After years of using being PlayStation only (owning the OG PSOne through to PS5 and both handhelds) I took the plunge last year into PC gaming with the Steam Deck and honestly I did not know how much I was missing out on. Never did I realise how cheap gaming can be on PC through all the ridiculous sales. You also aren’t sacrificing much in terms of performance since you can still play almost all AAA games and on a handheld too! My main attraction to the steam deck was this since I haven’t the time to sit down for long stretches any more and the fact you can easily sleep and wake up the deck and play for 10/20 minutes at a time is perfect. Around the same time I got the deck though I decided to also go for the mid tier PS Plus option since it was on offer for Black Friday. After barely using my PlayStation for the past year I was thinking of downgrading back to the basic tier. Now this time around PlayStation are only offering Black Friday discounts to the same tier or above. I could’ve maybe justified paying £45 for the year but £60 just to play online is not worth it in my opinion and looking at the game prices on the store is ridiculous for new titles now. Once my PS Plus expires I don’t think I’ll be renewing, at least not for the foreseeable future. Honestly I feel Valve treats their customer base way better than Sony. Anybody else have a similar story?
I however am enjoying PS5 to the fullest. I played almost all the game and also all the exclusive till Last of Us 2 in PS4. After which I kinda stopped playing as busy with work. Last year I bought SD and have been playing games on it. It is good for a quick game session between work when taking breaks. I bought a PS5 3 months back and also subscribed to 2 years of Deluxe (premium without streaming) and have been enjoying PS5 Extra games on it since then. It has been totally worth it for me. I do remote session on SD and play old titles and AAA titles I enjoy on PS5. I don’t plan on buying any games on PS5 though as its vey expensive and 2 years is good time for Sony to include it in Extra. May be I will not renew it after 2025 but till then its good to have.
Steam Deck has definitely been helpful as I work on Mac and didn’t wanted to invest on dedicated PC for gaming. Its excellent for what it does. Just that we cannot expect it to play recent titles. I dont mind 30 fps (have been playing in 30 for my life in PS4) and SD small screen, its not bad but smooth gameplay is very essential.