Only difference is that, unlike traditional game companies, this Steam Deck thing isn't a walled garden. But of course, Steam has a near monopoly on PC gaming so it's unlikely that'll be a problem for them.
If Valve isn't locking the hardware down, but is subsidizing it, then they might run into a situation where cryptominers (or some other group) start buying these things up in bulk, but never playing any games on them.
I could see owning one of these as a non-gaming desktop.
https://www.crypto-news.net/what-does-ethereums-proof-of-sta...
I'm waiting to buy a laptop I want for some months now, still not available.
Unless this custom APU for Steam Deck is made in a special foundry with a special process, then they will be in line just like everyone else.
Plus scalpers love this shortage to make easy money.
It's not about being ready or not, it's about supply and demand.
An example from Valve themselves from early this year regarding Index, an interview with Gabe:
“We actually have components that are manufactured in Wuhan and when you’re setting up your manufacturing lines it doesn’t occur to you that you’re suddenly going to be dependent on this peculiar transistor that’s sitting on one board that you can’t get,” Newell said.
“Everybody ended up running into the same problem simultaneously — you go from, ‘Oh, we’re in great shape,’ to, ‘What do you mean Apple or Microsoft just bought the next two years’ supply of this just so they could make sure they aren’t going to run out?’ You went from a situation where everything was getting done just in time to people buying up all the available supplies.”
Newell says these constraints are also why the headset still doesn’t ship to some markets like New Zealand or Australia. “The only thing keeping us from shipping in New Zealand at this point is just getting enough of them made — we’re very much manufacturing constrained.”
At first glance at least, it seems like it may end up being much more than that. I see appeal here for non-gamers as well - or at least, for people who aren't only or even primarily gamers.
It's a very nice cyberdeck for general use, though granted it doesn't have a hardware keyboard. Given the size and form factor any keyboard they'd tried to graft on the thing would be basically unusable anyhow so I'm glad they didn't try.
I can totally see myself picking one of these up and throwing it in my bag alongside a small Bluetooth mechanical keyboard. For working in coffee shops in a terminal it'd be just fine. Connect it up to a TV via Chromecast or something and you've got a damned nice setup for less than a grand.
I find its really hard to beat the convertible laptop form factor in general
Now if it can somehow act as wacom tablet I'll instantly buy it, though it may be not the case.
I call it the ipad effect, where an ipad + keyboard of the same size ends up being heavier than a laptop of the same size.
Convertibles also tend to have a touch screen and pen support too.
I find the 7" form factor only good for personal usage, if you want to play a multiplayer game on it, it's too tiny usually.
Steam Deck at least stands a chance, although I'm worried about the weight and the battery life.
If it can do low-resource gaming for 8 hours, its not lie. And honestly, thats not something too far-fetch.
The only one lying here is you, since its not even released yet for you to test the claim. Not to mention how you conveniently left out "2-" from the battery life range
What? Did you expect to run Cyberpunk 2027 for 8 hours on single charge this machine?
Or, if AMD would please get on with it and release a small form factor like the Intel Nuc, that would be great. But this device does have a screen attached to it and a battery, so it would work fine as a nuc for me.
Super excited!
One major difference (besides the form-factor obviously) is that the Deck doesn't require WiFi + desktop to play your PC games. I'd also argue that the trackpads will be a major difference. The Steam Controller's trackpad wasn't perfect, but it made possible to sanely play a ton of designed-for-mouse games
However, this is far better. Not only are the specs very impressive for the size/power, but it runs an OS that can plan anything (with Proton). It's like mixing the switch with a ps4. Imagine playing the Witcher 3, or Doom Eternal on this compared to the 480p blurry Switch version. I hope this does well.
Does it even matter? For consumers, they get what they paid for even if Valve shows zero commitment as long as Steam does not actively shut them out. For game companies, support for controller and Linux/Proton is valuable with or without Steam Deck.
