Valve Steam Deck On Its Way To Developers

[TheLostSwede]

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.



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[ZoneDymo]

its happening, also is that a leopold keyboard?

 

[Space Lynx]

I hope it gets good reviews. I might get the Steam Deck 2 someday when it has like Ryzen 6000/7000 APU's whenever those come out. I am fine with laptop for now.

 

[ZoneDymo]

ill be honest, im interested, price I feel is a little high but its a cool device, now lets see what the reviews say though

 

[Space Lynx]

ill be honest, im interested, price I feel is a little high but its a cool device, now lets see what the reviews say though

$399 is a fair price all things considered. but yeah I got the Switch OLED pre-ordered... so I am happy with that. if Steam DECK had OLED screen i would have done it instantly. I really just want to experience more OLED... I love OLED...

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Wireless portable keyboards. The ones that either rolls or folds up...

 

[Aquinus]

I still think it looks like a Gamegear.

$399 is a fair price all things considered. but yeah I got the Switch OLED pre-ordered... so I am happy with that. if Steam DECK had OLED screen i would have done it instantly. I really just want to experience more OLED... I love OLED...

I have to say, the OLED display on my iPhone is great. I haven't noticed any burn in or image retention either after a year and a half-ish of use.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Scalpers are drooling and frothing at the mouths for these. Buy and flip for a quick buck! Gimme!

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.

 

[Chomiq]

its happening, also is that a leopold keyboard?

That one in the background looks like Ducky horizon TKL.

Ducky One 2 Horizon TKL Double Shot PBT Mechanical Keyboard

3 level adjustable feet German-made Cherry MX key switches Exclusive blue colorway case and keycaps Detachable USB-C cable Dual layer PCB

mechanicalkeyboards.com

 

[Valantar]

ill be honest, im interested, price I feel is a little high but its a cool device, now lets see what the reviews say though

$399 is barely more than a Switch, so ... meh. Considering that it's much more powerful I don't see an issue - it's essentially a midrange ultrabook with a small screen and built-in controllers. Considering that, the prices are fine IMO. Of course that entry level SKU is likely a loss leader, with most PC gamers wanting higher storage capacities which come at a noticeable premium. Though tbf, Valve did say that all demo footage (including live hands-on previews) was using 64GB SKUs with games loading off microSD cards, and it seemed fine.

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.

 

[tomc100]

Another electronic will be nonexistent due to scalpers. Scalpers have destroyed pc gaming and console gaming.

 

[Valantar]

Another electronic will be nonexistent due to scalpers. Scalpers have destroyed pc gaming and console gaming.

Valve could counteract that pretty easily, just enforce a link between the Steam account it was bought through and the hardware for X time (3 months ought to do it) and force activation of the hardware with that account. Of course scalpers could sell their fake accounts alongside the hardware, but it would make this much more of a hassle, which ought to drive prices down somewhat.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

ill be honest, im interested, price I feel is a little high but its a cool device, now lets see what the reviews say though

Have a. Look around and it's price starts to look great , can't wait.

 

[StaticVapour]

I would like to buy one, being fan of PSP and Vita so it's like replacement. I'm afraid it's going to get scalped and, well.. not so fun anymore. Price is pretty okay in euros (419€) for base model while Switch is around 349€ If I remember correctly and the OLED model is almost 370€

 

[ShurikN]

I would like to buy one, being fan of PSP and Vita so it's like replacement. I'm afraid it's going to get scalped and, well.. not so fun anymore. Price is pretty okay in euros (419€) for base model while Switch is around 349€ If I remember correctly and the OLED model is almost 370€

I think the base switch is getting a price drop, 20-30 eur, something like that.

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.

 

[Makaveli]

I hope it does well and the linux tuning that Valve has been doing for it pays off. Would love to see a 2nd generation at some point with Zen 3 or 4 APU + RDNA 3 that will do 1080p in the future.

 

[P4-630]

I hope it gets good reviews. I might get the Steam Deck 2 someday when it has like Ryzen 6000/7000 APU's whenever those come out. I am fine with laptop for now.

Samsung 1080 Pro Gen5 NVME 1TB

I'd take the 4TB version if I were you.... Overall nice system...

 

[timta2]

I can only wonder how many months from now it will be before Valve gives up on this, like they have so many other hardware devices in the past.

 

[Tartaros]

Valve could counteract that pretty easily, just enforce a link between the Steam account it was bought through and the hardware for X time (3 months ought to do it) and force activation of the hardware with that account. Of course scalpers could sell their fake accounts alongside the hardware, but it would make this much more of a hassle, which ought to drive prices down somewhat.

Which they also countered by only allowing accounts old enough accounts to be able to reserve it. I don't know how old the accounts have to be, but certainly there is an effort to counter scalpers.

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.

 

[Valantar]

I can only wonder how many months from now it will be before Valve gives up on this, like they have so many other hardware devices in the past.

How many hardware devices have they made? Steam machines were all made by third parties (and saw dismal sales from all reports), they've supported their VR HMDs well, the Steam Controller never panned out but again didn't sell well either (anyone remember the $5 EOL sale?) but still works just like it did if you have one. That tiny streaming thing of theirs was for sale for a few years before going EOL as far as I know (and was ultimately quite redundant). Given the open source nature of the OS, I'm not too worried about this. Worst case scenario you install Windows and use it as a handheld Windows PC - there'll clearly be drivers for all of the special hardware, and beyond that it's just a PC.

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.

Which they also countered by only allowing accounts old enough accounts to be able to reserve it. I don't know how old the accounts have to be, but certainly there is an effort to counter scalpers.

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.

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.

 

[Makaveli]

I can only wonder how many months from now it will be before Valve gives up on this, like they have so many other hardware devices in the past.

Only time will tell.

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.

 

[Franzen4Real]

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

I pre-ordered the same one, for the same reason.. In the IGN launch interview the Valve devs said that it would not be not upgradable other than the SD card slot (also the 64GB version is eMMC which would be soldered to the board). Have I missed a more recent turn of events? Worst case, the etched glass that we may have unnecessarily paid for will indeed look nice

 

[Valantar]

I pre-ordered the same one, for the same reason.. In the IGN launch interview the Valve devs said that it would not be not upgradable other than the SD card slot (also the 64GB version is eMMC which would be soldered to the board). Have I missed a more recent turn of events? Worst case, the etched glass that we may have unnecessarily paid for will indeed look nice

It's been widely reported that all internal storage is m.2 - IIRC m.2 2230 (might have been 2242?). So the eMMC is likely just on an m.2 card, not soldered directly to the motherboard. Either way, I don't really regret ordering the 500GB SKU - it's ready to go straight out of the box, which is always nice, and the price premium isn't that bad (even if the same price could have bought me a 1TB Kioxia BG4 to swap in). I think that etched glass is going to be very nice to have.