Nintendo Switch 2 vs Steam Deck (is a dumb argument)

Nintendo’s Switch 2 is official. We’ve seen a video reveal of the final design, teasing a more thorough announcement in April. And across the platform fence, the Steam Deck and its many imitators in the PC handheld space have never been hotter. So now it’s time for the inevitable, attention-grabbing headlines pitting them against one another. Which one is better? Which one will win?

Neither. Both. It doesn’t matter. This is a dumb comparison to make, in an editorial article or a YouTube video with a goggle-eyed face and arrows in the thumbnail.

Because the Nintendo Switch 2 and the Steam Deck, for all that they share in form factor, are serving different markets and different people. As huge gaming products, both of them inform and influence the other. But these two products don’t compete directly, not in the same way that, say, the Xbox and PlayStation compete. Or even in the same way that these consoles compete with the PC.

So I’d like to say, with no small amount of self-aware apology, don’t listen to anyone who wants to frame this as a direct competition. Let’s break it down.

The Switch saved Nintendo

Nintendo released the original Switch a little over eight years ago in 2017. And if you weren’t paying attention at the time, it was a big deal. After the disappointing flop that was the Wii U, Nintendo came out swinging, leaning on its incredible success with gaming handhelds to revitalize its core console business and unify the entire company, all in one product.

The Switch wasn’t perfect. It was very underpowered compared to any other major console, it had serious issues with its controllers, it didn’t last long on a charge, and Nintendo hasn’t done a good job managing its digital game store. But denying the Switch’s impact and influence would be impossible.

The merging of portable and home console form factors via the included dock was ingenious, even if it took the failure of the Wii U’s giant screen-controller-thing to get there. Throw in the Switch Lite to appeal to younger players, who were always far more engaged with portable gaming anyway, and suddenly Nintendo was printing money.

Across three models, the Switch has sold 146 million consoles worldwide at the time of writing. Only the PS2 and the original Nintendo DS beat it for lifetime sales, and its nominal competitor the PS4 is way behind on that list. It surely doesn’t hurt that the Switch started at a $300 price point, which is expensive for a portable in context with the Game Boy, but very fair compared to the PlayStation or Xbox.

The Switch probably helped Valve make the Steam Deck

The Nintendo Switch was such a massive success that it was impossible for it not to influence the PC gaming market. But that’s a couched statement. While there were a few notable handheld devices trying to join PC games to the Switch’s form factor (or at least its shape), none made it into the mainstream. Even big companies like Dell (via its Alienware brand) and Razer experimented with a Switch-style gaming PC handhelds, but they mostly didn’t go beyond mildly interesting trade show demos.

Until the Steam Deck. Valve finally revealed its portable PC, running its home-grown Linux OS, in 2021. The Steam Deck resurrected Valve’s attempts to create both console-style PC hardware and its own integrated platform for PC gaming, all with the portable form factor of the Switch. It can also easily dock to a monitor or TV, with wireless controllers or even a mouse and keyboard. It was a smash hit immediately upon its February 2022 release.

Steam Deck

But it’s important to spot the details here. The Steam Deck was not and is not a direct competitor to the Switch, even though they share a lot of design elements. Sure, both of them are portable game machines with similar layouts, and the Steam Deck uses an integrated store that’s basically the closest thing PC gamers have to the Xbox or PlayStation stores. But that’s about where the similarities end.

The Switch is designed with kids in mind, if not exclusively for them. It’s easy to use, hard to break, and the cartridges are even coated in a nasty bitter agent to keep kids from swallowing them. (Which is a very cool touch, Nintendo, kudos.) The Steam Deck, despite starting at a fairly affordable (in PC gaming terms) $400, is very much aimed at grown-ups. It’s much bigger and heavier, and you’re invited to open it up and mod it or repair it if it strikes your fancy.

Perhaps more pertinently, the Steam Deck is a full computer, using x64 hardware adapted from AMD’s integrated CPU-GPU combos designed for laptops. You can even install Windows on it if you want (but don’t do that). The Switch is a far more locked down and proprietary system built on Nvidia’s Tegra chips, an Arm system that was (at the time) almost exclusively for smartphones and integrated electronics. Try to run anything but Nintendo software on the Switch, and it will fight you every step of the way. It is, in a word, a console.

iFixIt

For all the inspiration that the Steam Deck and SteamOS take from the console world, Valve isn’t stopping you from doing basically whatever you want with the thing, just like a laptop or desktop. The same is mostly true for the various Windows-based imitators that have sprung up over the last three years, from Asus, Lenovo, MSI, et cetera. These are handheld gaming PCs, not handheld game consoles, a small but crucial distinction.

