It’s silly to compare Switch 2 sales to Steam Deck sales.
The Switch 2 is a locked-down, vertically integrated platform. There are no ROG Switch 2s. No Lenovo Switch 2s. No Switch laptops or tower PCs with discrete GPUs. If you want to play Mario Kart World, your only option is to buy a Switch 2. Period.
Steam Deck, by contrast, isn’t a platform. It’s just one hardware option—one entry point into the sprawling, open ecosystem known as PC gaming.
Every year, around 245 million PCs are shipped globally. If even 20–25% of those are gaming-focused, that’s 49–61 million gaming PCs annually. Steam Deck is a sliver of that. So of course it won’t outsell a console that’s the only gateway to a major IP.
But that’s exactly the point.
PC gaming is too decentralized for any single device to dominate. The last “PC” that did was the Commodore 64, which sold 12.5–17 million units over 12 years because it was a self-contained platform, unlike modern Windows, Mac, or Linux machines.
That the Steam Deck has sold 4 million units despite competing with every other gaming PC in existence is remarkable. It didn’t just sell—it legitimized a category. Handheld PC gaming is now a thing. That’s why Lenovo, ASUS, and MSI have followed. Even Microsoft is getting in, optimizing Windows for handhelds—something they would never have done if the Steam Deck didn’t hold their feet to the fire.
So no, Steam Deck didn’t outsell the Switch 2. It didn’t need to.
It won by changing the landscape.
I never claimed that. I said it was a limitation. Which it is. It limits its capability. Limitations are flaws, but that doesn’t make it flawed, it still works. Funny how words can have multiple definitions and you can choose which one to fit your narrative. Having to get a specific system to play the games you want, is cumbersome, it isn’t always easy, or even doable in some situations now.
Quite putting words in peoples mouth, and again with the insulting when someone has a dissenting opinion. You don’t agree with me, that doesn’t mean I’m a sock puppet. Just shows you don’t want to have a civil discourse and go to fallacies.
… you agree the Pc is more limited in almost all situations now? That’s not my claim. I said some.
You know what? I just had a change of heart.
PC gaming is so much more limited compared to the Nintendo Switch 2.
You can only play on the Steam Deck. All games available on PC have to be licensed by Valve. If Half-Life is played on anything that isn’t a Steam Deck, Valve will sue you into oblivion.
If only PC gamers could play their games on the hardware of their choosing instead of that one handheld. 😢
Thank you for showing me the error of my ways.