Hey all, sorry in advance if this kind of post isn't welcome in this community. I wasn't really sure where to post this question and I didn't see anything in the rules against text posts or questions. If there's a more appropriate place to post I'll take this down and repost somewhere else.
With the recent price hikes of game pass, Microsoft's general inability to publish good games, and a deep loathing for AAA studios obsession with milking me for every dollar I have while delivering uninspired, broken slop, I've cancelled my game pass subscription and started considering PC gaming. I'm still on the Xbox one and haven't bothered to get the one X due to these issues. I'm due for am upgrade and don't feel particularly thrilled at the idea of spending that much money on a console that has little to offer.
I don't have a lot of money, but I do have enough to afford a modest build (600-700 USD.). But with all the praise and broad support that the steam deck has been getting, I'm wondering if my money may not be better spent on getting one and using the extra for a dock, some peripherals, and a start to building my library. The steam deck would be living most of its life docked and plugged into a monitor. The fact that it's a capable portable gaming machine is, for the most part, a bonus to me.
I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Is a steam deck a viable alternative to a budget gaming PC?
I do far too many other things with my desktop that I don't care to even try to do with my steam deck. I know the deck can dock and stuff but it's just a 15w chip... I am not going to be doing much on that. I often multitask on my pc, watch yt, write, be in Discord call, work in Photoshop, I play ttrpgs online, I could go on. Steam deck just cannot do all that I need it to do if I absolutely had to pick one.
Fair enough! In my instance the PC would be almost entirely dedicated to gaming. My day-to-day computer stuff is either done on my phone or my laptop. I don't really do anything that can't be handled by either of these
Even if it was 100% purely for gaming, I'd still pick the desktop. I have a fairly powerful desktop now and that didn't all happen at once. You can upgrade a desktop, every single aspect of it. You can barely upgrade a steam deck at all, and it already feels dated in some games, and other games cannot run on the deck at all.