I believe it would do the exact opposite. Exclusivity is the opposite of competition. A company monopolizes content by only allowing it to be hosted on its own platform. In a sense, yes, Nintendo holds a monopoly on Mario games, Zelda games, etc. If there were no such thing as a console-exclusive game, other console makers and especially Nintendo would be forced to compete in other ways should they want to continue existing. This could mean making competing hardware (eg. better value, better features, more powerful, etc), making a better storefront, and of course, making better games.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that despite having a far, far larger library of games, the Deck is still an extremely niche system, and definitely not the market-destroying monster that many here wish it is. The Switch has sold over 40 times more units than the Deck if we’re being generous to Valve. Even the PS Vita, widely regarded as a failure of a handheld, sold 5 times more units than the Deck. Nintendo and Sony are much more familiar household names than Valve, and they market themselves far more aggressively. Should Nintendo release another handheld while also forgoing any exclusive games, I guarantee that it would still sell far better than the Deck.

Welcome to inceldom. Can I interest you in some vent fumes?

They’re Linux system packages required for parts of your machine to run. You don’t need to know what they do, but I can tell you. In order:

Mesa is part of the driver for the GPU in the Deck.

GNOME Application Platform is system files for GNOME applications. GNOME is a Linux desktop (one that distros like Ubuntu and Fedora come with, different from KDE Plasma which the Deck uses), and they also make some applications. Those applications need these files to run.

Freedesktop Platform is there to enable Flatpak support. Flatpak is the distribution method that all the software you download off the Discover Store uses. Eg. if you install Firefox, it is installed as a Flatpak. Flatpaks need the Platform to run.

Nothing Steam Deck related is “off-topic” lol. Ignore the OLED craze.

Using a stylus while emulating the DS touchscreen is a bit fiddly and not really enjoyable in my opinion. I’d try DIY-ing a stylus to see if you like playing with it before spending money on one. You can cut and shove a sponge into the tip of a pen, or you could wrap a pencil in aluminum foil.

FPS is an inverse relation, so let’s bring the seconds back into the numerator and use frametimes instead. 60fps is about 16.7ms per frame, 30fps is about 33.3ms. 40fps is 25ms, which is exactly halfway between 30 in 60. In other words, for only 10fps more, you’re basically achieving 50% of the improvement from 30 to 60. This is one reason why 40Hz is so well-loved.

45fps is about 22.2ms. This is exactly 2/3rds of the way from 30 to 60. So yes, that 5fps is definitely a marked improvement. You’re achieving 66% of the improvement for only 15fps over 30. But the improvements have diminished. The higher the fps gets, the less significant each individual frame is, meanwhile the additional performance required to reach it doesn’t change at all.

This is all to say that you’re right, and it’s not really an unpopular opinion (or really an opinion at all). Yes, 45fps is great on the Deck, and the experience will be much closer to 60fps than some may realize. But not all games can run at 45, and many games that can’t run at 45 will run at 40, so it’s not like people are choosing to run at a lower fps just for shits and giggles.

The two aren’t mutually exclusive. A game can be objectively bad (or otherwise generally disliked), but you and your friends can still enjoy it. I’m personally a huge fan of Souls and I’ve played many souls-likes, but I’ve had huge issues with every non-Fromsoft offering I’ve played. I haven’t played the reboot, but I found the original Lords of the Fallen clunky, unresponsive, and otherwise generally soulless, no pun intended.

Rise runs way better, and I’ve put a ton of hours into it on my Deck. I have hundreds of hours in World and I think it’s definitely the better game, but those hours were on my PC. I *did* manage to get it running at a very very comfortable near-60 FPS in heavy areas and endgame monsters on my Deck though, so you’ll probably enjoy it all the same.

Honey Select 2.

If the difference can be measured in a controlled scenario, it is not placebo. It is the exact opposite. CryoUtilities’ performance gains can (sometimes) be measured, and in those cases, it is not placebo.

People who claim that it increases performance are providing anecdotes. These are not measurements, and while a lot of them can help affirm its effectiveness in increasing performance, they can’t be backed up and in many cases are the result of placebo.

It doesn’t take much time to install, just a few minutes, so I wouldn’t really call it a waste of time. Unless you’re hurting for storage, I wouldn’t really call it a waste in that regard either. If you are hurting for storage, I’d say that it is a waste unless you know for a fact that the games you’re trying to run perform better with it on.

On paper, the concept behind the changes made by CryoUtilities is correct, and can technically lead to some performance gains. But the Deck is very rarely bottlenecked by its memory, so the gains are often minimal or non-existent.

Cases, skins, and screen protectors will work, it’s the same shape and size as the old Deck. Hardware mods like backplates and the like will not work because the PCBs are different.

I’ve been daily driving a dedicated DAC+AMP setup on my PC (Schiit stack, HD600) for a few years now and I have to say, the difference, if present, is minimal at best. Unless the DAC in the Deck genuinely measures poorly, (which I don’t believe it does), a new one is unlikely to be better.

Also, external DACs in general are almost placebo-tier hardware. I highly doubt that you (or many other people, for that matter) would be able to tell the difference between the two in a controlled ABX blind test. Even if you could, the conditions you’d need to pass such a test (laser-focus on the audio, quiet room, high quality audio that you are highly familiar with, etc) would not be present while you’re gaming on the Deck.

If your pair of Sennheisers really is good like you say it is (and the Deck can power it at acceptable volume levels), you don’t need to waste your money on any other gear.

Genshin works great. Honkai also works great, but the current workaround is definitely against TOS and people have gotten banned with it.