There’s always been a lot of crossover between console gaming and PC gaming, and that’s never been more true than today, when the Xbox and PlayStation are both basically just x64 PCs with a lot of proprietary software. But since the late 90s, Nintendo has stood apart from its competitors. Even when it wasn’t beating them — and it rarely was — it holds a very particular position that it’s carved out for itself. And that gives it a unique relationship to the PC as a gaming platform.

You buy a PlayStation or an Xbox or a PC to play video games. There are some exceptions — Sony in particular has some great exclusives, even though it’s sending a lot of them to the PC. But you buy a Nintendo console to play Nintendo games. That’s always been true, and always been the primary draw of its platforms.

The Switch is an ideal secondary gaming gadget

The Switch was no different, blasting out of the gate with Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Mario Odyssey and Smash Bros. Ultimate quickly following, all experiences you can’t (legally) replicate on non-Nintendo hardware. The immediate success of the Switch also gave Nintendo an opportunity to quickly port in some great games from the Wii U that saw less play on that less successful console, such as Mario Kart 8 and Pikmin 3. Nintendo has steadily released new and successful games for the Switch, plus lots of ports and remakes, throughout its lifetime.

Nintendo has plenty of devotees that only care about Nintendo games, and can rely on them to buy new consoles and titles regularly. This core audience has kept the company afloat during the leaner years of the GameCube and Wii U. But more generalized gamers also see the appeal of Nintendo, and generally buy its stuff as a secondary system if they can afford it. So it’s pretty common, at least in affluent markets, to see a setup with a PlayStation + Nintendo console, Xbox + Nintendo, or PC + Nintendo. I’ve got a Switch docked on my desk right now, even with a massive gaming desktop underneath it.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

With the Switch’s appeal as a portable and relatively affordable system that’s more capable than any mainstream gadget that came before it, this market for Nintendo as an ancillary gaming platform only grew. It grew so much and so quickly that Nintendo was able to attract the third-party developers that often treat it like a second-class citizen. Even though the Switch’s mobile hardware is far less powerful than any other adjacent platform, you can play everything from hardcore games like Dark Souls to multiplayer twitch-fests Overwatch and Fortnite to indie darlings like Balatro on it. The Nintendo eShop, warts and all, is far and away the company’s most successful digital store ever.

There’s a lot of crossover with the PC gaming market on that list. But once again, I stress that the Switch and the Steam Deck are distinct enough products that they aren’t really selling to the same customers, or at least not exclusively to the same customers. You can’t play Zelda on the Steam Deck (not without a lot of questionably legal work and compromises). You can’t play Elden Ring or Marvel Rivals on the Switch.

A small amount of gamers will want all of that, and be limited to choosing either a Nintendo console or a Steam Deck/gaming laptop/desktop/PlayStation. (I’d put an Xbox in there, if anyone was buying an Xbox in 2025.) But the far greater number of gamers will either be okay with a Switch, okay with a different platform, or okay with buying both. And that’s not likely to change anytime soon.

The Nintendo Switch 2 and the Steam Deck are happy neighbors

PC gaming is more prosperous than it’s ever been in 2025, even if the industry as a whole is going into it with a notable black eye. The Steam Deck is a big part of that, and will continue to be so if Valve’s latest moves are any indication. But it’s worth keeping things in perspective. While PC gaming as a segment of the market is bigger than Nintendo’s very profitable chunk, the Steam Deck has only sold a few million units by estimate, an order of magnitude fewer than the Switch even limiting it to just the last few years.

The Switch was and is an amazing success for Nintendo, striking out on its own path to defy and disrupt its console competition. The Switch 2 might be a continuation of that success…or a disappointing follow-up, like the GameCube and Wii U followed the N64 and the Wii. But either way, Nintendo’s distinct place in the gaming landscape is not a threat to Valve, the Steam Deck, or PC gaming as a whole. These platforms borrow from one another and benefit from mutual successes. They’re happy neighbors, not feuding clans.

Willis Lai / Foundry

There are a small number of gamers, and hopefully readers of this article, who will need to choose between the Switch 2 and the Steam Deck (or PC gaming in general). But that choice will come down to what games you want to play and, far more pertinently, which one you can afford. Lists of hardware features and specification spreadsheets will play a vanishingly small role in the decision.

Buy a Nintendo Switch 2, buy a Steam Deck, buy ’em both if you want to and can afford ’em. But don’t buy into the narrative that this is some kind of zero-sum prize fight between massive corporations. It’s a dumb argument to make, an even dumber one to dwell on.