Wednesday, September 15th 2021
Valve Steam Deck On Its Way To Developers
The Steam Deck has taken one step closer to launch, as Valve has announced it has shipped dev-kits to its key partners. Valve mentions that "these engineering verification test builds allow us to connect developers with units that are functionally identical to what will ship to you", but presumably the overall build quality wouldn't be the same as on the final consumer units.
The dev-kit units are not being sent out for feedback on the devices themselves, but rather for the game developers to make sure their games are optimized for the Steam Deck. Presumably software related feedback will be taken into consideration though, since this is something that Valve can improve upon in the time until the Steam Deck is expected to ship to consumers.
Source:
Valve
The dev-kit units are not being sent out for feedback on the devices themselves, but rather for the game developers to make sure their games are optimized for the Steam Deck. Presumably software related feedback will be taken into consideration though, since this is something that Valve can improve upon in the time until the Steam Deck is expected to ship to consumers.
22 Comments on Valve Steam Deck On Its Way To Developers
I'm guessing those lucky few that can get one in a timely fashion will be happy with the money they spent while others will be crying folks are scalping them at such a high price. So, like GPUs, they sit and wait and hope they get one at list price as they wait on the list or they drop the extra cash to get one now.
mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=3537
I've got a pre-order down for the 512GB SKU, expected Q1 delivery - placed before it was known that the internal storage might be upgradeable, and in hindsight I might then have gone for the 64GB SKU, but either way we'll see whether I have that kind of cash on hand at the time. If nothing else, at least I'll get that nice etched glass screen. It'll also be interesting to see how comparable this is in size to my Switch with the Hori Split Pad controllers.
As far as comparisons to switch go, I can't really say that the Deck price is bad. I mean I already have 600 games on steam, so right of the bat I wouldn't have to worry about the software side for a foreseeable future.
Maybe that would be a way to counter gpu scalpìng, by making a database of gaming platform users and allow them to made a reservation. You want to buy a gpu, make a reservation with a shop and you give them your steam id, you are only allowed to buy 1 per x amount of time for the next x months, the people who really wants it will buy it in the near future, the rest will when the demand drops. Unless there is a surge for whatever reason, which can be enforced again.
I'm not a fan of Valve in general, but their reputation for abandoning hardware projects is undeserved. They move on from things that don't work out in terms of adoption, which is a sensible thing. There are definitely ways to enforce this, though tying it to a single company is kind of problematic. It would certainly be an incentive for (even more) Steam account hacking, if nothing else. Here in Sweden they use national ID numbers for nearly everything, which would be a good solution IMO - though it would also need to be checked between retailers, of course.
There seems to be enough interest and demand to keep it going, at the end of the day it will be up to us the consumers if you like it buy one and support them.