42% Of The People Who Bought The Steam Deck Prefer It Over Other Gaming Devices

In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Lawrence Yang uncovered an interesting stat about the Steam Deck. The Valve designer said that of the people who have bought the device, 42% of them prefer using it over other mediums for gaming. Yang further explained how these users would rather play Steam games on the Deck than any other platform.

Hence, almost half of Steam Deck users spend a large part of their Steam play time on it and not on PC. For a console that came out in 2022, this is a remarkable statistic. In his own words, Lawrence Yang said: 

One thing we’ve learned recently is that of the people who’ve purchased a Steam Deck, 42% of them end up spending the majority of their Steam gaming time on Steam Deck – preferring it over their other devices.”

The Valve designer also expressed his surprise at how the device has changed the way fans play games. He mentioned how the team had a lot of fun using the Steam Deck and seeing consumers reciprocate that is something amazing near him.

The biggest surprise for me has been seeing how Steam Deck has changed the way people are playing their games. Internally, we’ve loved using Steam Deck through all of its prototype stages, and it’s been amazing to see customers in the wild having just as much fun now that we’ve shipped.”

Valve’s updates to the device post-release are the reason so many people incline toward it. Due to third-party additions and the company’s own feature upgrades, the Steam Deck has become even more versatile. When asked about these new features, engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais didn’t pick out any single one as a pendulum-swinger.

He said that all of the new additions combined are the reason for the portable device’s success. This is because a wide variety of people use the Steam Deck and these features support all of these “cross-section users“. Pierre-Loup Griffais explained this further,

Given that everyone has their own usage style, it’s been hard to pinpoint any specific improvement as the most impactful. I think all the things you mentioned are instrumental for a cross-section of users, and we intend to keep adding major features going forward.”

Another interesting tidbit in the interview was about how Valve plans the next steps for the Steam Deck. Griffais told RockPaperShotgun that fan feedback is the primary instrument that helps them in evaluating the next steps.

Not only does the company use it to plan for the future, but also to judge success. Hence, it’s safe to say what fans want in the Steam Deck is the top concern of Valve.

Taking feedback is by far the main tool we apply to evaluate success and determine next steps.”

When you consider all of this, it’s not hard to see how the portable PC has already shipped over 1 million units. This stat is true as of October 2022, so we can assume the numbers have increased. Steam Deck also had some issues with reservations last year.

Interested buyers would have to reserve first and then wait for 1-2 weeks to get the console. But, that is no longer a worry in 2023, indicating sales will only increase this year.