place, especially with the volume all the way up. A fan whine is a bit different. Just imagine being on a plane with that thing kicking out that sound.
Share
Charlotte Avery
05:27
I mean, I probably wouldn't notice. I hear a sound on a plane, I'm like, it's two things, something that's supposed to be happening, or we're gonna die.
Share
Bruce Greene
05:33
We're sorry to say you won't get away with playing this in the back pew of church. Even if Uncle Randy's funeral's boring as shit, and you really want to impress your nephews by showing you can actually play literally any PlayStation 2 game wherever you want. Crazy right? PlayStation 2.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
05:47
We've been waiting.
Share
Charlotte Avery
05:48
All that said, the Verge's Sean Hollister is still smitten by the
Deck's
magic, saying, "I can't believe they actually made PC gaming portable, but they did".Share
Bruce Greene
05:56
PC Gamer's review calls the
Steam Deck
, the "turbo-charged Switch Pro that Nintendo will never make" but due to its weight and size finds that "The couch (and bed) really are the only places I'll expect I'll be using the Steam Deck"
.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
06:08
Amusingly, Bruce, due to my weight and size, they're the only places I find myself most days anyway.
Share
Bruce Greene
06:13
Self-deprecating humor aside, PC Gamer's Wes Fenlon, spells out just how heavy this chonker really is, writing "The
Steam Deck
weighs 68% more than a Nintendo Switch and 38% more than the latest iPad. It weighs more than two Switch Lite's or three PlayStation Vita's duct-taped together (unless you use a lot of duct tape). "Share
Charlotte Avery
06:29
As a result of the heft, the weight, Fenlon finds it uncomfortable to hold for more than an hour at a time, opting to rest it on a couch pillow for longer play sessions. That seems like a serious oversight for a console that's ostensibly portable, or maybe a not-so-subtle message from
Valve
that gamers need to beef up their forearms a bit.Share
Bruce Greene
06:48
You gotta do those hammer curls, you guys ever seen hammer curls?
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
06:51
Those are the ones where it's like that, right?
Share
Bruce Greene
06:53
And here I thought gamers have been training for that for decades. Yes, that's right. This is a masturbation joke. It's called a
Deck
. That's what we get, it's like a Cyberpunk reference. Come on everyone.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
07:01
It is, but it sounds like dick. Hey, speaking of masturbation, it seems the
Steam Deck
already has an issue with drifting sticks.Share
Bruce Greene
07:07
What! Already? No, come on! No. Well, it had "past tense". Reddit user, KimJongThorse, posted the video on March 1st. Man, I love KimJongThorse, showing a drifty stick, apparently introduced in a firmware update.
Valve
Support acknowledged and updated the firmware on the same day, fixing the stick deadzones, and removing the issue like that.Share
Charlotte Avery
07:24
Some
Steam Deck
compatibility issues seem to be well out of Valve's
hands though, as high profile games like Fortnite and Destiny 2 have both confirmed they will not run on Steam Deck
.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
07:34
Unfortunately, Bungie hasn't said exactly why Destiny 2 isn't or won't be supported. Probably because they'd have to, you know, claw through the mountains of Sony money they just got, to get to their computers and post about it. They did find the time to say that if you try to bypass their incompatibility warnings, you'll get handed a hot, steamy ban though.
Share
Bruce Greene
07:50
Wow, thanks. Thanks a lot, Bungie.
Share
07:50
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is far more used to wading through piles of cash though, explaining on Twitter that Fortnite is not currently supported on
Steam Deck
because "We don't have confidence that we'd be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones".Share
08:06
I have a computer science degree, and I still am not exactly sure what that means.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
08:09
It sounds like a job for me. Here we go. It's time to get a little operating system talk.
Share
Bruce Greene
08:13
Do it.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
08:13
An operating system is a layer of software that basically manages your system resources. By that, your CPU, your hard drive, your RAMs.
Share
Bruce Greene
08:19
You're putting Charlotte to sleep.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
08:20
Yeah, that's fine. She'll wake back up.
Share
Bruce Greene
08:22
Okay.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
08:22
The part that you see with all the pretty windows and sounds, that's called a shell. Because it goes around the kernel. The heart of the operating system is called the kernel. That's the guts of the operating system that interprets your inputs, talks directly to system components. And it kind of protects you from blowing your computer up, which is nice.
Share
08:40
You tell the shell to do something, the shell tells the kernel to do something, and this prevents you from melting your computer down into slag accidentally. More secure anti-cheat software runs at the kernel-level under the shell, which is really the only place you can authenticate inputs and make sure nothing screwy is going on. If anti-cheat ran at the shell-level, then a user could install software at the kernel-level, have it talk up to the shell-level, and then the shell would think everything's fine.
