This article includes sales estimates for different handhelds from market research firm IDC.
They place total handheld PC sales of the Steam Deck, RoG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and MSI Claw at almost 6 million units for the past 3 years. It’s estimated that the Steam Deck makes up between 3.7 to 4 million of those sales, more than all the other major handheld PC manufacturers combined.
The Steam Deck arguably created the handheld PC gaming market.
Sure, there were handhelds before, but almost no one gave a shit about them. Gamedevs certainly didn’t.
It wasn’t enough just having the hardware exist, it’s also the massive amount of effort Valve put in to ensure compatibility with a ridiculous number of titles.
The renewed emphasis on controller support in games alone has significant ramifications for the wider community. A lot of players with physical disabilities use input devices that map to controller actions.
Not much to argue, it literally did
Feels a bit like the iPhone, there were some smartphones back then, but the iPhone took it to the next level.
Compatibility is one thing and a heck of a important one.
The software and interface is great too. It’s not perfect at all. However, the fact that the power button suspends and resumes my games and I can just select from a menu and stuff. It’s a big deal. Like, I’m a programmer but I get tired at the end of a work day and just want to play some games without fiddling too much sometimes.
“renewed emphasis on controller support”
Eh… I’ve been gaming with a controller on my PC for a very very long time without any issues…
Well if you don’t have any issues, no one else must either…
What I meant is that there hasn’t been more emphasis on controller support since the Deck released, games release on consoles and PC so they already support controllers and games that don’t are just made easier to play with the track pads on the Deck, they’re still just as shit to play on a regular controller.