Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming

The one way the Steam Deck succeeds where the Switch failed

Jacob Roach
By

I recently went on a trip, which brought up a question I face every time I spend a few nights away from my gaming PC: How am I going to play games? For nearly five years now, my answer has been to pack my Nintendo Switch. This time, however, packing up my Switch felt like a compromise I didn’t want to make.

Like a lot of folks, I’m eagerly awaiting for Valve to get around to my Steam Deck reservation. With the clock ticking in the back of my head, I realized the major shortcoming of the Nintendo Switch: Cross-save support. Apart from graphics, battery life, or even the comically large size, the Steam Deck succeeds in an area where the Nintendo Switch never capitalized.

Recommended Videos

And I’m confident saying that even before my Steam Deck pre-order has arrived.

Related

Situational gaming

Person holding Nintendo Switch, looking at the home screen.
Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash

My Steam Deck hasn’t arrived yet, but I had a short chance to handle and look through the system on my recent trip (thanks, Giovanni). I’ve also seen how it performs across a range of tests, talked with various owners of the system, and done enough research that Google autocompletes “Steam Deck” before I’ve gotten my first few characters out. I know how the system feels, performs, and behaves, despite the fact that mine hasn’t shown up yet.

Handheld gaming is rarely the preferred way to play.

All of that isn’t important, though. The most important thing about the Steam Deck is that I can carry my progress with me. Handhelds have and forever will be platforms of compromise, so while it’s nice to look at benchmarks and talk ergonomics, the fact remains that handheld gaming is rarely the preferred way to play. It’s situational gaming, where you’re willing to compromise just to keep playing.

With my Switch, I find myself running into the same issue time and again. I get ready for a trip, I browse the eShop for deals, and I pick up some long RPG to keep my attention. I never end up making much progress, though, because I’m well aware that when I get back to my PC, I’ll just play on that.

There are problems with the Switch, but none of them bother me. Graphics, frame rate, the Joy-Con’s controls — none of it matters because I’m willing to compromise for portability. What matters is starting from scratch, and that’s something the Steam Deck doesn’t make you do.

Failing cross-saves

The Witcher 3 running on Nintendo Switch.
Reddit User ConnerBartle

The Switch could have ended the Steam Deck before Valve made the first announcement. But Nintendo never capitalized on one of the best features that developers pushed for: Cross-saves. There’s a decent list of Nintendo Switch games that support cross-saves, and they’ve been the backbone of my experience with the handheld.

Outside of Switch exclusives, I mainly play games that allow me to carry my progress back to my PC: Hades, The Witcher 3, Divinity Original Sin 2, and even Civilization VI (as problematic as that port is). There’s also the rogues’ gallery of live service titles with cross-progression on Switch, like Rocket League and Fortnite. 

It’s clear that Nintendo never made the effort the cross-saves.

Nintendo didn’t recognize the rising tide, and it didn’t put any systems in place to make cross-saves between PC and Switch easier. If I could transfer my Dragon Quest XI or Ni No Kuni save like I could with Immortals Fenyx Rising, I probably wouldn’t have pre-order the Steam Deck. Or, at least, I wouldn’t have been as eager to.

I don’t want to downplay the effort required to get universal cross-saves working, but it’s clear that Nintendo never made that effort. And transferring progression is all the more important considering the dumping ground of ports and rereleases the Switch has become in its late years.

Elden Ring running on a Steam Deck.

The Switch isn’t a failure by any metric, but Nintendo could have given the system a lot more legs this far out from release with broader support for cross-saves. The Steam Deck solves that problem for gamers like me who don’t mind compromising on performance if it means picking up where you left off.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jacob Roach
Jacob Roach
Senior Staff Writer, Computing
Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…
2022 was excellent for sports games, depending where you looked
The cursed golfer, hitting his shot surrounded by citizens of purgatory

Sports games are one of the most ubiquitous genres in gaming, as NBA 2K, Madden, and FIFA top sales charts every year. These franchises also happen to be some of gaming's most stagnant as their developers and publishers tend to focus on minor tweaks and changes year-over-year rather than significant innovations. The disappointment of games like Madden NFL 23 gives the genre a bad rap, but 2022 was actually one of the best years for sports games in a while. That's thanks to games that were willing to get weird.
Of course, the multi-million dollar mainstay sports franchises aren't going anywhere. That said, games like OlliOlli World, Rollerdrome Cursed to Golf, Windjammers 2, Roller Champions, What the Bat? and even Nintendo Switch Sports pushed the limits of what the genre can do. Sports inherently translate into solid video games, but this year highlighted how those games can go a step beyond, becoming kookier than what's possible in reality. That helped breathe some life into an otherwise stale genre.
Sports games get weird
When looking back at 2022, there are a lot of sports games worth calling out outside of the usual suspects. Nintendo Switch Sports is the hallmark casual sports game from this year, giving people an accessible and motion-control-based way to play golf, badminton, tennis, bowling, chambara, soccer, and volleyball with Nintendo's signature first-party visual flair. Though that was one of the more high-profile twists of the genre, indie developers led the charge, allowing the sports genre to shine this year.

Roll7's OlliOlli World, for instance, is one of my favorite games of the year. Skateboarding games have been a sports gaming mainstay since the 90s, but OlliOlli World realizes that formula in a way that's as fulfilling to play as Sonic the Hedgehog's best games. At its best, OlliOlli World is a colorful, fast-paced 2D platformer where each level has multiple paths that accommodate various player skill levels.
It's not trying to have accurate physics or recreate iconic real-world locations. Instead, it crafts its own vibrant fantasy world where everything is based on skateboarding, and the gameplay gives players enough wiggle room to experiment and possibly fail with flashy tricks. Roll7 didn't stop there, also delivering Rollerdrome, a game that combines score-based rollerblading with shooting to create an action-sports game mix players didn't know they needed.
Playing sports can give you an ultra-focused adrenaline rush, and a game like OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome can achieve that same flow state through gameplay. Meanwhile, other games interpret sports in a brand new way outright.

Read more
Our most anticipated Nintendo Switch games of 2023
Link on island in the sky in Tears of the Kingdom.

It's safe to say that even without The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, 2022 was the Nintendo Switch's best year since its launch. Nintendo rolled out the big guns for the console's fifth year, with a wave of high-profile first-party titles. The wide list included long-anticipated releases like Bayonetta 3, charming surprises like Nintendo Switch Sports, and Game Awards-nominated masterpieces like Xenoblade Chronicles 3. You could have made a solid top 10 list using only Switch exclusives in 2022.

How do you follow up on such a strong year? That's a question Nintendo is surely going to work to answer in 2023. While the Switch will get the year's biggest game in Zelda, the rest of its lineup is largely shrouded in mystery. We know a few games that are on the horizon, but we likely won't know what the whole year looks like until a winter Nintendo Direct.

Read more
This chaotic Switch puzzle game is a weird, wonderful way to end 2022
Picbits battle a snake in Picross X: Picbits vs Uzboross.

It's late December. You've spent the entire year trying to keep up with a flood of games. In fact, you're probably still trying to work your way through that exhausting backlog as you crush late-year releases like The Callisto Protocol and High on Life. Perhaps you just want to take a break from it all and play a smaller game that's well off the beaten path while on your holiday vacation.

If you fit that description, allow me to introduce you to Picross X: Picbits vs. Uzboross. It is pure chaos.

Read more