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Valve announces a new portable, Steam Deck

NoviDon

Member
I know some of you already thought of this, especially people that play with pro configurable controllers already, but I was watching the linus podcast and they were talking about the input layouts on the device and the ergonomics, and something they talked about as a solution for the awkward face button placement blew my mind. the face buttons inputs can be remapped to the buffer triggers on the back of the device! and you can use the face buttons as extra settings buttons to pull up apps and menus, so you never have to take your thumbs off the joysticks and stretch towards those face buttons in a weird way. Which took my main worry away about the weird orientation of the buttons and stick instantly, and flipped it 180 to now with remapping can make the controls better than a traditional controller.
 

scydrex

Member
The possibility with this portable are interesting. Would like to see what it does with the emulators. How windows run with the 256gb/512gb model and especially with that display, text and etc.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Stop spouting BS because you don’t like the thing. Those void warranty stickers are illegal in the US.

Him and his buddy darkmage are just butthurt that this thing is getting people excited while the Series S is sat on shelves around the world gathering dust.

Never seen anything like it, it's not even a competing device but the deck is triggering the hell out of them.
 

dcx4610

Member
It's a cool piece of hardware but I have a hard time understanding who it is for. As a primarily PC gamer, I'm going to want to play my games on my PC instead of a handheld. I guess if you travel a lot, it's a great handheld considering the massive library. I just don't see much usage outside of that.

I do think for the non-PC crowd, it could be a big hit but Valve has always been terrible with marketing and the mainstream crowd.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Not sure if this has been shared yet but they will be creating and shipping dev-kits for this later this year - the hardware will be identical to retail.



Edit: S Speedwagon sorry, didn't see that you posted the same video above, I was watching it on YT while posting. I'll leave the duplicate here though anyway since it's worth watching for anyone interested.

Dj Khaled GIF by Kids' Choice Awards
 
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GHG

Gold Member
Will you be able to stream your gameplay to YouTube on this?

You mean like doing a livestream? I'd assume you could if you installed Windows and all the required software.

Whether you will want to is a different story on the other hand since the device might be lacking in grunt for that kind of multitasking dependant on how heavy the game is that you're playing.
 

packy34

Member
It's a cool piece of hardware but I have a hard time understanding who it is for. As a primarily PC gamer, I'm going to want to play my games on my PC instead of a handheld. I guess if you travel a lot, it's a great handheld considering the massive library. I just don't see much usage outside of that.

I do think for the non-PC crowd, it could be a big hit but Valve has always been terrible with marketing and the mainstream crowd.
I kind of think the opposite. By limiting sales to their own storefront, Valve is going to have a hard time selling this to anyone other than people already inside the ecosystem. To me, Steam Deck feels like a companion device to my PC, not a replacement or a starting point. Being able to play things like factorio, hades or stardew valley while on the go or laying down in bed has a lot of appeal - and I don't have to consider purchasing these games again on Switch just for those reasons. This isn't going to be a great way to play brand new top-of-the-line AAA games, even if Valve wants to make the case that you technically can if you want to. But it's going to be great for low-intensity stuff as well as old/classic games, and that's good enough for me.
 

Sentenza

Member
Anyone have sales figures for Steam Machine and how long Valve supported it?
Valve didn't produce or sell Steam Machines directly. They offered just a template that several hardware manufacturers used, sometime with significant variations (i.e. some models came with Windows and Steam preinstalled rather then the Steam OS). There was also very little uniformity in terms of prices.
I guess that would make sales number a bit hard to track, but I doubt any specific model could claim to have been a smashing hit.

How long did Valve support them? Depending on how you look at it you can argue both "Very shortly" and "They never stopped supporting them".
There weren't additional attempts to release Steam Machines after the first launch, but everything they started there only improved over the years (i.e. Proton has improved massively over time in terms of performances, compatibility and reliability, the attempt to support the Steam controller turned into Steam Input that as an API supports basically any peripheral in existence with sticks, buttons and shit, the in-home streaming support became a software framework that now you can use with pretty much any phone, tablet, PC, etc.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
Anyone have sales figures for Steam Machine and how long Valve supported it?

