Steam Deck officially announced by Valve

I got the controller and the link. Both were/are kinda meh and lost support quick. I do know people that were stupid enough to jump on the Steam Box train and oooh that one burned.
I think this will be different. AMD wouldn't have signed on to the deal making the hardware for it otherwise.
 
I thought the Steam controller was nice because it tried to innovate, even though it didn't totally work in the end.

With the Link box, well now you can do that on a second PC the same, and actually the streaming does work okay.
 
Or this is going to go the way of steam controller, steam link, steam box, htc vive. Valves track record isn't that great, Nintendo has fought off better rivals, and handheld PC type items tend to be major flops. All aboard the Steamtanic!
To be fair the Valve Index did pretty well. The controller was at least trying to do something new, unlike the rest of the industry. How do you sell a gamepad to PC gamers who use keyboard and mouse? The answer is you don't. Steam Deck is basically Steam Box 3.0, but at least it can play Window's games. The Steam Link just didn't make much sense honestly.
 
I think this will be different. AMD wouldn't have signed on to the deal making the hardware for it otherwise.
It's different for a few reasons. Good reasons.
#1 This is made by Valve. Steam Boxes were just Valve hoping that other hardware manufacturers don't fuck up. They fucked up.
#2 Valve fixed the issues of playing Windows games on Linux with Proton.
#3 This is only $400. Lots of other x86 Switch clones exist but they aren't cheap.

If all else fails you can still install Windows on it and do whatever. I plan to upgrade the M.2 and install Linux Mint. I can play Steam games and run emulators.
 
It's different for a few reasons. Good reasons.
#1 This is made by Valve. Steam Boxes were just Valve hoping that other hardware manufacturers don't fuck up. They fucked up.
#2 Valve fixed the issues of playing Windows games on Linux with Proton.
#3 This is only $400. Lots of other x86 Switch clones exist but they aren't cheap.

If all else fails you can still install Windows on it and do whatever. I plan to upgrade the M.2 and install Linux Mint. I can play Steam games and run emulators.
Valve didn't fix the issues of playing Windows games with Proton because The Stanley Parable still won't run via proton.
 
Valve didn't fix the issues of playing Windows games with Proton because The Stanley Parable still won't run via proton.
Not every single game works, but the vast majority do (some with only minor issues).

Valve has also done a lot of work with Proton to get it to where it is today over the last few years.

And with this new handheld they have all the more reason to invest resources and work with developers to get the rest of the games working.
 
Yeah, proton, is certainly not a panacea, but it is a good start and a great number of games do just work. If this device gains enough traction, devs will start ensuring their future, and maybe even current games work on it. And if they don't, well, it looks like we will be able to run Windows on it anyway if it comes to that. Maybe even dual boot SteamOS and Windows.
Thinking I would like the ability to put a 1 or 2TB nvme in there if that were the case though. We will see. It's a matter of adoption. If enough people buy it, the devs will come.
I went ahead and got on the waiting list for the top model. Even if I don't have a lot of use for it, I can gift it to one of my kids.
 
I think this will be different. AMD wouldn't have signed on to the deal making the hardware for it otherwise.
This is just Van Gogh...anyone can develop a design.

This uses a low-power Zen 2 so it can compete with Tremont atom quad core power consumption (and the RDNA2 fixes the other half of getting AMD soc below 6w)..should providee sabout twuce the performance of this Tremmont quad

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel...-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.514518.0.html
 
You say that like we don't want to try this as a device.

We do. It's not perfect, and we'll find more imperfections down the line, but every single mobile gamer, laptop user, and AMD enthusiast, have all been looking for the APU to break APUs into their own segment.

It's clear that, at least for now, Microsoft can't make the Xbox S into a laptop. This is the next best thing, and you can plonk any OS you want on it. It'll be on par with, or ahead of consumer mobile parts, even if they're cut down.

Not for nothing, we've been waiting for something like this for decades. Everyone's tried, yes, and largely failed, but this is brass ring hardware. And from a real contender. This isn't a last-ditch effort by Sony with the Game Gear. Steam and Valve are here to stay.

Sega, not Sony....
 
This is just Van Gogh...anyone can develop a design.

This uses a low-power Zen 2 so it can compete with Tremont atom quad core power consumption (and the RDNA2 fixes the other half of getting AMD soc below 6w)..should providee sabout twuce the performance of this Tremmont quad

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel...-Processor-Benchmarks-and-Specs.514518.0.html

Yes, this is Van Gogh. But I doubt if we will ever see this outside of the steam deck.

