What should a handheld PC do to compete with the Nintendo Switch 2?

I stopped buying most games for the Nintendo Switch when I bought the Steam Deck. My Switch has been a Mario and Zelda machine ever since. It’s simple: Steam Deck takes the Switch’s best trick – pick-up-and-play portability – while offering more and better games. I can easily continue what I started on my desktop PC, or continue playing mobile titles on my desktop and marvel at the beautiful graphics. But the Nintendo Switch 2, coming later this year, could change that value proposition. Not only will it continue to be a console that attracts families and children with inventive, surprising, must-try exclusive Nintendo games that use many tricks of the Joy-Cons that can be removed, but also have a real chance to convince fans that they can. buy a handheld PC game – or those who are waiting for a handheld PC to be less than the west.The Switch 2 which is newly Magnetic Joy-Con. Gif: NintendoThe Switch 2 can meet or beat the Steam Deck in performance. If history is any indication, it should easily sell better than handheld gaming PCs combined. When the original Nintendo Switch launched almost eight years ago, there was almost nothing to play except Zelda, and Nintendo held its game catalog with an iron grip – but now, the backwards-compatible Switch 2 is about to launch with one of the biggest and best. library all the time, only rivaled by smartphones and computers. The Switch could theoretically be the new baseline for game developers to target, and the most reliable place to find new handheld-friendly titles. I won’t say I know, but I just checked the temperature of the industry at CES 2025, the biggest technology show in the world – and I fear that handheld PCs may remain in the shadows unless the industry does more. The handheld’s ergonomics are one of the bright spots of the 2025. While I still prefer the overall feel of the Deck, practically every PC handheld I’ve touched has a well-sculpted grip that makes them more comfortable to hold than their predecessors. From the 8-inch MSI Claw 8 AI Plus and Lenovo Legion Go S, to the 8.8-inch Legion Go 2, and the giant 11-inch Tencent Sunday Dragon, even the largest Windows handhelds don’t feel clumsy like some of their first-gen predecessors. There are four places I think the industry needs to change – and maybe, band together – if this handheld wants a useful piece of Switch. A year makes a huge ergonomic difference to Lenovo’s handheld. (New on the left.) Photo by Antonio G. Di BenedettoOperating systemBuyers need to know that the game will be ready to play when they press the power button on their handheld. It’s a Nintendo Switch experience, and it’s similar to how Steam Deck works when games are downloaded – but it’s a far cry from what Windows handhelds currently offer. That’s why the three biggest pieces of mobile game news at the event had little to do with hardware. self. They are about ditching the current version of Windows handheld. First, Lenovo announced that it will produce the first official third-party handheld to ship with Valve’s easy-to-use SteamOS instead of Windows – something only Steam Deck has done so far. Second, Valve announced that it will bring the SteamOS beta to third-party handhelds as soon as this April. Third, a Microsoft executive told The Verge that the company will finally do something meaningful about the bloated Windows experience on handhelds this year, bringing “the best of Xbox and Windows together.” The move is exciting, because it’s the Wild West of handheld PC land. Most companies opt for copies of Windows that can’t reliably launch games or sleep and wake up properly, defeating some of the goals of the pick-up-and-play handheld experience. It’s filled with difficult-to-navigate UI and unnecessary bloatware, too – to the point that now, the community-made fork of Valve’s SteamOS UI has a far better experience than Windows. It’s also good for SteamOS fans: while Steam Deck is a great platform for SteamOS, we’ve seen that Deck can’t compete with the Switch itself. Game publishers don’t see the raw sales numbers to bring big multiplayer games like Fortnite or Valorant to SteamOS. (They say cheaters are too big a risk.) However, while the CES movement is significant, Valve, Microsoft, and Lenovo are non-committal about how much it can increase. Microsoft is only going to give its best hint about making Windows more like the Xbox game console at some point this year. Lenovo is hedging its SteamOS bets hard – not only will the Legion Go S ship on multiple Windows and SteamOS platforms, the Windows version will go on sale months in advance, and Lenovo won’t commit to SteamOS for its larger, later-in-2025 handheld . No other company announced a SteamOS handheld at CES, except for PC maker GPD, with claims that were apparently false or lost in translation. Valve says that there are no other partner devices currently working for SteamOS, although it would be happy to work with other companies. I believe every handheld manufacturer should offer SteamOS. CES 2025 is bringing big handsets like this 11-inch Acer, and that’s not necessarily a bad idea! Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeScreen It’s very simple: to optimize performance, battery life, economy of scale, and offer a closer gaming console experience, handheld PC manufacturers must use 1080p resolution or lower. HDR OLED screen with variable refresh rate. Many PC manufacturers waste what little performance they can from chips and handheld batteries on screens with too many pixels for the task, artificially limiting performance and battery life in exchange for 1600p or 1200p that gamers won’t miss. 7-inch to 8-inch panels. In addition, every handheld without a variable refresh rate screen may throw away serviceable frames because the screen artificially limits the framerate – VRR is the Asus ROG Ally’s secret weapon, allowing it to play games more smoothly than its competitors. handheld even though competing chips offer similar FPS. Finally, HDR is a revelation on the Steam Deck OLED screen, allowing both original. HDR titles and games I stream from the PS5 feel like they are filled with real light that explodes out of the screen. It’s something that Windows desktops and laptops have never consistently offered the way they are now, but handhelds can be a gateway to change. Are screens like the one I pictured expensive or hard to find? Bands together, PC companies, and of course display makers can change that for you. Chips and batteriesUnless you count Nvidia Tegra at the heart of the Nintendo Switch, AMD is the leader in handheld chips. But the semi-custom Aerith and Sephiroth parts for the Steam Deck seem to be the only ones proactively designed with power-sucking grips, leaving others at a portability disadvantage. And it looks like AMD’s new Z2 line may be no different. AMD’s Z1 chips in handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally aren’t native to handhelds; they are mildly tweaked laptop processor that needs 17 or 18 watts to start to hit their stride, enough to hold a full channel 50Wh typical battery pack in well in three hours with a mildly intensive game. The Z2 line is also a set of tweaked laptop chips, and while AMD told me some can offer more performance at the same power and add good efficiency tweaks, the total power consumed may not be reduced. Lenovo product manager Alex Zhu told me that he is looking at running Legion Go S’s Z2 Go chip at around 20 watts, which can give worse battery life than the 15-watt-and-below Steam Deck even if the GPU is better. AMD also confirmed that the Z2 Go is less powerful than the Z1 Extreme. AMD senior colleague Mahesh Subramony told the company’s flagship Z2 Extreme chip, on TSMC’s shrinking N4P process node with a mix of Zen 5, Zen 5c and Core RDNA 3.5, should be more efficient and better than the Z2 Go, and better than the Z1 Extreme as well, but no leap forward. This may require AMD’s newer RDNA 4 graphics, and may require a custom processor. The MSI Claw 8 AI Plus uses an Intel Lunar Lake chip. Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeDon’t hold your breath if you’re hoping Intel can provide meaningful competition in the world of handheld chips. While early reviews of the Intel Lunar Lake chip in the modified MSI Claw 8 AI Plus are quite promising, the pricey Lunar Lake chip may be a bit low, with future Intel parts far from on-die power saving. memory that Intel added experimentally. I’m curious if that’s why MSI hasn’t fully launched the Claw as expected. Meanwhile, Intel certainly has bigger fish to fry than making custom handheld chips. “It’s not a market that we’re actively pursuing, but a market we’re happy to activate,” Intel VP technical marketing Robert Hallock told me of the handheld game. “It’s a bit extracurricular,” he added, explaining that the market is fun and exciting but small and Intel has to pick a fight. “We are coming off admittedly, about five, six years of strive and we have to decide where we want to invest.” large – the Asus ROG Ally X doubles the size of the previous package to 80 watt-hours, and this is not the only 80Wh handheld. can buy. But that comes with size and weight tradeoffs that can only be partially engineered away. We need handheld manufacturers to join together and make a case for a better chip. The Steam Deck still starts at $399, though the $529 OLED model is superior. Photo by The VergePrice The PC industry will also need to cut prices if it wants to have any chance of eating Nintendo’s lunch. The Nintendo Switch debuted at $299 in 2017 — about $380 in today’s money — and the OLED version arrived at $349 in 2021. A year later, Valve’s Steam Deck debuted at $399. But today, it’s the only Windows handheld gaming PC that can suggested cost of $799, roughly twice the price of the entry-level Deck, and most Windows handhelds have started at $600 and up. The top-end options are great, but the space may remain niche without the lowest-end options. Only the most expensive model of the Lenovo SteamOS Legion Go S variant will lower the bar to $499 this May. And all those prices are still more than Sony or Microsoft for a TV console with more performance, and more than likely what Nintendo will charge for the Switch 2. I’m not sure what the PC manufacturers have to do to challenge. Switch on the price, but the possibility is not simple. Valve CEO Gabe Newell said it was “painful” but “critical” to launch the $399 Steam Deck, hinting that the company may be following a razor-and-blades business model where console makers initially sell hardware at a loss, then make the money back as people buy games. If so, that’s a tough move to make, as no other PC manufacturer controls the world’s largest PC gaming store and can subsidize the handheld. loss, and Sony stopped selling the PS5 at a loss less than a year after its debut. So it can reduce the price with proper bill of materials and economy of scale. Lenovo has clearly stated that AMD may be working on the Z2 Go chip to help lower the price of the Legion Go S, for example. To compete with Nintendo, companies like Microsoft or Valve or even Sony must lead the charge, secure components and offer the right operating system for dozens of Switch competitors. the beat of the drum itself. I think it’s time to push the industry-wide handheld game. It could be the future of gaming, period. There’s too much at stake to tackle it one half-baked Windows handheld at a time.

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