And for Valve itself, all the software investment is a long term hedge against the existential threat of Windows failing them, this is just an opportunistic bonus use. The only actual cost is the hardware side of the project. If it tanks in the market they'll simply refrain from doing a v2 and do damage control with long tail sales of v1. While taking comfort in knowing that the Deck hardware will at least have lured a few game companies into the arms of Proton, strengthening their Windows hedge.
And you can still keep your switch for nintendo exclusives because they've just made it clear that they're not upgrading the switch in a worthwhile way for at least a year.
I would say this is squarely aimed at the existing switch customer base.
PC gamers and steam gamers are often very different markets. Nintendo, for decades now, was about fun, not power. I'm casual gamer, just for fun, and steam deck, while super cool, is certainly not going to replacement my switch.
Seems like something is very wrong with either Switch hardware performance or Nintendo quality control.
Also many switch ports are abandoned by the devs in a very buggy state. This will probably replace my switch and PC. Very excited.
Nintendo charges you money for new copies of each game you want to play on their latest hardware. You can't just pull out your old copy of Super Mario Bros and install it on your Switch.
Hell, I've heard that there are Switch games that have been out since the very beginning of the console that are still full price.
So certainly a lot of switch owners are playing indie games that they could be playing on this device with better performance.
Yup.
Before clicking the "Reserve" link, I put a personal threshold for this thing at $300. If it was somewhere around that, it'd be an instant purchase for me.
Over $500 for a version with barely acceptable (by 2021 standards) storage? No thank you.
The 64GB version is almost a made-for-landfill device. I can't imagine people not running out of space very, very fast (even with microSD card slot, which we may or may not be able to install games onto: I wish they made it clear in the specs). Still, for $300, it'd be an instant buy for me - just to be able to play in bed.
I really hope enough people buy this thing, because I'd really want it to thrive - and the price to drop :)
I felt that way about the Quest 2, and opted for the maxxed-out version. As it turns out, I use it a few times per week and have ~40GB of storage in use.
I originally used Virtual Desktop to remote in to my desktop, mostly from across the house but also over 5G. Now that Airlink is available in beta I use it exclusively at home, and mostly play "PCVR" titles wirelessly.
The Steam Deck seems to be taking the same approach. I see myself using it to play games from my desktop library while in bed or sitting outside. Few if any games will actually get installed on the device, because I won't want to use the on-board processing and drain my battery anyhow.
Not only is it just too much space, but it’d be wasted since there’s no way you’re going to play all of those games.
The 64gb version of this definitely is too small though. That’s less than the average AAA game. And while there are certainly people out there who don’t play AAA games, I don’t think the average Joe will do the math ahead of time when buying one of these, and will be very disappointed/angry when they find they can’t play the game they want (without using external storage/a dock).
But, if this thing does have an SD card slot (idk, I haven’t checked), it should solve the problem. SD cards aren’t super fast, but the Nintendo switch is proof that they’re at least good enough for gaming.
However, when the hypothetical average Joe you propose picks up a cheap 256 GB SD card off of Amazon and it takes five minutes every time they reload from a checkpoint in Control, I think they will be at least as frustrated as when they ran out of space on the internal SSD.
At least Todd Howard can't sell Skyrim yet another time, it's already in my steam library.
The required storage is listed on the steam store page, Cyberpunk for instance requires 70 GB free.
https://www.steamdeck.com/en/hardware
> All models of Steam Deck support expanding your storage via microSD cards. Games stored on a microSD card will appear in your library instantly.
Anyway, you can more or less do that today already with external disks, etc. You can certainly connect a USB3 SSD. I wonder if the nvme drive is user-replaceable? I guess not?
Though given the open nature of the device, expect mods sooner rather than later. Replacing a chip and telling Linux to override its size (or mod the bios/dtb) should be a breeze.
I think that hints that you can install games... hopefully :).
People forget that these devices without marketing and consistency they won't go far.
Nintendo, Sony, even MS that came later to the party have hundreds (if not thousands) of millions poured to build their brands, over decades... Sega knew how to play this game and still didn't manage to hang on...
They are already taking the crops of nostalgia, that's for how long they have been around. Leveraging these devices base on hardware it's nothing in the great scheme of things.
