Why are so many Nintendo fans worried about the growth of PC gaming handhelds?

Well, because Nintendo fans remember what happened during the N64 era. Third parties abandoned Nintendo. Games that many folks wished were on N64 never arrived.

For example, Final Fantasy III was a big exclusive for the SNES. But then Square made Final Fantasy VII for PlayStation and PC, not their favoured console.

The result is that only 389 games were released on the N64, which was a big drop from the SNES era.

Now here comes the Steam Deck, Legion Go, Xbox ROG Ally. PC already has the biggest library of any platform ever, but now it’s in a handheld form factor.

And if the handheld PC market keeps growing, devs may say, “Why bother porting to Nintendo’s handheld when it’s easier to just keep this on PC?”

Which, fair enough, they already do. But again, that’s already been happening for decades. Nintendo fans didn’t see it that way because PC was seen as “another world.”

Once you put that in a form factor that resembles a Nintendo product, though, it’s no longer another world. It becomes something that could replace a Switch 2, or at least blur the line between what used to feel separate.

This fear is not unreasonable. The Steam Deck is well-known as an emulation device. It can emulate previous Nintendo consoles, including the original Switch.

And it’s a fact the Steam Deck resulted in less sales for Nintendo, especially first party titles. Which is why they targeted devs making emulators, suing them into oblivion, pressing criminal charges against them.

(This is where I remind everyone to not do anything that lands them in jail.)

But there’s another fear. One which gets Nintendo fans upset at Nintendo themselves.

There’s a large cohort of people who demand physical media. They don’t like the shift to downloads and streaming. Nintendo is the last mainstream company to emphasize physical media.

The Steam Deck, though, eschews physical media. Cartridges and discs are no longer mainstream in PC gaming. You can’t go to GameStop and buy a Steam game.

Which is also why Nintendo fans are unhappy with Nintendo key cards. They see it as devaluing physical media. Which, to tell you the truth, is true.

You have to understand there’s a whole subculture of people who are into video games not to play but to collect. They like the notion that, when you walk into their house, there’s a shelf full of Switch cases. They do not want this to go away.

Now I’ve told them that what matters more is not physical media in and of itself, but DRM-free media.

But this isn’t about ownership of games in and of itself. It’s about the ownership of an official game. An asset, if you will. And a DRM-free digital copy is assuredly not an asset because it can be copied infinitely.

So the Steam Deck and devices like it are not something that makes many Nintendo fans happy. It instead represents a future that makes them miserable.

And I get where they’re coming from. Even if I profoundly disagree with them.