Valve To Formally Launch Steam Deck On 25 February, Shipping Begins 28 February

[aschmidtm]

I loved the steam controller. Sure it had its shortcomings, but the software made up for it. Wish I could still get a new one for a reasonable price.

[drakonas777]

The main problem regarding steam machines was an absence of Proton. From the economical point on view it was a mistake to rely on native Linux game port's. Yeah, sure, the marketing and kind of whole idea of off-the-shelf OEM mini-PCs was not great, but the root cause was that people were actually unable to play most of the games out-of-the-box. In my opinion.

Now, as for success of Steam Deck. One could say they are already success story considering the amount of preorders were made. However, I'd say that long term success will mainly depend on Valve's ability to maintain Proton as a high quality compatibility layer with good game support. Imagine for a moment, that after Steam Deck Valve launches another "steam machine", but this time with Proton and hardware design made by Valve and not some OEM mini-PCs. Let's say it would feature similar SoC to the one used in X Box Series S at a similar price point, but the whole thing would come with full featured OS, basically unlock desktop alternative. I think it would be a success, but as I said, basically everything depends on the Proton.

It would definitely be a success in current market, where you can't get value GPU, so hypothetical unlocked "Steam Deck Station" with 300-400USD MSRP, based on 8C/16T ZEN2 and 16-24CU RDNA2 would just fly. Of course it's unfeasible considering how AMD's wafers are distributed and reserved and so on, but it's fun to speculate on the idea

[jaxa]

It would definitely be a success in current market, where you can't get value GPU, so hypothetical unlocked "Steam Deck Station" with 300-400USD MSRP, based on 8C/16T ZEN2 and 16-24CU RDNA2 would just fly. Of course it's unfeasible considering how AMD's wafers are distributed and reserved and so on, but it's fun to speculate on the idea

They need to create a device that hacks an Xbox or PS5 through a USB port and turns it into a Steam Box. Problem solved.

Wait for a major node shrink (5nm) and the amount they could do in the handheld form factor should increase. I guess anybody could create a console-style mini PC that leverages economy of scale and a "mega APU" to bring the costs down to match Xbox/PS5, but I don't think Valve will be the one to do it.

[thepreacher]

The main problem regarding steam machines was an absence of Proton. From the economical point on view it was a mistake to rely on native Linux game port's. Yeah, sure, the marketing and kind of whole idea of off-the-shelf OEM mini-PCs was not great, but the root cause was that people were actually unable to play most of the games out-of-the-box. In my opinion.

Now, as for success of Steam Deck. One could say they are already success story considering the amount of preorders were made. However, I'd say that long term success will mainly depend on Valve's ability to maintain Proton as a high quality compatibility layer with good game support. Imagine for a moment, that after Steam Deck Valve launches another "steam machine", but this time with Proton and hardware design made by Valve and not some OEM mini-PCs. Let's say it would feature similar SoC to the one used in X Box Series S at a similar price point, but the whole thing would come with full featured OS, basically unlock desktop alternative. I think it would be a success, but as I said, basically everything depends on the Proton.

It would definitely be a success in current market, where you can't get value GPU, so hypothetical unlocked "Steam Deck Station" with 300-400USD MSRP, based on 8C/16T ZEN2 and 16-24CU RDNA2 would just fly. Of course it's unfeasible considering how AMD's wafers are distributed and reserved and so on, but it's fun to speculate on the idea

I suppose it depends on how many of those pre-orders convert into actual sales. A fair bit of time has elapsed since the initial opening of pre-orders. If memory serves, it was a very low deposit (maybe €5) to reserve a Steam Deck - very little commitment at the time. I'm looking forward to receiving my email as I definitely want one of them. Yeah, Proton and the reported compatibility of a lot of titles is the big deal here. While the specs are good, there'd be little value moving from sparse Mac ports to the same deal but with Linux.

[ruthan]

This could be like IBM PC, clones are already available and there better.. Yeah more expensive but with better HW.. BTW today I bought Mortal kombat X nice game for such device its 70gb, so 256 or less would be su not good for newer games..

[drakonas777]

This could be like IBM PC, clones are already available and there better.. Yeah more expensive but with better HW.. BTW today I bought Mortal kombat X nice game for such device its 70gb, so 256 or less would be su not good for newer games..

Don't think so. More expensive clones means opposite situation to IBM PC. Also, I am not aware of better HW clone. Almost all of them use either Tiger Lake G series or previous gen AMD APU, which means a lot weaker GPU. Which means that having more powerful CPU or more RAM on the clone does not really matter. Taking into account such things as ergonomics, touch input and overall support I think we gonna wait for some tome to proper clones to emerge.

[Awesomeness]

I loved the steam controller. Sure it had its shortcomings, but the software made up for it. Wish I could still get a new one for a reasonable price.

It's not unreasonable to assume that Valve will basically cut out the screen and make a "pro controller" at some point but considering that Xbox, PlayStation controllers, even Steam Controllers, etc. work just fine, this likely has lower priority, esp. with current supply chain constrains.