 Several months ago, I did the unthinkable and sold my Valve Steam Deck to buy a Nintendo Switch OLED model. I made a video on it and a lot of people did not like it, which is fair, I understand. My choice was an odd one. My circumstances don't match what most people need. The question is, did I make the right decision? Is a Switch OLED model actually better than a Steam Deck? For me. As you might imagine, it's complicated. On the one hand, yes, absolutely. For the needs of my family, Nintendo does what Valve doesn't. The Switch was entirely the right call. On the other hand, the OLED model's primary unique selling point is entirely wasted on us. That's a big issue, because it does mean that the deck and the Switch are not entirely comparable, and even I, the man who ditched his deck, accept that in many ways, Valve's handheld is the superior device. Fasten your seatbelts then, because if you didn't like the last video I made on the Steam Deck, this one probably won't be any better. Before I launch into this, there is one thing that I want to make clear, and that is that this is my family's personal experience of both the Steam Deck and the Switch OLED. Primarily, indeed, I'll be talking about how my seven-year-old daughter has reacted to both of these handhelds. If you are not a seven-year-old girl, you will probably not see eye to eye with us on this. Our experiences will be different, and that's totally okay. Ultimately, mileage may vary, but from the fellow parents who commented on my last video, it's clear that at least some viewers appreciate getting the dad perspective on which hardware is better around kids. Spoiler alert, it's the Switch, up to a point. But first, the things I miss about the Steam Deck. I miss retro gaming. As I mentioned in the previous video, the one perfect use case for the deck is playing old stuff. It's a downright fabulous emulation machine, and because an awful lot of older games are just right there on Steam, it is the best way to play pretty much anything last-gen and older. The big draw for me was Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 with the restored content mod that actually completes the game. Supposedly, Aspere Media is still working to bring this mod to Switch as well, but they've gone awfully quiet as of late. I suspect that this isn't actually happening anymore. Boo. I do not like Aspere Media. There are more retro games that I would have played on deck if I'd kept it. Half-life and its sequel were high on the list, because I've only ever played a little bit of two out of context and didn't quite get it. Deus Ex might be fun, System Shock I could be persuaded to give a try. The prospect of diving deep into the Steam Archives, playing all the aging PC games that passed me by when they were new and I was trapped on consoles does have more than a little appeal. But then, there's the other side of the coin and this can't be avoided forever. The Steam Deck is fantastic for emulation, it's just tremendously good. I need to point out, nice and loud, that pirating emulated games is a crime. I'm not even talking about playing Pokémon on Steam Deck, catching Charazards or Liliputs or even Sprigatitos on Valve's handheld. Currently, the emulated games that I like to play are homebrew Game Boy titles. Indies made to run on aging Nintendo hardware, which are completely legal. I mentioned before how, while I don't talk about it much on this channel, my absolute favourite type of games are the bedroom code at Indie titles you primarily find on itch.io. The game jam entries, the passion projects with zero budget, the labour of love games thrown together by people who just want to express themselves without concern for monetary gain. Thanks to Chris Maltby's GB Studio making games for the Nintendo Game Boy is incredibly easy and there are some wonderfully innovative things coming out of the Game Boy homebrew community lately. These games can be played in browser on most phones and computers or you can download a ROM fire up retro arch or another better emulator and play these games on a device of your pleasing. Or if you're a real nerd, like me, you'll load these games onto your flash cartridge and play them on proper hardware. It's great. I say this because in discussing emulation on the Steam Deck I want to make it quite clear what my personal usage is like. I'm aware that I'm very much in the minority here that most people who are emulating on the Deck are using Dolphin to play Wind Waker or what have you, games that are a little meatier. My previous video on the Deck got more than a few comments from people wondering why you would ever need a Switch when the Deck can just pirate Nintendo games and I have to say that is not my cup of tea. But the fact remains for all that the Steam Deck is an absolutely excellent emulation device for my personal needs, it's a bit of an overkill. I don't need 16 gig of RAM to play for example Ruby and Rusty Save the Crows. If all I'm doing is playing games that are less than a megabyte in size I probably don't need the Steam Deck. I've begun shopping and this is definitely a video for another time, but I've begun shopping for a perfect emulation machine for my needs. Maybe a Retroid Pocket. Maybe if I'm going really fancy an Analog Pocket. To me though it would feel ridiculous to be playing a Game Boy game in black and white on one of the most advanced gaming handhelds on the market. Hopefully you can see my logic here. If this is the case though why do I feel like the Switch is more suitable than the Steam Deck? After all the Switch can't do Game Boy either for some bizarre reason that makes absolutely no sense. Well as I mentioned in my last video it comes down to the quality family gaming time I spent with my daughter. Splatoon 3 was the game that we needed a new Switch to play properly. We previously only had a Switch Lite and I don't want my 7 year old playing online games on a handheld. I want to be in the room keeping an eye on what she's doing. Case in point? Well whatever the meverse posts are called in Splatoon 3 I don't know I'm too lazy to look them up. Community posts? Whatever they're called we saw not a lot but enough