Boosting Gaming Innovation: How Nintendo Could Benefit by Studying Steam Deck's Triumph

Boosting Gaming Innovation: How Nintendo Could Benefit by Studying Steam Deck’s Triumph

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The amount of time I’ve spent sitting in a van would drive most people to madness, but it was made bearable by the glow of Nintendo’s handheld consoles. Recently, however, I’ve found myself reaching for my Steam Deck more than my Switch, and I’m not the only one.

The innovation and nostalgic warmth of Nintendo has been replaced by the sheer power of Valve’s portable PC-gaming beast. With whispers of Nintendo’s follow-up growing, here are some lessons I wish the company would learn from the success of the Steam Deck. If it does so, it just might keep the next Nintendo handheld in my hands and not in my backpack.

1 Properly Prepare Your Product for the Present

Innovation comes at a cost. With the Switch’s power and hardware specs falling significantly shorter than the previous generation of consoles, the future of Nintendo was half-a-decade behind out of the gate. As modern gaming becomes more graphically intensive and technologically advanced, this lack of power is more and more evident. The Switch’s capabilities often mean that developers must downgrade their games to fit the console’s limitations.

I was one of the unlucky souls who picked up the—now infamous—Switch port of Rocksteady’s Batman beat-em-up Arkham Knight on release day. Even in its significantly truncated graphical form, it was a buggy, barely playable mess that even a patch two-thirds the size of the game was unable to fix.

Valve’s Steam Deck boasts modern AMD architecture capable of running games at higher resolutions and frame rates than the last console generation. It isn’t that the Steam Deck is just more powerful than the Switch, Valve made sure that its handheld wasn’t immediately outclassed by fading hardware. The release of theOLED Switch was a marked improvement but Nintendo should take further measures to future-proof, well, present-proof their hardware.

2 Let Me Play the Games I Want to Play

Tim Brookes / How-To Geek

If you want to play classic Nintendo games from the SNES, N64, Game Boy and other retro consoles, you’ll need to subscribe Nintendo Switch Online (paying extra for the Expansion Pack for some consoles). But even if you do that, Nintendo is oddly restrictive on which games it releases for these emulators.

Nintendo’s subscription-based approach to “backwards compatibility” is cumbersome at best. Gone are the days of being able to simply download older titles via the eShop. Players wanting to experience some of the best games ever released—in general, not just by Nintendo—are required to purchase a subscription in order to access a series of faux-retro console applications containing a limited number of classic titles.

Although it is nice to have access to Super Metroid and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past bundled into a service I already intended to purchase, the dearth of other quality titles is disheartening. Genre and hardware defining Nintendo titles like Chrono Trigger are nowhere to be found on the Switch but are readily available on Steam.

With retro gaming more popular than ever, the lack of flexibility and restrictive selection leaves much to be desired. The open access model of Steam allows for personal curation. Users can build their libraries at their own pace and without the clutter of superfluous, service-included titles—I’m sorry Nintendo, but no one wants to play Brawl Brothers. Providing a more expansive—purchasable—catalog of previous generation titles seems like an improvement that makes sense for both financial and quality of life reasons.

3 Provide More Detail and Options in Your eShop

Steam’s user interface was a game changer. Its intuitive, streamlined design and ease of use has made it an—oft copied—benchmark. The digital storefront of Nintendo’s eShop currently lacks the refined, user-friendly navigation seen in Steam’s marketplace.

Valve’s bread-and-butter lets me easily filter, search, and discover games based on genre, price, user reviews, and more. This high level of customization and organization makes it easy for me to find new or old titles that fit my interests perfectly. Nintendo could significantly enhance the eShop by integrating similar search functionalities, user-driven features, and a less clunky design.

4 Remember That a Stronger Build Quality Means More Quality Time

Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek

Nintendo has long been a stickler for the quality of its peripherals and games, but the build quality of the Switch’s hardware doesn’t quite cut the mustard. An easily scratched touchscreen, slightly awkward button placement, and the widespread issue of Joy-Con drift has been a persistent blemish on its otherwise innovative design.

I have replaced the thumb sticks on my controllers three times since acquiring my Switch, a hat-trick of Nintendo branded rubber dying at the same pace each time. If it wasn’t for Gulikit’s replacement joystick kits , the console would more than likely have stayed docked for the last year. As a survivor of the Mad Catz era, the idea of a third-party controller part being on par with, let alone superior to, original hardware is a shock.

The Steam Deck’s impressive build places an emphasis on both durable and ergonomic design. The ability to take a beating is among the most important aspects of portable gaming. A redesign to incorporate sturdier materials and some engineering tweaks indicate a return to form would be greatly appreciated. The Switch’s sleek esthetics paired with a level-up in build quality seem like an unstoppable match.

Nintendo will always be an industry leader. But the industry is evolving. If it focuses on a forward-thinking approach to modern gaming in the same way that Valve approached its debut console, Nintendo will be able to avoid any of the more conservative pitfalls that lie on the road in front of it.

The signs seem to point to a positive outcome. The company has been taking a good bit of its criticism seriously and shown its dedication to giving consumers quality games and experiences. That said, anyone in the industry is just one “cartridge over CDs” away from damaging their reputation for a long time.

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