The unique 256GB LCD model of Valve’s Steam Deck is 20% off until 1st December, knocking it right down to round $319.20 or £279.20 within the UK. It is all a part of this yr’s Blackening of Friday, whereby whimpering value tags are shoved partway into sausage machines for the good thing about the primary Xmas buyers.
“That is a piece of cheddar,” whistled our new editorial director Julian, a alternative of phrases I select to take actually, largely as a result of he is simply ruined my sausage machine analogy. In keeping with the UK’s Workplace of Nationwide Statistics, cheddar was 873p a kilogram as of January 2025, the final recorded determine. Assuming that common holds true, the Steam Deck is at present value 32 kilograms of traditional farmhouse cheese. That is a piece of cheddar. Good work, Julian! For this reason they handed you the massive boss trousers.
I am vegan, so I am completely unswayed by all these dairy-based overtures, however even when I had been one in every of you lactose junkies, I nonetheless would not get a Steam Deck at 20% off. James loaned me one in every of his a yr or so in the past, and I used to be fairly impressed by its capability to let me play Balatro mendacity down, however my PC gaming is half-and-half MK and controller. I already personal a Swap, which has perhaps a 3rd of the perfect PC action-platformers on it already, and I’ve discovered that Steam Deck sucks for quintessentially desktop genres like real-time technique.
It is attainable that it is a misapprehension born of lingering, amorous hatred for Mech Engineer’s demo, and that I am lacking out on a golden age of tightly optimised controller-native harvester raids and flanking actions. I look ahead to your outraged feedback in defence of transportable Starcraft.
Sure, I do know I can get a wi-fi mouse and keyboard, but when I will around the factor out with equipment, why not simply splurge on a primary gaming laptop computer with a greater display screen that can be utilized for a bunch of different issues? Sure, I do know you may output to your TV, however I’ve banished my TV to a wardrobe as a result of the ability “button” broke, and I’ve misplaced the distant. Hi there, TV producers! Please can you set correct fucking buttons on TVs once more. A single, brittle plastic tab hidden contained in the body shouldn’t be satisfactory for my wants.
In conclusion, I hope you will be a part of me in firmly rejecting Valve’s cut-price Steam Deck. Consider all of the cheddar you can purchase with the money you’ve got saved, you smelly whey-fancier. Alternatively, you possibly can put your cheese cash in direction of the acquisition of a Steam Deck OLED – I hear they’re first rate – or one in every of Valve’s many forthcoming new gizmos.
If you happen to do insist on shopping for an unique Steam Deck, I like to recommend studying James’s Steam Deck academy hub (as marketed within the header), which encompasses how-to guides, accent roundups, and game-specific efficiency and settings overviews. Maybe if sufficient of you learn that piece, James will really feel magnaminous and lend me one in every of his once more, in order that I can end being offended and pissed off at Mech Engineer.