That's the real problem here.

How long will the support be for it, will we see a next version with higher specs next year or in 2 years. And what prevents company's from delivering a better version a year in if they don't.

Also what is gaben going to do to make sure games support the handheld, or will he just drop it and hope for the best aka no support.
 

Speedwagon

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Yabuki turned off voice chat in Mario Kart races. True artists of their time.
That's the real problem here.

How long will the support be for it, will we see a next version with higher specs next year or in 2 years. And what prevents company's from delivering a better version a year in if they don't.

Also what is gaben going to do to make sure games support the handheld, or will he just drop it and hope for the best aka no support.
Watch the video above. They will send dev kits to developers.
 

gamer82

Member
I just went for the first 64 gb one I’m sure that’s serviceable to play games or they wouldn’t have bothered .

As somone who owns a ps5 is there any point in this and Do we think docked multiplay games will look worse than current gen offerings .

i really hope we see more before switch oled drops so I can organise what im buying for my Christmas gift lol thanks to scalpers you can’t be hanging around 🙂
 
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ChoosableOne

ChoosableAll
It's a cool piece of hardware but I have a hard time understanding who it is for. As a primarily PC gamer, I'm going to want to play my games on my PC instead of a handheld. I guess if you travel a lot, it's a great handheld considering the massive library. I just don't see much usage outside of that.

I do think for the non-PC crowd, it could be a big hit but Valve has always been terrible with marketing and the mainstream crowd.
I think kids and their families will be the main targets. Imagine you have unlimited/cheap game supply in your hands when you were a kid. It's cheaper than a PC and cheaper than a Switch in the long run(because of absurd 60 dollars strategy), and it's a better experience than mobile gaming. Maybe you won't have mario, zelda etc but there are tons of perfect indie/AA games to play with. And i think this project will lead to an indie/AA revolution.

I've started to train my little daughter to hold this for more than 10 minutes. Next week i will introduce her to push-ups. Cheap gaming has a cost too :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 

BeardGawd

Banned
So a future Series S portable should be able to run anything this does at double the framerate and higher resolutions?? I think more competition in the portable space is inevitable. Congrats to those that got preorders!
 
Just noticed that there are currently 9 Steam Deck threads on the front page of this board. Valve certainly made a splash!
I read that you where able to reserve a steam deck, but looking at your posts i guess you live in sweden? i live in norway and was not able to since they dont ship to my country.. (dont get why they ship to sweden and not norway) kinda jelous not gonna lie.
 

Fredrik

Member
As somone who owns a ps5 is there any point in this and Do we think docked multiplay games will look worse than current gen offerings .
Hard to say at this point but going by videos it looks alright. Obviously you shouldn’t expect anything to look like Ratchet & Clank but cross gen games should look and run well, the resolution is lower and you have settings to tweak things to your liking, and mods.

I posted a few Cyberpunk 2077 720p low screens earlier. No idea if that could run on a Steam Deck but for all we know right now it might be possible.
Sure, for graphics this is currently the worst case scenario on Cyberpunk in 720p on PC, lowest of the low.

vVwyIRM.jpg


kUS8L4y.jpg


I think it’ll look fine on a small screen. This is a very demanding game though, don’t know the minimum requirement but I don’t think we can expect that all games will install, there will definitely be cases when it just doesn’t work. There is Geforce Now as a backup plan though when everything else fails.
 

Fredrik

Member
I read that you where able to reserve a steam deck, but looking at your posts i guess you live in sweden? i live in norway and was not able to since they dont ship to my country.. (dont get why they ship to sweden and not norway) kinda jelous not gonna lie.
Yeah I’m in the northern Sweden. Maybe it’s an EU thing?
Edit: SaturnSaturn SaturnSaturn They’re just shipping to EU for now, but things will loosen up soon, this is what the Steam Deck page says:

What regions can I reserve Steam Deck from?

