The End of my Steam Deck Era

 

As of this past week, I have sold off my Steam Deck. The brief, three year stint with a handheld other than a Nintendo console coming to an end.

I bought the Steam Deck in early 2023 shortly before I left my first job, craving something with a bit more oomph than the current Switch at the time. Shortly after it arrived, and after I completed my Pokedex in Pokemon Scarlet Version, I simply stopped using my Switch 1. Not because the Deck was infinitely more capable or whatever, but because I am not really capable of focusing on two platforms.

And that was confirmed, not at the Switch 2's launch, but months before it was even revealed.

 

When rumors of the Switch 2 were coming out in full force around September of last year, it rekindled in something in me that had been lost when I got the Steam Deck. The magic I felt around Nintendo releases, the hype of their Directs and the discussions post-reveals. With all the hype going on at the time, I dug out my Switch 1 and bought a new game for the first time in years.

And while I was playing Tears of the Kingdom, that joy snowballed into my buying multiple games I missed in the years after I got the Deck. And while I was using the Switch 1, I found I couldn't even think about wanting to play anything on the Steam Deck.

Fast forward to June 2025. The Switch 2 is out and I've all but completely stopped using the Deck. It eventually found itself tucked away in its protective case. Fast forward even further and I am once again between jobs. The aftermarket price on Steam Decks has gone up dramatically as Valve is finding difficulties in securing the components to produce them.

Selling the Deck, along with a controller and many accessories, I've sent the Deck out of my life and to some place in Georgia, and in doing so I've definitely realized one thing: I am incapable of supporting more than one console at a time. It happened going from Switch 1 into Deck and Deck into Switch 2. 

One thing I am certain of this time, it's just gonna be me and my Switch 2 buddy right up until the next Nintendo console. No more stop gaps.