I see what you did there :)
But seeing Valve's track record, marketing isn't their strong point too.
On one hand it would be nice to have my Steam games on a portable without having to double-purchase(a problem ATM with Switch, on top of the higher typical costs of those games on eShop).
But I have the Switch and Switch Lite already which plays Nintendo exclusives. Honestly it's nice to get a break and dip into a catalogue that's not on my PC when I'm on the go. And I'm 100% not going to take two portables with me anywhere.
Then there is the cost. $650 for me would be better spent toward a PS5 if I could get my hands on one. I like the Sony exclusives(GoW, Last of Us, etc) and would really like to play Returnal.. Though it will probably go cross-platform before I ever see a PS5 with my own eyes.
The more I think about it's price point and value to me the more I get the Shield vibes, and the more impressive it is how well Nintendo knows their customers and rides a very fine line with their product placement.
Edit: As an added thought; I like to experience certain games, shows, and movies in a very controlled environment. I won't play/watch them on-the-go.
1) Nintendo switch game prices
2) The size of your existing PC-compatible library (including emulators).
That drastically changes the value proposition to me.
If I played more games I would absolutely buy one of these. I already own the NVidia Shield that plugs into your TV because it’s a great streaming box even if you ignore the gaming aspect.
ps4 controllers are generic bluetooth gamepads that I've been able to connect to a surprising range of devices.
On phones with the feature, you can use your left thumb to walk, right thumb to aim, and 3D touch (press down hard on the screen to shoot). I know at least call of duty mobile supports it, and when I tried it out it felt revolutionary.
But rather than add new input methods, they’re removing them at the same time they’re trying to push harder into mobile gaming (with Apple Arcade).
It’s baffling as an outsider to see such obviously bad/stupid decisions like that from such a massive company.
Tapping the back of my phone now, I can see it maybe working for some types of games/shooters where you don't have to hold down the fire button, if implemented well (which probably isn't easy to do for all hardware). The tactile feedback of smacking the phone could help provide a good experience if paired with appropriate audio/visuals.
This isn't quite the same thing, but the Playstation Vita has a rear touchpad, and not a ton of games managed to use it well, even with the much higher precision (Tearaway[1] is the only good one I can remember).
Tearaway gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw5LD4B-3DI
Most action games require at least 3 simultaneous inputs to be played effectively.
There's definitely workarounds like the ones you mention, but unless a game is actually made for touchscreen controls, as in optimized for no more than 2 simultaneous inputs, it's not going to be as playable on a touchscreen as it would be with anything else.
Unfortunately, some genres of game just aren't as suited to only 2 simultaneous inputs.
There's lots of fun touchscreen based games, but they're always better with game mechanics specifically suited to touchscreens.
Disc: Googler.
The price isn't out of line even if you consider it as a "thin client" gaming device.
Mostly I'm thinking about controller vs keyboard+mouse. Typically you have more controls available on PC and when I play the same game on PC I am complete garbage at it because I'm used to controller, maybe I'm too old though.
Plus it natively supports "mouse" controls via a few input methods: thumb touch screens and tilt-o-whorl. And if neither of those work, you can use a bluetooth mouse/keyboard.
Other than emulators, Android is a barren land for good controller based games. Specially compared to Steam.
The shield runs all the major streaming networks and there's now Airplay apps that run in the background, closing that gap.
As with all chrome-based devices, the Google voice assistant blows away AppleTV and Roku.
Atari Lynx. Sony PSP. Sony Vita. Nintendo Switch. Any others I don't remember?
Giving the PC games market access to that form factor seems, on its face, like an extremely good move.
But we’ve seen products like this before — the NVIDIA Shield, for one. Pretty cool piece of tech, but didn’t exactly start a revolution.
I guess the question becomes “what percentage of current PC gamers are motivated to shell out $400 to play on the train?”
Frankly, I feel like it’s probably a decent number of people? Enough for this product to do okay, if not change the whole market. But people have been very confidently incorrect about almost every iteration of mobile gaming in the past. I guess we’ll see.