slightly dodgy posts pop up during my daughter's gameplay. Posts that made her scratch her head because why would someone say that? What does it mean? Daddy do you understand what they've posted? I did understand. It was a sprigatito meme. I reached into the settings and turned off community posts. Problem solved. It's a small thing, not the biggest deal in the world but it's not something I'd have necessarily picked up on if my daughter was playing on a handheld. So observing my kid is one thing but the other tremendous benefit of having a Switch that actually switches is that we get to enjoy a lot more time together playing these games. I am a handheld fan. I always have been. It's why I was so certain that I'd enjoy the Steam Deck. I have fond memories of sitting on the couch with my family when I was younger. Everyone else watching TV, me listening to Buffy the Vampire Slayer or whatever all while exploring the world of Pokemon Blue. It was this unique little world, all my own. The small screen made it personal to me. There was a connection that just wouldn't be the same on a big screen. As I've gotten older I've continued to prefer this way of playing. Handheld gaming doesn't monopolize the television. It can be done privately. It can be done while other people are doing other activities in the same room and I can play games I wouldn't want my kids to see. And I definitely still play games like this. See the part of the video a few minutes ago where I talked about how for some bizarre reason I'm still playing Game Boy games in 2022 or 2023 or whatever year this is. But I recently wrote out my family's list of our games of the year and I noticed how, yes, I snuck a couple of solo experiences onto that list, but perhaps more so than any previous year, the biggest gaming moments of 2022 have been family moments. I don't want to give too much away, there's a video on this subject coming in a few weeks, but we've played a lot of games together on the TV and that's been a lot of fun. Perhaps often more fun than my solo handheld gaming moments. And yes, the Steam Deck can connect to the TV and there are plenty of nifty dock options available, but for some reason, and I absolutely cannot explain this, my daughter had absolutely zero interest in the deck. Just none. I was hesitant to show it to her at first because she has a habit of claiming each new gaming device for herself. When I did let her see it and tried to show off a few of the games I was playing, Mickey Mouse in the Castle of Illusion, Horizon Zero Dawn, DuckTales Remastered, she furrowed her brow, then rolled her eyes, and then went back to playing Hyrule Warriors on the Switch Lite. I don't understand it, I really don't. Surely any of these somewhat Disney-esque games would pique her interest? We've got Aloy, the feisty red-head Merida-like, there's Mickey and Scrooge, two adorable cartoon animals having cutesy platforming adventures. In spite of this though, nope, just no interest. The Disney era of my daughter's life is over and she now only cares about Nintendo characters. That's kind of sad, although not that sad as of the two mega franchises, at least Nintendo isn't just remaking the same four stories over and over and over again. The ultimate reason why the Switch is a better fit for my family than the Steam Deck is that Nintendo has really got its claws into my daughter, and for a younger player, the Switch is absolutely the better device right now. It is no competition. The Steam Deck is too much for a seven-year-old, and also not enough. The raw power of this thing and the ability to play Elden Ring on the toilet is just not a draw for her, but the fact that it can't legally play Splatoon 3 in Zelda is enough to make the choice between the two devices very easy. So we've got the Switch OLED model, and we've got the nice fancy Splatoon 3 one, and I very quickly had to accept the fact that the nifty colored Joy-Cons were not going to last. My daughter has already scratched one up, I don't know how she did it, so we've got maybe a year before Joy-Con Drift means I've got to buy new ones. Yay! Just because my family is apparently beholden to Nintendo doesn't mean I have to like it. Because here's the thing about the Switch OLED model in particular, I don't really think that the hardware stacks up against the Steam Deck, and I'm not talking about processing power or what have you. Obviously the Switch is underpowered, that's the primary part of Nintendo's business model, and it has been for decades, if not a century at this point. They don't do modern. If you're complaining that Nintendo's handheld is old-fashioned, you might as well complain that a LEGO brick is too blocky. That's the point. Lateral thinking with withered technology. That's what Hiroshi Yamauchi used to call Nintendo's business strategy. Take some old, cheap, easy-to-produce technology, like an LCD screen used primarily for digital watch faces, and find a new use for it. Hence the Game and Watch. Hence also why the Game Boy had a monochrome screen when the competitors had full colour. Hence why the original Wii had waggly motion controls. Hence now why the Switch is basically a smartphone with half a controller mounted on each side. It is what it is, and that's fine, it does the job, and the job is to allow people to play well-crafted games either portably or on the TV. I'm not fussed about processor speeds, but I do take umbrage with the hardware from another aspect. The Switch OLED model just does not feel like it's designed to last. On the one hand, there is the Joy-Con issue, and that's not going away. I knew going into this thing that I'd have problems with these eventually, and as much as I'd like to be precious about them, I have to accept the fact that the seven-year-old who uses this thing most is going to trash them. It's inevitable. But then there's the screen. That glorious, very pretty, bright, colourful OLED screen. Just a big slab of glass waiting for scratches, waiting to get absolutely destroyed. Possibly literally hammered. Our Switch Lite has been through the wars. At one point, both analog sticks got covered in blue dye. I'm not really sure how that