AMD is not a player in the ultra portable market. So they don't have the volumes to make it as a standalone product.

It is as simple as
no Valve then no VanGogh
 
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of people with extremely poor impulse control and no sense of delayed gratification these days, and they are all trying to outbid each other resulting in these crazy shortages and scalping.

It's kind of s sickness.

I want my delayed satisfaction now! Now, now, now, NOW!!!!!!!
 
Out of curiosity, what does everyone's pre-order says in terms of shipping time?

When I ordered it said Dec 2021, now it says Q1 2022.
 
To be fair the Valve Index did pretty well. The controller was at least trying to do something new, unlike the rest of the industry. How do you sell a gamepad to PC gamers who use keyboard and mouse? The answer is you don't. Steam Deck is basically Steam Box 3.0, but at least it can play Window's games. The Steam Link just didn't make much sense honestly.
I like the steamlink, still have it plugged into the living room TV, my sons played it takes two entirely over it without a couple minor issues. But, it made more sense to just release the operating system. However…. I might move completely to Moonlight + Nvidia Gamestream.
 
Why can't Valve just state if it is possible for a tech savvy end user to replace the darn thing or not? :) If it is a slot, then I would have bought the base model and slapped a drive in on day one. If I have to solder, then the higher end model I purchased was the way to go.

Valve is never going to advocate doing this. Partially because they want you to buy their premium model, partially because it will void your warranty.

I don't regret getting the 512gb model. I don't have to take it apart or void my warranty, and the anti glair screen is a nice touch.
 
Steam's storefront is worse than I thought. I had several credit card temp holds. Why Valve decided to have the bottleneck at the point where it tries to process payment is beyond me. Quite frankly, that is just stupid planning on their part. The best part is they kept telling me my credit card was declined when in really they just tried to hit it 10 different times because they are incompetent.
 
Not every single game works, but the vast majority do (some with only minor issues).

Valve has also done a lot of work with Proton to get it to where it is today over the last few years.

And with this new handheld they have all the more reason to invest resources and work with developers to get the rest of the games working.
People forget that the goal for Valve is to not be dependent on Microsoft's Windows for their future. Windows 11 is a reminder that Microsoft still wants to bring all the other stores including Google's Play store to their store. Windows 10 has only so many years left and Windows 11 not only needs TPM and Secure Boot but also needs new drivers. Microsoft is going to make is hard to continue to game on Windows, which is going to make it harder on Valve. So Proton isn't going to have development stopped and if the Steam Deck has massive success then developers may start porting their games over to Linux. If there's any reason why the Deck is $400 it isn't to get promote the sale of more games on Steam but to promote more people moving onto Linux and developers porting their games onto Linux.
 
I was planning on buying a small NUC as a living room game streaming and music streaming (roon server) box with the ability to play games via emulation and steam (native + streaming from my gaming PC). This does all that and is portable with its own screen and controller. I have previously used big screen mode with a controller and it works great - I might even break out my steam controller and see if it work better now with more gyro control (“flick stick”)
I was mildly tempted by the smach and GPD and other devices but this is way more of a slam dunk in the value and likely quality dept for the price.
I have a switch, not expecting a gaming console (“switch pro”) from Valve that replaces my switch.
 
Yesterday around 2est I was able to make a deposit on the 256gb. I then changed my mind, canceled deposit, and made a new deposit on the 512gb with minor inconvenience from "try again in a while..." warnings. See you in 2022.
 
I think long term this will be very good for gaming, the ability to tweak at the lowest level, ie kernel/scheduler/etc.
Valve is already doing this with their contribution to AMD and Intel drivers. The kernel is getting a method to deal with how some games use anti cheat because a lot of it bypasses the kernel in Windows, which is a no no in Linux.
 
To be fair the Valve Index did pretty well. The controller was at least trying to do something new, unlike the rest of the industry. How do you sell a gamepad to PC gamers who use keyboard and mouse? The answer is you don't. Steam Deck is basically Steam Box 3.0, but at least it can play Window's games. The Steam Link just didn't make much sense honestly.
The Index was fine they just pulled a Valve and bailed on it. Other VR systems that were supported did better. Their controller, don't say you can sell one because people do all the time. Xbox controllers sell to PC gamers and there are entire companies such as 8bitdo that make sell controllers, not to mention companies like Razer and logitech. But again, these companies stood by their products. The Steam Link was fine and did make sense they just didn't bother to support it and update it as time went on, again same deal.
It's different for a few reasons. Good reasons.
#1 This is made by Valve. Steam Boxes were just Valve hoping that other hardware manufacturers don't fuck up. They fucked up.
#2 Valve fixed the issues of playing Windows games on Linux with Proton.
#3 This is only $400. Lots of other x86 Switch clones exist but they aren't cheap.

