I just found out the PSP Go was a thing and I really like the idea of having the screen slide up to reveal the controls. I think this would be a great way to make a more compact version of the Steamdeck. I don’t know about the low profile joysticks though. I’ve never used anything like those before and I’m not sure how they’d feel to use. Maybe it would just be something I’d have to get used to. Regardless, I’d love to hear what other people think about this idea. Edit: I think I should clarify. I’m mostly referring to the style with the sliding screen. I don’t think something as small as the psp would be a good idea either
Much of the “slider” form factor died out early for a very good reason.
The simple reality is that the more moving parts you put on something, the more parts there are to break. It’s why phones became boring rectangles, hand-held gaming devices became slightly less boring rectangles, and why physical buttons were phased out of mp3 players, phones, etc…
Physical things cause complexity. Complexity increases warranty claims.
I think the main factors for the size of the Steam Deck and other similar handheld PCs are the size of the APU and heat dissipation. You’d get some serious performance degradation if you went much smaller. Even the Nintendo Switch is a similar size.
I agree, but maybe it’s time for a Linux based Nintendo DS / PSP sized device? I mean, Nintendo has abandoned these truly pocketable consoles. Maybe with a die shrink they could fit something 70% as performant as a deck into that form Factor?
I personally know a lot of people who miss the DS and don’t game anymore now that the platform was dropped. Casual gamer types.
Those already exist based on Raspberry Pis or similar SBCs. I once sold some pretty cheap (cheap, not low cost) ones with the intention of making enough money to be able to afford one for myself. Until I realised that it’s much cheaper to slap a controller on my phone and call it a day.
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There would be joysticks. They would just be a different style. They’re low profile and slide more than tilt. I don’t really know how to explain them
It needs the space for battery and cooling.
Technology isn’t there yet.
There’s certainly handhelds in the PSP go form factor already, but they use much smaller OSes than the steamdeck uses, and still have to make sacrifices usually.
Like you’d probably just get a quick-boot to a retroarch variant for emulation and thats the entirety of the OS you’d get.
What do you mean smaller Os? There is a PSP mod that puts a Raspberry Pi inside it. Raspberry Pi runs a Debian fork. Sure it’s not fast enough for Steam games but it’s still a Linux desktop environment.
Technically the mini retroarch is also on linux, but that’s not what people think of when they think “I want to run it like I do the steamdeck”
Like you said, not enough for steam games. technicalities don’t leave people feeling happy.
Yeah but “smaller OS” doesn’t mean shit nowadays when even the slowest device can run a Linux desktop environment.
It’s a terrible idea even though I love it lol.
There’s already a few gaming handhelds with a sliding screen. See below:
There’s a ton of those out there and they don’t offer a lot more than what the steam deck can already do.
The PSP Go form factor was a MASSIVE FAILURE for a reason. It received heavy criticism for the unintuitive and uncomfortable feeling.
So what do you think?
Looks gross and awful to use. I’m gonna go controversial but every psp was a piece of trash. All the psps without two joysticks sucked and the ones that did had crap joysticks. The games on psp sucked more than free games on the android store.
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