happened. It's been dropped on the gravel path outside the house, and it bears some scars from this. It has a screen protector that's cracked in two places, and we just have to live with that because if I put a new screen protector on, it will also shatter in a matter of minutes. And in spite of all of this, the Switch Lite still functions just fine. Very much a Game Boy successor in terms of durability. The OLED model, on the other hand, feels just a little more delicate. The main issue is the screen taking up so much real estate on the device. I just know that it could easily take a bump or a scratch, and suddenly it'll never be the same again. So there is a very simple rule in our house. If you want to play a game in handheld mode, as my daughter is still want to do, you play on the Switch Lite. The OLED model does not leave its dock. Which means that the primary reason for getting an OLED model is entirely wasted on us. We get zero benefit from the fancy screen and all its supposed amazing colour and clarity. I do occasionally see the screen and marvel at it. When I need to input the parental control password, because my daughter is being allowed a little extra screen time, the easiest way to pop it in without her seeing is to just lift the switch out of its dock. In these moments, I am always blown away by just how nice that password screen looks. It is really nice, actually. It's a nice screen. Probably would be pretty good for playing games on. Oh well, back to the safety of the dock for you. It may be an issue with brand perception rather than the device itself, but I'm afraid I no longer trust the longevity of Nintendo hardware. Which is odd as I just got through explaining how the Switch Lite is doing really well, all things considered. There's just something about that premium hardware, the slightly more upmarket OLED screen, that makes me incredibly wary of letting my children actually touch it. That's a problem for a device which, as mentioned, appeals over the deck primarily because it's more kid-friendly. All in all, if I just need a switch to use in TV mode and nothing else, I could have just got a regular older model with a less impressive battery life and a smaller screen and never known the difference. This has always been my issue with the vanilla Switch. Yes, it can be either a handheld or a TV console, but because of its hybrid design, it doesn't do either perfectly. If it was a TV console, it could have slightly beefier hardware and people could stop blaming its internal workings for poorly optimized Pokémon games. If it was just a handheld, as the Switch Lite is, it could be built for durability. Trying to do both is, of course, the reason why the Switch is as popular as it is. The hybrid design, the device's USP, has won over millions of customers around the world. As someone who owns one handheld Switch and one TV Switch, I don't see the benefit of this as keenly. I know that it's Nintendo blasphemy to admit, but I'd actually have preferred a TV-only version of the hardware. If I had to take a guess which console will stand the test of time with fewer hardware issues, I think the Steam Deck probably has more longevity to it than the Switch OLED model. The deck is a tremendously solid build, nothing feels flimsy or delicate. Yes, its fan is loud, and that's a bit of a worry, but everything from the analog sticks to the touch pads to the screen to the charging port feels durable, in a way that a switchable Switch simply doesn't to me. It helps that, unlike Nintendo, Valve has been very happy to let consumers fix problems with the device themselves. Well, no, Nintendo would probably prefer you to do it yourself, rather than sending joy-cons in for repair, but they're not exactly supportive in assisting home fixes. Replacement parts, breakdown tutorials, and a general acceptance that some people are going to crack this thing open and fiddle around with it, all means that the Steam Deck feels more like a handheld that will last and last and last. If anything does go wrong, it's not going to be too difficult for even a novice to track down someone who can switch out whichever part is causing the issue, and it might even run better as a result. The Switch OLED model then is a disconcertingly beautiful toy, something which a child can play with but which they will inevitably ruin. The Steam Deck is most certainly not designed for kids, what with all its fiddling and settings switching that's required to get the most out of the device. But it's actually the handheld that I would feel most comfortable giving my daughter to play, because I know that she wouldn't be able to do any serious damage to it. It's just a shame that she had no interest in it and that ultimately, let's not pretend otherwise, she makes the rules in our house. All of this means that I'm ultimately very happy with my decision to sell the Steam Deck and buy a Switch instead. In retrospect, I might not have gone for an OLED model, but the broad strokes of allowing my daughter to play the game she wants to play on the TV with minimal hassle with me watching was certainly the right call for our family. That said, there is now a hole in my life that has been left by the Steam Deck. I don't have the perfect emulation device, I can't play some of the cool older games I'd like to play, and I'm having to make do with using my phone to play Game Boy games for the moment. I'm going to have to do some research. Is the Steam Deck really the best possible emulation device? Or am I better off getting a Retroid Pocket 3 Plus or one of the countless other cheap and cheerful machines designed to play retro games in a smaller package? That is a question for another time. For now, I have a little to say about this video sponsor, because they are brilliant. Literally, brilliant. In my quest to learn absolutely everything about absolutely everything in the universe everywhere, it's still very early days obviously, I've been exploring brilliance many online learning courses, which teach science, maths, computing and technology all through interactive lessons. I've been having a very good time. 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