Xbox Ally vs Steam Deck vs Nintendo Switch 2

This is a gotcha headline I saw on a Polygon article (other major publication fluff pieces are available). Now I know this headline is not really for gamers who follow the news but for people who causally game or people like my wife who has 2 gamer kids and wants to know which one of these devices to get for the kids for Christmas. The article is also there for more seasoned gamers and people who keep up with the news to wind them up because the article will be vague enough that it won’t really say anything either way. These articles usually start with a basic explanation of what these devices are, then it will move on in a round by round comparison with a winner at each round. Spoilers the Nintendo Switch won, no great surprise.

I really feel that comparing these devices is like the old adage of comparing apples to oranges to bananas. These devices are designed to do different things and for different types of gamers. For me personally this is more like comparing a sports car to a Toyota Prius to a bus. The Ally X (Xbox version or the ROG base version) and other handhelds in this price range are the sports car. It has all the power and the new doohickies to play the games well. The Steam Deck is the Prius as it does what the more powerful (and more expensive as a result) devices do but not as well. It does it well enough, but not like the sports car version. The Nintendo Switch is the bus. This is not a reflection of the power of the device but more that it is curated. Like a bus goes to particular stops along a designated route and is easy to take. You just sit there, and there is little stress about how you get there. The Switch is made for curated games made by Nintendo. I realise that more games are coming to the Switch, some new and some older titles like Cyberpunk, but for all intents and purposes, this is a Nintendo gaming device for Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda games.

The Switch devices are all quite good. I have the first Switch (3 actually, 1 base version and my kids have a Switch Lite each) and I was very impressed with it as a handheld device. When I bought it, I thought if anyone was going to make a successful handheld it was going to be Nintendo, and I wasn’t wrong. It just didn’t do what I wanted it to do. My son played Pokémon and a couple of other games, and my daughter was predominantly Animal Crossing. As they got older these games just didn’t do it for them anymore. My daughter does every now and again pick up the Switch and play Animal Crossing and Fortnite on it. I asked my son if he will get the new Pokémon game when it comes out and he was not at all interested unless they did something really unique.

The Steam Deck is my baby. What a device. I played most of my Baldur’s Gate playthrough on it and it worked like a dream. I took it along on holiday and when the kids were swimming for the 100th time that day, I played my game, and it worked like a charm. It isn’t perfect by any metric. It can be finicky sometimes to get a game to work. No Epic, Xbox Game Pass or GOG. Getting games from these storefronts to run on the device requires a secondary app and my experience of those apps is that they are hit and miss if they work or play the game. Sometimes you need to fiddle with distros to get the game to work. Valves work on Steam OS is incredible. The wrangled the Linux beast into submission and made it clear and concise and user friendly. But it is still Linux. Like I said I love the Steam Deck and aside from things like battery life (which is to be expected on a handheld device and actually can surprise me with how long it lasts) I think Valve did a sterling job but really a new device is needed. I also would have liked to have all the things that the OLED model has but I wasn’t about to go out and buy the new one just for the few upgrades.

Lastly is the ROG Xbox Ally X and the other devices in this price category. I cannot speak as factually to these devices because I don’t have mine yet (it was out of stock but managed to buy one and it will be here Friday). These devices are expensive for a reason. They are the pinnacle of the handheld devices. They have the latest mobile chips, massive amounts of RAM, 1080p screen, bigger battery and therefore battery life when playing heavy games and of course the overall power to play games better than any of the other devices. But like sports cars the increase in price is not in any way equal to the increase in power and specs. Like sports cars the price increases exponentially the more you add. The $1000 price tag is a rather large pill to swallow, and I can see how for some people no amount of sugar will make that medicine go down. In the UK they kept the £800 price tag of the ROG Ally X. Although it is still very pricey, it is a smaller pill to swallow than in the US. The reason for the price tag is obvious, but it doesn’t help when deciding on which device is right for you. Should Xbox have taken some sort of hit on the price and subsidised it? I don’t think they thought they needed to. The device was sold out in the UK (the Xbox Ally X version) and is still sold out. Not sure how it is going in the US though. It has become very difficult to actually get a handle on any information as the only access is through social media and videos, and they are becoming increasingly polarised.

The Polygon article is a prime example of nobody being incredibly clear and concise about what these devices are and who they are for. If you are a Nintendo fan and are looking for a place to play your Nintendo games, the Switch is an incredible device and the only place to play the games without the grey area of emulation. If you want a cheaper device to play PC games with some fiddling required to get your games working from other storefronts, The Steam Deck OLED or the Xbox Ally are fantastic choices. For the Steam Deck not all games work out of the box, and Xbox Game Pass is through the Cloud and so on, but as a handheld you can take with you on the bus or to the park or on a plane, this is a great choice. The Xbox Ally is similar specs but a bit more expensive. The paired down Windows (again I have no first hand knowledge of how good it is) is supposed to make it a more console like experience and unlike the Steam Deck it should play games out of the box. I saw many people mention streaming your game from your console (the only way currently you can play all your console games in handheld form) and here any of these devices will work. Both the Xbox Ally devices and the Steam Deck can do this (the Steam Deck through apps like Moonlite or the Nvidia gForce app) or if you are on PlayStation the Portal works very well, I hear (and is a great looking device).

I feel people almost need a website where they answer a few questions and put things they want into columns, and it spits out the best device for them. They need to do research and actually be given some good advice to see what device fits their needs and price bracket. I looked at the article that started this thought process off, and the information was at best misleading and at worst just plain wrong. If I was someone coming to a gaming website thinking I have come to the place where I can get a better idea on what these devices are I would walk away with little to no more information and would end up buying a Switch 2. It is the easy option to put out there. You don’t have to mention all games are £70-£80 or that you have to pay for the online service, there are not that many games and depending on who is using it, it might end up being a dud. Our Switches are gathering dust, whereas the PC and Series X are used daily. I think as people that are in the business of informing people, they seem to assume that people know what they are speaking about. I feel most people would gain more information by reading the comments section, although I wouldn’t suggest it as the conversation around these devices are so tribal and not full of useful or even truthful information.

If for whatever reason you are reading this to understand which device is right for you, then I would suggest looking around. Find someone you trust to give you advice. Speak to someone at work or a friend who games and really break down for yourself what exactly you want from a device like this. This is the absolute biggest thing you need to do because unless you know what it is you want from the device, no amount of information or discussion will help you. If you are looking for a device to play your Xbox or Game Pass games, then the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X are a good choice but understand the limitations. They will not play your older non-Play Anywhere Xbox games natively. They play PC Xbox games not console Xbox games although there is a lot more overlap than people give Xbox credit for and they are doing more work on this. They will play games you can play on your PC via the Xbox app. That does not include GT6 but does include GT5. At some point I am sure you will be able to play GT6 when it is ported to PC (although why it doesn’t release on PC day and date is beyond me). As you can play Steam, Epic, GOG and other storefront games on this device, it is worth looking into Steam and Steam sales and what key sellers online are safe and are legal. You can get great deals from them on Steam keys. Don’t listen to online grifts like ‘this is not an Xbox’ or people who big up one device or the other. This is a personal decision like whether to get a console or PC or whether to get a sports car, a Prius or whether to take the bus.