I'd say its more people stating why they prefer the Steam Deck over the Switch than actually believing the Steam Deck would overtake the Switch. Challenge them to a bet and you'd see very few take it.

I think it is people mistaking people's preferences for market share predictions.

[–] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

All of these comments here are also on lemmy so I don't think that's a comparable sample.

[–] CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

At the time I'm writing this there are 78 comments in this comment section. I haven't read all of them, so let's just assume that every single one of those comments represents a unique individual who believes that the Switch 2 and the Steam Deck (and related) are direct competitors.

Given the nature of this platform and community that number is not even remotely surprising. It's also an utterly insignificant number of people.

The overlap between people who would buy a Switch 2 and people who would buy a Steam Deck is a tiny sliver of a Venn diagram. Those are two largely separate categories of gamer.

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I think this more people mistaking people expressing their preferences for a system and extrapolating that to meaning market share predictions.

Reword the question to do you believe Steam Deck will overtake Nintendo market share and you'd get different answers. Same with if you ask someone why is Linux better than Windows versus do you believe Linux can overtake Windows market share?

I find people on the internet have a hard time differentiating between people who are expressing preferences and people predicting market share shifts. People just see oh this person doesn't like Nintendo or Windows and must believe Steam Deck or Linux is going to be more popular.

[–] CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I typed out the below as a response to you, then reread what you wrote. We might be making the same point just with different words. Hopefully I'm not coming across as overly adversarial.

I think most people on social media, including lemmy, exist in an echo chamber that amplifies specific views to the point that it becomes easy to think those views are much more broadly held then they actually are.

Changing the question around like you suggest might help some people realize that, but I also think that there are a lot of people who think that the views expressed in their slice of social media are actually indicative of broader trends.

I also don't think I'm immune to this effect, but I do feel somewhat compelled to point out specific instances of it when I notice it.

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

What I wrote might have been confusing, but I was trying say that places like lemmy may have view points that express preferences that aren't representative of the mainstream. Like how there may be more positive Linux comments on average per user.

But, that it doesn't necessarily mean the people expressing those views believe them to be representative of the mainstream. It is more just them expressing their thoughts.

However, people I found across social media can mistake what are simply individual opinions as general proclamations, and immediately jump to "Oh this person is claiming that their view point is one most people hold. What a bold claim." When all they were saying was I like turtles as opposed to most people like turtles.