The Steam Deck is changing how I buy games

theverge.com:

Buying multiplatform games used to be a simple decision for me: I’d almost always get them on the Nintendo Switch because of how easy it is to play games both on a TV or in portable mode. The Steam Deck has thrown a wrench in that decision-making process. The handheld gaming PC might be heavier, have worse battery life, and doesn’t come with an easy Switch-like dock to throw my games onto a bigger screen, but because I feel like I can bank on Steam games being available much longer into the future, I’m having to make tough choices about whether I buy games on Valve’s storefront instead of Nintendo’s.

There’s one important thing I should state up front: I hadn’t owned a gaming PC of any kind until I got the Steam Deck in April. For a long while, I primarily played video games on Nintendo platforms, and I only really began to dig into the PlayStation and Xbox libraries in earnest with the beginning of the pandemic. (I got a PS4 just to play Final Fantasy VII Remake, and things escalated from there.)

While I’ve bought a lot of Steam games on sale or in Humble Bundles, I’ve only actually played a handful of them and only on old work laptops or my personal MacBook Airs. The Steam Deck, on the other hand, is a much more capable gaming device than any laptop I’ve ever owned. Once I got it set up, I suddenly had access to nearly 200 PC games that I had previously bought or claimed, and I could play them on my couch or connected to an external display. I knew that would be the case when I put in my reservation for the Steam Deck last year, but actually seeing the games on my very own device was eye-opening.

With Switch games, though, there’s no guarantee that they’ll work with Nintendo’s next major console. Right now, I just