I don’t think this is a completely fair comparison. I have a Steam Deck OLED and I don’t have a PS5 or a Portal, but I can see the appeal of the Portal (though initially I thought it was kind of dumb too). The screen is bigger and higher resolution, it’s a first party device with pretty much the same ergonomics as the controller you’d be used to, and it is significantly cheaper than any OLED version of the steam deck and roughly half the price of the base model LCD steam deck (with the caveat that the 64GB LCD version can currently be had for $350 “while supplies last”).
Is the Steam Deck a great device? Absolutely! It does more than the Portal in that it can play games on its own (and is kind of a full computer), and the price of the Steam Deck is actually insanely good for what it is. The fact that you can set one up for remote play on a PS5 is also pretty cool, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if people did opt to spend a little more for a Steam Deck vs a Portal…
But realistically if you’re a busy parent or something and you just want to play your PS5 around the house (which I thought was a stupid use case, and was a reason I held off on getting a Steam Deck… But it’s actually really nice), I can totally see the appeal of just getting the Portal because it’s cheaper than a Steam Deck, has a bigger and higher resolution screen (though not OLED), won’t need any tinkering at all, and will just have the layout and features you’re used to in the controller. It’s definitely a relatively niche device, but I don’t think it’s insanely priced for what it is and I think a decent chunk of people will be happy with it… But if you’re not in the target market it might seem a little silly.
As I get older I value money less and time and not having to mess with stuff more. I think the Portal really isn’t targeting younger people who are less willing to spend money, and more willing to put up with jankier solutions like just using your phone… It’s targeting older people who just want to buy a decent quality thing that will just work out of the box so they can play games while they watch their kids or whatever.
Can the Portal really be called decent quality if it’s on a short tether and is beat for quality by nerds on the internet who made Chiaki?
To me it felt like the Portal was a limited-usage first-party cash grab, and as a Wii U owner that’s saying something (the extra screen was honestly not worth the space it took up, the money and materials would have been better spent elsewhere).
Most of my experiences with my first-party PlayStation related hardware and software has been mediocre at best, and that includes the operating system on something like the PS4.
Perhaps I am just jaded after my collective Sony experienced, but I think that Sony could have created an actually decent product, but instead they saw a nice handheld gaming device and wanted to try to muscle their way into the market without putting in the effort or money to make it even as good as the Wii U controller.
I think you’re just not the target market. If you’re not somebody who has the luxury to keep up on whatever the nerds on the internet are making, you’re probably happy to have a first party product to buy. Honestly part of the appeal of products like this is just the luxury to not have to research the thing to figure out if you can make it do what you want — that’s clearly not something you care about, and that’s fine…
Because it’s showing how garbage the Portal is.
The Portal is first party hardware that:
I don’t think this is a completely fair comparison. I have a Steam Deck OLED and I don’t have a PS5 or a Portal, but I can see the appeal of the Portal (though initially I thought it was kind of dumb too). The screen is bigger and higher resolution, it’s a first party device with pretty much the same ergonomics as the controller you’d be used to, and it is significantly cheaper than any OLED version of the steam deck and roughly half the price of the base model LCD steam deck (with the caveat that the 64GB LCD version can currently be had for $350 “while supplies last”).
Is the Steam Deck a great device? Absolutely! It does more than the Portal in that it can play games on its own (and is kind of a full computer), and the price of the Steam Deck is actually insanely good for what it is. The fact that you can set one up for remote play on a PS5 is also pretty cool, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if people did opt to spend a little more for a Steam Deck vs a Portal…
But realistically if you’re a busy parent or something and you just want to play your PS5 around the house (which I thought was a stupid use case, and was a reason I held off on getting a Steam Deck… But it’s actually really nice), I can totally see the appeal of just getting the Portal because it’s cheaper than a Steam Deck, has a bigger and higher resolution screen (though not OLED), won’t need any tinkering at all, and will just have the layout and features you’re used to in the controller. It’s definitely a relatively niche device, but I don’t think it’s insanely priced for what it is and I think a decent chunk of people will be happy with it… But if you’re not in the target market it might seem a little silly.
As I get older I value money less and time and not having to mess with stuff more. I think the Portal really isn’t targeting younger people who are less willing to spend money, and more willing to put up with jankier solutions like just using your phone… It’s targeting older people who just want to buy a decent quality thing that will just work out of the box so they can play games while they watch their kids or whatever.
Can the Portal really be called decent quality if it’s on a short tether and is beat for quality by nerds on the internet who made Chiaki?
To me it felt like the Portal was a limited-usage first-party cash grab, and as a Wii U owner that’s saying something (the extra screen was honestly not worth the space it took up, the money and materials would have been better spent elsewhere).
Most of my experiences with my first-party PlayStation related hardware and software has been mediocre at best, and that includes the operating system on something like the PS4.
Perhaps I am just jaded after my collective Sony experienced, but I think that Sony could have created an actually decent product, but instead they saw a nice handheld gaming device and wanted to try to muscle their way into the market without putting in the effort or money to make it even as good as the Wii U controller.
I think you’re just not the target market. If you’re not somebody who has the luxury to keep up on whatever the nerds on the internet are making, you’re probably happy to have a first party product to buy. Honestly part of the appeal of products like this is just the luxury to not have to research the thing to figure out if you can make it do what you want — that’s clearly not something you care about, and that’s fine…