Customers in the United States, Canada, European Union, and the United Kingdom can reserve a Steam Deck. Information about expanded regional availability coming soon.
 
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That's the real problem here.

How long will the support be for it, will we see a next version with higher specs next year or in 2 years. And what prevents company's from delivering a better version a year in if they don't.

Also what is gaben going to do to make sure games support the handheld, or will he just drop it and hope for the best aka no support.


IIRC Valve just certified some configurations, it were 3rd party vendors who sold the Steam Machines, that were basically certified PC configurations by Valve running their Linux distro, correct if I’m wrong but otherwise this is a very different situation.

Valve is still supporting Steam Link, the Steam Controller and even the HTC VR headsets, so I don’t get the concern
 
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spons

Gold Member
Is there any official information yet on what not having a date means? I reserved it fast as shit, but there is no availability date on the Steam Deck page.
 

CrustyBritches

Gold Member
Is there any official information yet on what not having a date means? I reserved it fast as shit, but there is no availability date on the Steam Deck page.
Nothing official, but it seems if you got your order processed in under 5min and your page doesn't show a date beneath your cancel reservation button, you are in the first batch.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Is there any official information yet on what not having a date means? I reserved it fast as shit, but there is no availability date on the Steam Deck page.

The official website claims they will begin shipping in December. This is Valve, don’t expect them to have their shit even somewhat together regarding logistics until after they send out emails to finalize payments
 

Sorcerer

Member
I know some of you already thought of this, especially people that play with pro configurable controllers already, but I was watching the linus podcast and they were talking about the input layouts on the device and the ergonomics, and something they talked about as a solution for the awkward face button placement blew my mind. the face buttons inputs can be remapped to the buffer triggers on the back of the device! and you can use the face buttons as extra settings buttons to pull up apps and menus, so you never have to take your thumbs off the joysticks and stretch towards those face buttons in a weird way. Which took my main worry away about the weird orientation of the buttons and stick instantly, and flipped it 180 to now with remapping can make the controls better than a traditional controller.
Steam Input is a beautiful thing. Too bad Steam never updated the Steam Controller in a similar config to the deck.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
Lol this thing looks like utter trash and is hardly a “portable”.

the design looks like something someone cobbled together for robot wars.

we’ll have a good chuckle looking back over it in a couple of years.

nintendo won’t give a hoot about it and rightfully so .

I don't think valve cares about nintendo.
 

OverHeat

« generous god »
Lol this thing looks like utter trash and is hardly a “portable”.

the design looks like something someone cobbled together for robot wars.

we’ll have a good chuckle looking back over it in a couple of years.

nintendo won’t give a hoot about it and rightfully so .
Move along if it’s not your thing.
 

evanft

Member
That's the real problem here.

How long will the support be for it, will we see a next version with higher specs next year or in 2 years. And what prevents company's from delivering a better version a year in if they don't.

Also what is gaben going to do to make sure games support the handheld, or will he just drop it and hope for the best aka no support.
This is a Linux PC. Anything that runs on Linux under Proton will run on this. If that's not good enough, you can install Windows and play games there, though how the controller or battery life will work out is yet to be seen.

It will the aya neo runs it



Keep in mind that the Aya Neo has a 4500U, which is still using the old Vega GPU architecture. The Steam Deck has RDNA 2, which is a big leap in capabilities. It's also using faster LPDDR5 RAM instead of the LPDDR4 in the Neo.
 
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BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
All this talk about ergonomics in the media and such, but people ignore that Nintendo didn't bother with it much with the Switch. The Switch is far from a well-designed device from an ergonomics standpoint. It's just a big, flat thing designed for tiny hands. People with regular-sized male adult hands simply hand to get used to it. The Steam Deck layout and size looks perfectly fine to me in comparison.
 
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KAL2006

Banned
I've been out of PC gaming since 2013. I was anning to buy a small laptop or micro mini PC for office use.

