this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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It'll be the cheapest place, by an absurd margin, to play Baldur's Gate 3.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Series S is the cheapest way to play the game by an absurd margin? Steam Deck is only about $100 more and it plays the game just fine.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Absurd is too strong of a word, but 100$ ain't nothing. Not for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It's literally 1/3rd more expensive and thats not an insignificant amount. If your rent increased by 1/3rd tomorrow you'd probably be pissed and if you had a 33.33 percent chance of getting struck by lightning by stepping outside tomorrow you'd probably stay indoors that day.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

$100, plus the cost of the mandatory microSD or SSD you'll need to add to even install the game on Deck, plus the $50 discount for the Series S if you have a modicum of patience. The difference is more like $175-200, and last year the Series S was $100 off for Black Friday. Assuming the game is targeting holiday 2023 for Xbox, you could potentially grab the Series S + BG3 for under $300.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Asking out of genuine ignorance here: is there a setup that allows a 100+ GB game to be played on the 64GB Steam Deck?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can plug in an SD card and install it there, it will have longer load times but shouldn't affect gameplay much otherwise.

Edit: You can also expand the USB slots and get an external SSD

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

128GB micro SD cards are like $12. 512GB is maybe 40$. Can get a 1TB SD card for $100 but I think the 512 is a good middle ground between price and storage.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Not currently, no. They burned enough dev cycles trying to get split screen co-op on the S that now BOTH the S and X versions are delayed, which I guess is better than "not happening at all."

The S has every right to exist, but as soon as it starts interfering with Series X development (which has been for a while now), it's time for it to go.

Microsoft needs to cut it loose like the boat anchor it is and just release a discless Series X and call it good.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wait until you hear about all of the dev cycles spent getting games on the Switch.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In most cases, Nintendo platforms are ignored by 3rd parties. Non-Nintendo games rarely sell well there:

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/449937/the-switchs-growing-third-party-problem/

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My cheap mainstream laptop runs the game on mid settings just fine. It cost ~500 USD.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Good luck installing BG3 on that 64GB eMMC, mate.

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[–] JackbyDev 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Am I misreading your comment? You're saying Series S is not the cheapest because Steam Deck is more expensive? Did you have a typo? Am I suffering CO poisoning?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (8 children)

AAA PC exclusive titles also have the right to exists.

I miss playing good first person shooters...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't blame the lack of good shooters on consoles. Consoles never interfered with that before. I blame the popularity of Battle Royale. Everything is a fucking BR now. And it's not like they just took the gameplay style; they also took the jank.

All the best new shooters are indy developed boomer shooters with retro aesthetics. And I'm getting kinda over that, too. The genre needs some new ideas.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (4 children)

By an absurd margin? Motherfucker the steam deck is $400. If you buy a series s over a deck you're a fool.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Series S is very frequently on sale for $50 off, sometimes more, and often comes with a bundled controller or game.

The Deck is only playable in Act 1. The frame rate in other acts struggles to reach 20 FPS, even on low settings. Also, the $400 deck you're referencing cannot even install the game unless you buy an accompanying microSD (which I can't imagine provides a good BG3 experience) or an SSD which you then crack open the steam deck to install (which will be too intimidating to most casual, non-tech people).

$450+ is a more accurate price point for playing BG3 on Steam Deck; 50% more than the Xbox MSRP, which is significantly discounted every few weeks. The Xbox will also offer a much more convenient experience to those who want to play the game on their TVs, and the game will look nicer on that hardware.

The Deck is an awesome little device, but you're overselling it here, and ignoring a lot of nuance.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I played the entire game on the steam deck AMA. I found it to be acceptable in act 3. I didn't check the fps but it felt like 30-40

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean it's definitely not a great experience on the steam deck. I would imagine even the Series S can run the game better than the Deck can. Especially at 1080p since the deck only has an 800p screen. (Yes you can dock it but the experience will be even worse than the already reportedly poor visuals on the 800p screen)

If that report about the Series S losing split screen is true that seems like a pretty good compromise while also allowing a decent quality single player experience for Series S owners.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is a great experience, I do not know where this sentiment keeps coming from.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How far are you in the game? It gets worse the further you get in the game.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The steam deck is about half as powerful as the Series S. If you don't want mobile gaming, there's zero reason to buy the steam deck over the Series S.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The steam library, full Linux operating system, and emulation of current gen Nintendo games is far from zero reason.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (9 children)

And if a person doesn't care about the steam library, linux operating system or emulation? If they just want to play BG3 and other modern games on their couch, running natively on their machine in a convenient, no-fuss manner? Will you admit that, for that person, the Steam Deck is a terrible option and they'd be far better served, both financially and visually, by buying an Xbox Series S, even at MSRP?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would probably save up for the seriesX or PS5. If the S is already getting iffy here, what content are they gonna take out in future games? Why take that chance instead of saving for a system that's actually convenient? I'd say avoid the series S.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Sure, the Steam Deck is cool, but a Series S can actually be bought in most of the world. Last I checked, Valve only sells it in less than 20 countries

[–] rotmulaaginskyrim 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Article is well written, and I agree with most of it actually.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Microsoft did the right thing by softening their stance on system parity. Insisting on it would have hurt the Xbox further along the line, but now devs know they can still release on Xbox if they can’t get one or two features to run on the S.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It's already been hurting them a lot it sounds like. I don't think Baldur's Gate is the first game to not release on Xbox because they couldn't achieve system parity with the S. If they've really softened on it, then that's a good idea. Better late than never.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I didn't know it wasn't on Xbox, that's GOTTA be hurtin em. I'm sure they'll learn from this and make whatever exceptions need to be made far earlier next time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s not in PS5 yet either. Doesn’t come out for another week.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also while it's neat that they made the game as pretty as they did, this is at the end of the day an isometric turn based crpg. It shouldnt be that hard to scale down.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's not exactly isometric considering you can tilt and zoom the camera and get it all the way down to over the shoulder adventure style, allowing you to see off into those beautiful vistas. It has some performance issues even on PC in some places like the mountains and the namesake city.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Just gotta change some settings and it's perfectly playable throughout the game.

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