The thing that the Deck does better than any other handheld is having both sticks, d-pad and buttons aligned in a row, that makes any combination of them comfortable to use, weird that nobody copies that.
Because that only “works” because of how chonky the steam deck is.
The issue isn’t even really the positioning. The issue is that you tend to hold a switch (or a gameboy or a wing-less PSP/Vita) with a “pinch” grip. so you actually have very little range of motion with your thumb because you need it to stabilize the handheld itself.
Whereas the steam deck is kind of heavy and bulky. so rather than pinch grip it, you tend to hold it more like a closed book (if that makes sense. Which means the deck is mostly supported by your stretched out fingers and your thumb more or less moves freely.
For another handheld to do that you would either need it to be a lot wider (less portable), heavier (no point), or have built in wings (which is what most of us bought for our Vita) which similarly kills the portability.
For what its worth, checking out a friend’s GPD when I was still considering it a few years back had the same benefits.
The thing that the Deck does better than any other handheld is having both sticks, d-pad and buttons aligned in a row, that makes any combination of them comfortable to use, weird that nobody copies that.
Because that only “works” because of how chonky the steam deck is.
The issue isn’t even really the positioning. The issue is that you tend to hold a switch (or a gameboy or a wing-less PSP/Vita) with a “pinch” grip. so you actually have very little range of motion with your thumb because you need it to stabilize the handheld itself.
Whereas the steam deck is kind of heavy and bulky. so rather than pinch grip it, you tend to hold it more like a closed book (if that makes sense. Which means the deck is mostly supported by your stretched out fingers and your thumb more or less moves freely.
For another handheld to do that you would either need it to be a lot wider (less portable), heavier (no point), or have built in wings (which is what most of us bought for our Vita) which similarly kills the portability.
For what its worth, checking out a friend’s GPD when I was still considering it a few years back had the same benefits.