Share
Bruce Greene
09:03
Makes sense.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
09:04
Steam Deck
, however, runs on a fork of Linux OS that uses the monolithic kernel. Windows runs under the Windows NT kernel. So different kernel, which means the anti-cheat tools they customized for Windows NT won't just work on a different kernel, which means they gotta do some work to move it over.Share
09:20
Moreover, Linux OS supports multiple kernels, including custom ones, and some of them are open source. Meaning there's a way bigger software space to try to test and verify, and that's why you can't just flip a switch and have it work.
Share
Bruce Greene
09:33
Did you get all that?
Share
Charlotte Avery
09:34
I mean, I've received it. I think I'm gonna just kinda chew on it for the next 12-48 hours.
Share
Bruce Greene
09:38
Despite those challenges, Sweeney also tweets that "there's a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with
Steam Deck"
.Share
09:45
Hey, so that's nice, they're trying.
Share
Charlotte Avery
09:46
Ars Technica's, Kyle Orland, goes more into the weeds on the technical challenges of creating a scalable anti-cheat solution for Linux OS, which is an interesting read if you want more technical details on what this all means. Long story short though, Linux's open-source nature means that it would be very, very challenging to lock the system down with any measure of security. Which is kind of the point, but it sucks when you want to play Fortnite against non-cheaters.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
10:10
What if I wanna be a cheater?
Share
Bruce Greene
10:11
There's always Destiny 2 on Stadia, which the Verge's reviewer got working on the
Steam Deck
, or Windows. Theoretically, users will be able to install full-ass Windows on the Steam Deck
, but graphic drivers are not yet available. So we'll have to wait a bit, see how that works out.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
10:23
Yeah, that's not to imply the
Steam Deck
is bereft of games.Share
Bruce Greene
10:26
Not at all.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
10:26
PC Gamer has footage of
Steam Deck
running Elden Ring.Share
Bruce Greene
10:29
That's right.
Share
Charlotte Avery
10:29
Oh, rise, ye tarnished. Touch grace.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
10:33
It is stuttery though. It doesn't run very well. I mean, it doesn't run super great on a desktop right now. So it's even worse on a
Steam Deck
.Share
Bruce Greene
10:39
Yeah, that's true.
Share
Speaker 5
10:39
The
Steam Deck
also, apparently, a goddamn emulation powerhouse. PC Gamer reports that emulators for GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 1 and 2. PlayStation Portable, Super Nintendo, and even the Switch, are all installable directly from the Linux app store, and they largely all recognize the portable's controls, right from the drop. That's very impressive.Share
Bruce Greene
10:58
The
Deck's
battery withstands emulation a lot better than modern PC games too. With Metroid Prime running for a predicted 5 hours and 30 minutes on a single charge, and Persona 3 FES predicting 6 and a half hours. That's pretty good.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
11:10
Just be careful, Bruce.
Share
Bruce Greene
11:11
Why?
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
11:11
'Cause Nintendo hates that.
Share
Bruce Greene
11:12
Oh, oh, sorry.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
11:14
Eurogamer reports that YouTube videos demonstrating Nintendo emulation have just started disappearing from YouTube because of course they have.
Share
Charlotte Avery
11:19
All in all, it sounds like a jittery launch for a gadget that targets a strange demographic, PC gamers that go outside. Nice, excellent dunk. Or as far as emulation is concerned, people that would rather play games from 20 years ago, which gets more understandable as the years go by.
Share
Bruce Greene
11:34
Even if the launch is less than perfect,
Valve
has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to peripheral support, as they continue to push updates for the Steam Controller
and Steam Link
, things that no one bought or ever used, and just honestly Steam
has just had terrible luck with hardware. Even the Index
, which I loved, came and went, I feel like.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
11:52
Yeah, they're trying. Speaking of
Valve
supporting their own devices, they took the very uncharacteristic step of actually launching a game for the Steam Deck
, sort of, calling it a game is a little generous.Share
Bruce Greene
12:02
Aperture Desk Job is a free 30-minute mini-game that explicitly says "Not Portal 3" on its Steam page. It's now available for desktop systems too, provided you use a controller.
Share
Charlotte Avery
12:13
According to comments from
Valve
designer, Greg Coomer, to Axios. There are multiple games in development right now at Valve
, and I think they're pretty exciting ones.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
12:21
I mean, that's cool, thanks Greg. But
Valve
has said this before. Especially when they have a new platform to support.Share
Bruce Greene
12:27
Valve
founder Gabe Newell
dedicated to three VR games back in 2017, when they're like "We're releasing the Index
, it's only $1000". Years later, that turned into only one, Half-Life: Alyx. Which, by the way, I think is probably the greatest VR game that has ever been released, but it's not three.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
12:44
Not three. But I mean, if all three goodness games got smashed into Alyx.