If all else fails you can still install Windows on it and do whatever. I plan to upgrade the M.2 and install Linux Mint. I can play Steam games and run emulators.

#1 Being made by Valve is sort of a negative here given their track record. The other makers were Alienware and ASUS which are dependable, it just wasn't a good idea and they didn't get support.
#2 It's not really fixed. I'd love for it to be fixed as I could build a Linux box but it's not really there yet.
#3 Price hasn't really been the failure here. It's been a mix of form factor, battery life, and performance. I don't see how they've avoided that.

I want this to work, it would be great if it did. It's just given Valves history and the history of these devices I don't trust it.
 
The Index was fine they just pulled a Valve and bailed on it. Other VR systems that were supported did better. Their controller, don't say you can sell one because people do all the time. Xbox controllers sell to PC gamers and there are entire companies such as 8bitdo that make sell controllers, not to mention companies like Razer and logitech. But again, these companies stood by their products. The Steam Link was fine and did make sense they just didn't bother to support it and update it as time went on, again same deal.


#1 Being made by Valve is sort of a negative here given their track record. The other makers were Alienware and ASUS which are dependable, it just wasn't a good idea and they didn't get support.
#2 It's not really fixed. I'd love for it to be fixed as I could build a Linux box but it's not really there yet.
#3 Price hasn't really been the failure here. It's been a mix of form factor, battery life, and performance. I don't see how they've avoided that.

I want this to work, it would be great if it did. It's just given Valves history and the history of these devices I don't trust it.
Yup but I am a gambling man.. and I got to put my stimmy money to work.. lol
 
Price is already fairly hefty, removable controllers would add quite a bit to production cost, not to mention the inherent durability headaches and the wasted space.
Unfortunately, it's one of the biggest things holding it back in my eyes, too. Not having removable controllers on a device like this is just terrible. So if you want to hook it up to a friend's TV and play local coop, you...

- Hook your mobile console up and make sure you have two extra 3rd party controllers with you...?
- Run a 10-15+ foot HDMI cable to your console and use it with the heavy cable hooked up (wearing down the probably flimsy slot by the way), and then hook up a dongle for your friend to use via USB and have them hold a controller?

I would have preferred some drawbacks, if it allowed them to include removable controllers. As it is now, I can't possibly see myself finding a use for this device. Almost everywhere that I would use it, I can generally think of a better solution. Namely, the laptop... I guess it is fairly inexpensive though, so there is that...

The Index was fine they just pulled a Valve and bailed on it. Other VR systems that were supported did better. Their controller, don't say you can sell one because people do all the time. Xbox controllers sell to PC gamers and there are entire companies such as 8bitdo that make sell controllers, not to mention companies like Razer and logitech. But again, these companies stood by their products. The Steam Link was fine and did make sense they just didn't bother to support it and update it as time went on, again same deal.


This thing with lack of support is exactly what happened with the Vita, too. It was a fine handheld, best in class during its time, and Sony just decided to go full retard with not advertising it or supporting it. Seems to be a common trend....
 
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Unfortunately, it's one of the biggest things holding it back in my eyes, too. Not having removable controllers on a device like this is just terrible. So if you want to hook it up to a friend's TV and play local coop, you... hook your mobile console up and make sure you have two extra 3rd party controllers with you...?

I would have preferred some drawbacks, if it allowed them to include removable controllers. As it is now, I can't possibly see myself finding a use for this device.




This thing with lack of support is exactly what happened with the Vita, too. It was a fine handheld, best in class during its time, and Sony just decided to go full retard with not advertising it or supporting it. Seems to be a common trend....

I wouldn't worry about the removable controllers that much. I'd imagine if you're hauling it for a local item you using controllers.

The lack of support is really common with these sorts of things. Companies throw something out and when it does not do as well as expected they yank all support from it and just give up, and the market is just littered with the corpses of console attempts and especially portable attempts including some big names. Sony's issue with the Vita was really two things. They made the mistake of thinking processing power mattered in a portable, it doesn't really, the entire portable market is littered with the corpses of "faster/better" options than what Nintendo offered who all crashed and burned despite being superior. They also had internal warnings about the rise of portable gaming on cell phones being "good enough" and ignored that as well. They folded. They could have pushed through but I think enough people were burned on it that trust is gone.
 
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I wouldn't worry about the removable controllers that much. I'd imagine if you're hauling it for a local item you using controllers.

