Valve reveals the gaming hours on Steam Deck during 2024 and they are staggering - Steam Deck has become one of the main gaming platforms and is starting to be treated as such

I don't like how that article doesn't have a source, but I found this article with a source from Valve.

I'm looking forward to the Legion Go S because at least that's a lot more likely to be sold officially in my country than the Steam Deck will. Also I think that more choice for officially supported Steam OS devices is on a whole good for consumers.

To put this in perspective:

Valve has revealed that Steam Deck players accumulated 330 million hours of gameplay during 2024, representing a remarkable 64% increase compared to the previous year.

That's the equivalent of every Switch owner playing two hours in the entire year. Nintendo doesn't share their usage numbers in aggregate, but they do provide a "year in review" thing per user and most of the ones I see online are in the three digit range. Even assuming a bunch of people aren't using these at all, we're looking one to two orders of magnitude larger than the Steam Deck, which checks out with what we know about the total numbers sold for each device.

Which is to say, the Deck is probably as popular as, say, a Sega Game Gear or a Sega Saturn but nowhere near any of the modern consoles yet.

You know what, I'll take a Sega saturn equivalent. We're at least still talking about the Saturn today.
- Hey, I had a Sega Saturn. Loved my Sega Saturn. Like it more than my Steam Deck, if I'm being honest, but I do like my Deck and I do have one.
  
  I'm just saying, when we're talking numbers in the millions it's easy to lose perspective.
I think the difference here is that the market for the the Switch is known but the market that Valve created for Handheld PC Gaming isn't and it's proving be far larger than expected. It's completely possible that the market for PC Gaming handhelds is just as big as for the Switch.

There is also lot of unexplored territory for Valve with the Steam Deck including games written specifically for Linux, docks that would let you use more powerful hardware when you want to play on a big screen, and crazily enough docks for using the Deck as an actual computer. (There's already docks that turn your smartphone into a laptop, no reason that can't be done with a Deck).

Nintendo created something kind of new with the Switch but it only works with the Nintendo ecosystem. Valve took their idea and is making it work in the PC ecosystem which is ultimately much larger.
Its the year of the ~~linux desktop~~ steam deck!

Despite the expectations surrounding the Steam Deck 2,

What expectations? Valve has flat out said its not happening yet because the hardware isn't there yet.

Have they said that recently? The only definitive comment I remember from them was something along the lines "definitely not in the next 2-3 years" around launch, which was 3 years ago.

Not saying that means I "expect" it's happening, just curious if you know of anything more recent that says its not happening.
- When AMD was talking about RDNA4 one or two months ago, there were rumors that it would be for the new Steam Deck, and Valve claimed that it wasn't, and that it was still a long way out.
- "So we really do want to wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before we ship the real second generation of Steam Deck. But it is something that we're excited about and we're working on."
  
  As of October 2024, this would suggest we hadn't yet had that "generational leap" at the time of writing.
  
  (Source https://www.eurogamer.net/steam-deck-wont-have-yearly-refreshes-because-its-not-really-fair-to-your-customers-says-valve)

Not to undercut it, but the steam deck shows triple the actual game time for some of my games, as it probably counted the time the device was asleep with a game running, due to some glitch.

This should fix itself once it reconnects to the internet.
My time went from >100h after closing it back to a sane number.
- So, it usually does. But I went to check again. It had me for 63 hours of Baldur's Gate 3 which I remembered was very off. I launched the game to check the in-game count : 19 hours. I exited the game, and lo and behold, Steam now says 16.8 hours.
  
  I give it a B+ for effort.

It's such a great way to play CloneHero, ReTHAWed, and emulators in the livingroom. The Switch really nailed the portable to docked mindset, but steam deck brought the real capabilities

Fuck I really gotta just pony up and get one don’t I 😂

If you dont care about high settings at high resolutions in AAA games, then its absolutely the best gaming option out there.

I do say people should be willing to tinker with the software if they want to get some more obscure, abandoned or emulated titles working though, thats the only caveat.
I'd advocate for getting one. Last year 70% of my gaming was on the deck, it really has shifted my attitude towards gaming.
- That really does sound interesting
I love mine. It's great in handheld mode with Moonbeam/Sunshine streaming from my gaming desktop, and it shines in docked mode.

And it's a very capable Linux desktop too if you want to go that route.

I never play my steamdeck hand held. But boy do I rip through my backlog with it hooked up to the TV.

Its one of the joys of the device, isn't it? I know my friend uses hers as a permanently docked desktop device, basically a cheap way for her to get into desktop PC gaming. I use mine as a handheld device but I have a second one that I got my family to use as a gaming device in the living room. 3 totally different use cases supported delightfully by 1 device.
That’s where I’m having trouble justifying it. I don’t really care for or do any handheld gaming, and if I was gonna leave it docked, why not just use my PC? If I want it on my TV I still have a Steam Link too. Glad to see it’s being shown as a viable platform, I just haven’t found a use case for it in my world.
- That's a good assessment. I originally got it because I was moving overseas and traveling a lot. It is fun on a plane and when I stay up at my parents for Christmas for a few days etc. considered it for a mobile music studio, but a laptop is superior. In your case I wouldn't get it though.

If this is tracked just by game playtime, then this is underselling it too. Sunshine/Moonlight alone would probably add a substantial amount of time to this count.

My apartment is to small to have a desk with a PC so I just use my Steam Deck to game now :)

This can’t be true, because I’m not using steam anymore/s

why
- Stopped playing games and if I want to play some games I fire up my PS5.