Share
Bruce Greene
12:50
Sure, yeah.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
12:50
But yeah, like recently, they were basically like, yeah, we're not doing that anymore. These new games though. Oh baby, get excited for that.
Share
Charlotte Avery
12:56
So it turns out
Valve
does have the capacity to ship software sometimes, but maybe don't hold your breath for anything with a three on the end of it.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
13:02
That's not stopping
Newell
from talking about the Steam Deck
2. Alright, because Valve
is fine with two. Yeah, from an interview with Edge Magazine and reported by Games Radar, Newell
is already talking about the Deck
as a multigenerational hardware product saying, "The first step is to let you play the great games that exist today. The second iterations are going to be more about: what are the capabilities that mobile gives us, above and beyond what you would get in a traditional desktop or laptop gaming environment? ".Share
Bruce Greene
13:27
I'll tell you what goes above and beyond when we get in a traditional gaming environment, Half-Life-fucking-3. How come we haven't released Half-Life 3 yet, Gabe? Just put the game out.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
13:34
Okay, so there you have it. I mean, what do we think? Will the
Steam Deck
save gaming? Will it broaden the reach of PC gaming to people who are a little more hesitant about the technical aspects? What do you guys think?Share
Bruce Greene
13:45
Charlotte, you are our newest member. So you go ahead and go first.
Share
Charlotte Avery
13:47
I mean, I don't know, I'm not really a big portable gamer, like I have a Switch, but I think I'm in the minority when I prefer it docked. I'm just not a portable person. But I can understand the allure of this, and if I were somebody that was more interested, I wouldn't be so worried about this kind of like misstep out of the gate because with hardware like this, if you release something like this, you're gonna get back some really useful feedback about weight and battery life. And you know, they're a pretty big company, so they can afford to like, have that out there, take whatever losses they need to and develop whatever the next iteration looks like. So I would say it's promising.
Share
Bruce Greene
14:23
I think
Valve
doesn't focus on their hardware enough when they first release it and which is, they like to, they just like to abandon things that don't immediately succeed and that's, I get it, I understand that from a business perspective. But for somebody who buys the Steam Deck
and wants it to be really good right out of the gate, it may not be. And we kind of all, I think we know that by now with Steam
hardware.Share
Lawrence Sonntag
14:45
Well, that's part of just the PC experience, it's the early adopter experience. It's the tech forward wanna like fiddle with things and look at a million menus and install your own OS like, all that's really cool. I don't know that that market is big enough, and I don't think that market was asking to do that on the go.
Share
Bruce Greene
15:01
That's true.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
15:01
So it does seem to be a product that doesn't have an audience right now. That doesn't mean it won't in the future. And certainly having a more console-like experience for the PC, which is something that
Steam
was trying to do back with Steam Machines
a million years ago, Big Picture mode. They're trying to open it up, and I appreciate and celebrate the attempt because the more people playing PC games the better. But I don't think you're gonna convert somebody who just wants to turn on a system and play a game and have it run without issue. I don't think you're gonna convert them into being a PC gamer just by cramming it into a handheld format.Share
Bruce Greene
15:34
Yep, I completely agree.
Share
15:36
All well said. Way to go, panel of people.
Share
15:38
Before we go, we want to extend a massive thanks to everyone that decided to back us on Patreon because that's the reason Charlotte's here.
Share
Charlotte Avery
15:44
Thank you. Thank you.
Share
Bruce Greene
15:45
We have smashed our original campaign goal, which means we cannot only have the wonderful, Charlotte Avery, join us for news reporting, but also we'll be making two news episodes a week, restarting the podcast, and producing more games reviews, and games culture content.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
15:57
Yeah, it's really, really exciting.
Share
Bruce Greene
15:59
Yeah, it's crazy.
Share
Lawrence Sonntag
15:59
Just to give you guys an update on where the channel's going and how we're gonna operate. We're gonna click into two news episodes a week, starting a week after next. So starting on March 13th. Starting with this episode, all our content will also be distributed via PodcastFeed too. We're gonna convert the Talk to the Internet feed, our previous podcast, into a general Inside Games feed. Have our news episodes, podcasts, and other content in there.
Share
Bruce Greene
16:21
Yeah, this is all just the beginning, as we have a lot more content ambitions and can't wait to make them happen. So thank you all very much for helping us on Patreon and Charlotte, man, we are so happy to have you as our third member. So, so happy.
Share
Charlotte Avery
16:33
I'm happy to be back in the swing of things. Gaming news. It's in my blood. My blood is Mountain Dew Code Red.
Share
Bruce Greene
16:38
Oh, I'm Baja Blast.
Share
Charlotte Avery
16:41
We should both see a doctor.
Share
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Lawrence Sonntag
Bruce Greene
Charlotte Avery