The lack of support is really common with these sorts of things. Companies throw something out and when it does not do as well as expected they yank all support from it and just give up, and the market is just littered with the corpses of console attempts and especially portable attempts including some big names. Sony's issue with the Vita was really two things. They made the mistake of thinking processing power mattered in a portable, it doesn't really, the entire portable market is littered with the corpses of "faster/better" options than what Nintendo offered who all crashed and burned despite being superior. They also had internal warnings about the rise of portable gaming on cell phones being "good enough" and ignored that as well. They folded. They could have pushed through but I think enough people were burned on it that trust is gone.

The proprietary memory card garbage hurt too. At a time when high (for then) capacity SD cards were getting both cheaper and faster, Sony went with ridiculously expensive cards that only worked in the Vita. Those buggers never got much cheaper.
 
I have Q1 2022, even though I was trying since they went live (got the confirmation at 10:22).
 
"Your expected order availability: Q3 2022"

How did you get availability info? I just have an order confirmation. I'm nine minutes in, but don't see anything pertaining to availability.
 
The proprietary memory card garbage hurt too. At a time when high (for then) capacity SD cards were getting both cheaper and faster, Sony went with ridiculously expensive cards that only worked in the Vita. Those buggers never got much cheaper.
We know why they did it, too, along with no longer enabling the Vita to be mounted as a USB drive directly without software like the PSP - not that it did them any good, because CFW restores that functionality and enables use of the sd2vita adapter to get around the Vita's biggest flaws. (Also, it helps make the thing a full-fledged PSP Go in a sense, only missing the UMD drive, but if you have a PSP as well, even that won't be much of a setback if you have a UMD game library built up.)

On top of that, the Vita's 32 GB and especially 64 GB memory cards are apparently known for premature failure, so imagine buying some stupid overpriced memory card only to find out it abruptly dies on you and trashes all your save data, and you probably would've had to import the 64 GB cards in particular from Japan to begin with.

There's still some good games on the thing, some that still haven't been released on other platforms, but Sony just let it languish. It's quite a shame, and now they're not even trying in the portable gaming space after the Vita's silent demise.
 
How did you get availability info? I just have an order confirmation. I'm nine minutes in, but don't see anything pertaining to availability.

Just figured it out myself. Its just on the Steam Deck page (or in your activity). Can just click link below.

STEAM DECK DEPOSIT
Capture.PNG


Scroll past the picture of the Deck and it will show all the models, the one that you reserved should have a note underneath it.

Capture.PNG
 
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oooohhhh my god it's happening
Ever since the Switch came out I've been waiting for an x86 equivalent that has "good enough" hardware and is actually affordable.
This is fucking sick, I'm seriously swooning over this machine. 8CU Navi2 with ~90GB/s memory and little a overclock should perform close to a GTX 1050, CPU is strong even if not the absolute latest, has plenty of memory, good choice of display (low-rez to easier to drive AND its 16:10!?) and has an M.2 slot? (note- "they" make a big deal about 2230 SSDs being expensive and impossible to find but I have one word for you- Ebay. New 512GB 2230 NVMe direct from Korea/HK/China can be had for around $100 which for the math astute is double what a 512GB 2280 goes but much less than the price diff between the 64GB and 512GB Deck models)

I've been vaguely planning on spending around $500 later this year for a dedicated streaming box but now it seems like saving for one of these is the obvious move since this could easily run single-stream OBS with HDMI capture in its spare time while also having so many more uses.
 
Damn, got in the first 10 minutes and still set for Q1...
I have a feeling the "December" launch date just means that they'll have the 64GB version available in limited quantities at retail for the end of the holiday season, and that general availablity and pre-order fulfillment was always going to be Q1.
 
We know why they did it, too, along with no longer enabling the Vita to be mounted as a USB drive directly without software like the PSP - not that it did them any good, because CFW restores that functionality and enables use of the sd2vita adapter to get around the Vita's biggest flaws. (Also, it helps make the thing a full-fledged PSP Go in a sense, only missing the UMD drive, but if you have a PSP as well, even that won't be much of a setback if you have a UMD game library built up.)

On top of that, the Vita's 32 GB and especially 64 GB memory cards are apparently known for premature failure, so imagine buying some stupid overpriced memory card only to find out it abruptly dies on you and trashes all your save data, and you probably would've had to import the 64 GB cards in particular from Japan to begin with.

There's still some good games on the thing, some that still haven't been released on other platforms, but Sony just let it languish. It's quite a shame, and now they're not even trying in the portable gaming space after the Vita's silent demise.

Demise huh? Vita is still getting new games every month.
 
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