Maybe handheld gaming PCs aren’t something that has mass market appeal? It feels like theres so many variables that depend on it. Exclusives? Price? Ease of use? Brand recognition? Advertising? Im glad Valve is happy with deck’s sales numbers becuase it means we will probably keep seeing more support for it and newer models down the line. It still feels like if Microsoft launched a handheld xbox, it would probably still be a console first experience without traditional PC functionality and probably sell more while directly competing with switch 2. Definitely will be interesting to see how handheld PC pan out in the next 5 years, right now it feels like a slowly emerging market.
As you say, it doesn’t seem that manufacturers are too unhappy with their sales here, but I’d also like to see scale grow to the point where we can start seeing devices launch cheaper, rather than more expensive. Besides the presumably heavily subsidized (or at least priced for scale) Deck the more interesting alternatives are luxury items. It’d be nice to see them find some room for more competitive pricing, and that probably requires adding a zero to the sales numbers.
Maybe handheld gaming PCs aren’t something that has mass market appeal? It feels like theres so many variables that depend on it. Exclusives? Price? Ease of use? Brand recognition? Advertising? Im glad Valve is happy with deck’s sales numbers becuase it means we will probably keep seeing more support for it and newer models down the line. It still feels like if Microsoft launched a handheld xbox, it would probably still be a console first experience without traditional PC functionality and probably sell more while directly competing with switch 2. Definitely will be interesting to see how handheld PC pan out in the next 5 years, right now it feels like a slowly emerging market.
Maybe? That’d be a shame, I do like PC handhelds.
As you say, it doesn’t seem that manufacturers are too unhappy with their sales here, but I’d also like to see scale grow to the point where we can start seeing devices launch cheaper, rather than more expensive. Besides the presumably heavily subsidized (or at least priced for scale) Deck the more interesting alternatives are luxury items. It’d be nice to see them find some room for more competitive pricing, and that probably requires adding a zero to the sales numbers.