For the price range of the 500GB Steam Deck how much more powerful laptop/minipc/micropc can I get now. If it's the same power for that price then I think I will keep my pre order if for that price I can get a much more powerful device then I may just not bother with this.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
The possibility with this portable are interesting. Would like to see what it does with the emulators. How windows run with the 256gb/512gb model and especially with that display, text and etc.
Windows itself would be near useless on a 720p 7" screen. You'd only be using it for opening other game launchers than steam.

I kind of think the opposite. By limiting sales to their own storefront, Valve is going to have a hard time selling this to anyone other than people already inside the ecosystem. To me, Steam Deck feels like a companion device to my PC, not a replacement or a starting point. Being able to play things like factorio, hades or stardew valley while on the go or laying down in bed has a lot of appeal - and I don't have to consider purchasing these games again on Switch just for those reasons. This isn't going to be a great way to play brand new top-of-the-line AAA games, even if Valve wants to make the case that you technically can if you want to. But it's going to be great for low-intensity stuff as well as old/classic games, and that's good enough for me.
As an in-home companion device I'd think you'd be better off just using the steam link app on your mobile, which is almost guaranteed to have a higher resolution and better screen than the Deck, and just buy a cheap game controller attachment (or a more expensive one like the razer kishi)

Universal Gaming Controller for Xbox - Razer Kishi

Steam Link - Apps on Google Play

Right now I could do that and play my Steam games on ultra on my 6.8" 1440p S21 Ultra - here's Crysis 2 running at ultra settings using a Series X controller via steam link, running with zero perceptible lag. Steam link tested all the way up to 100mb/s and came up all green ticks. If playing games in your own home "portably" is the main use case, which tbh I agree is most likely, there are *far* better ways to do it already.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
All this talk about ergonomics in the media and such, but people ignore that Nintendo didn't bother with it much with the Switch. The Switch is far from a well-designed device from an ergonomics standpoint. It's just a big, flat thing designed for tiny hands. People with regular-sized male adult hands simply hand to get used to it. The Steam Deck layout and size looks perfectly fine to me in comparison.

Main issue i got with the switch, terrible size can't press half the buttons. its made for kids.
 

bad guy

as bad as Danny Zuko in gym knickers
I mostly play old games and 2D indies, so the decks perfomance would be perfect, but I need good triggers for my racing/car games, and the steam controllers trigger path was too short for fine control. It felt like it was designed for shooters.

Also who knows what kind of small amd APU laptops will be available 2022.

And I think a laptop is better because you don't have to hold the weight and the screen is bigger. Trains, Planes and Hotels usually have little tables to put it on.

Price is pretty tempting though and the novelty factor is high. But I burn more than enough time on my PC at home.
 
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I have been contemplating whether I should pre-order Steam Deck or not. Would install Windows 11 on this, though. Seems like a nice PC. And much cheaper than Surface.
 

Kupfer

Member
Haven't read or thought about this one yet :
ps-remote-play-image-block-02-ps5-ps4-en-22oct20


remote-play-devices-image-block-01-ps4-ps5-en-04nov20

I LOVED the remote play feature on my PS4 and VITA and played a lot of GTA5 (campaign - mostly collectibles) with it.
Steam Deck, the included controller working, with remoteplay running, streaming PS5 via 5ghz WiFi - a dream comes true.
One of the reasons I wished for a VITA2 - I hope this'll work with the Deck.
 
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Impotaku

Member
All this talk about ergonomics in the media and such, but people ignore that Nintendo didn't bother with it much with the Switch. The Switch is far from a well-designed device from an ergonomics standpoint. It's just a big, flat thing designed for tiny hands. People with regular-sized male adult hands simply hand to get used to it. The Steam Deck layout and size looks perfectly fine to me in comparison.
Ergonomics also includes things like weight, you honestly think that something that's nearly twice the weight of a switch is going to be even remotely comfortable for prolonged gaming. Also cooling as well, that thing better have amazing cooling so you're not holding a huge heater in front of your face as well. In winter that would be a nice perk to stay warm hehe but not in summer.
 
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