Steam Deck (handheld from Valve) - shipping is 4-8 days from NL to UK

[Rorschach]

5 hours ago, TomatoConvenienceStore said:

I don't believe this will be of that much interest to Steam. The reason being that we have to consider how the Steampal Deck actually fits into Steams business model.

 

- It probably won't be profitable in and of itself.

- It won't grow the Steam user base all that much.

- You can actually install windows and run Steam's competitors without issue.

 

People don't install their OS of choice on their personal devices though, aside from a tiny, tiny minority. We're still waiting for the year of Linux on the desktop. Vast majority of people buying this thing, even though it is slanted towards a hobbyist / early adopter crowd perhaps, will stick with Steam OS and Proton and be perfectly happy with that.

 

6 hours ago, Jamie John said:

I just hope they've got enough chips to meet demand. Even if this is only really catering to 'core' gamers, Valve don't have the manufacturing resources of Sony or MS and it seems pretty popular already.

 

Yeah, you can't really launch a mainstream console without throwing billions of dollars into marketing and manufacturing up front. Seems like Valve are hedging their bets a bit with this preorders approach, instead of dumping all their money at the front door of TSMC / Foxconn etc. At least they are being sold directly from Valve, so if you want one it'll just be a matter of putting a preorder in and waiting, instead of F5ing retailer sites or using bots.

[Flub]

I like that for the preorders you can just slap one down and join a queue. You know you'll get one at some point. You watching this other retailers? Some people still haven't been able to get a SX/PS5

[Rorschach]

Didn't realise it supports suspending games too. That's a big deal for a machine that you play on the go, as and when you have a bit of free time. Microsoft really need to come up with a similar solution for Windows.

[alex3d]

This looks cool but massive. So, battery will only last approx three hours?!

[Transient Curse]

13 minutes ago, alex3d said:

This looks cool but massive. So, battery will only last approx three hours?!

 

Carrying a powerbank isn't an issue, IMO. This, like the switch, is going to spend it's downtime in a bag, not a pocket.  

 

Personally, I'd love for Xbox to either integrate with this or release their own version. If they did I'd probably grab one.

[Wiper]

I thought I'd do a quick scale comparison of the Steam Deck to another oversized monstrosity, and to the most perfectly sized of all handhelds:

 

 

(scaled based on the given widths of 18.36, 25.9 and 29.8cm, respectively)

 

On the plus side, it is at least slightly lighter than the cumulative weight of those two devices: 260g Vita + 491g Wii U gamepad = 751g vs 669g Steam Deck. So, you know, it'll be slightly less uncomfortable to hold than a Vita stacked on top of a Wii U gamepad.

[Popo]

3 hours ago, TomatoConvenienceStore said:

An advertising campaign really for their operating system.

 

Big time.  Half Life 2 was the Trojan horse that put Steam into the Program Files folder of every gaming PC in the world, I can see products like this trying to do the same for SteamOS.

[DeciderVT]

I'm just going to wait and see what first impressions are like before committing to the purchase. Plenty of time between pre-ordering for £4 today and going through with it later in the year.

[Lorfarius]

9 minutes ago, Popo said:

 

Big time.  Half Life 2 was the Trojan horse that put Steam into the Program Files folder of every gaming PC in the world, I can see products like this trying to do the same for SteamOS.

 

Except it didn't work on launch and you couldn't play the game. Remember that being loads of fun

[Jamie John]

I'll be interested to see how loud this is and how warm it gets under load.

[Gotters]

Interesting early thoughts from DF on this

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2021-valve-steam-deck-spec-analysis

[the_debaser]

Looking forward to being on a plane, and trawling the seedy areas of Japan in a Yakuza game with my plane seat neighbour wondering what sort of pervert I am. 

[Siri]

 

40 minutes ago, Lorfarius said:

 

Except it didn't work on launch and you couldn't play the game. Remember that being loads of fun

Yep, absolutely wasn't a fan of Steam when Half-Life 2 was launched and it tried to redownload my disk-based game install on a 56k modem  I only properly cracked when they did a deep discount on the iD Super Pack so I could get all the Doom/Quake games for a tenner or some nonsense 
 

13 minutes ago, the_debaser said:

Looking forward to being on a plane, and trawling the seedy areas of Japan in a Yakuza game with my plane seat neighbour wondering what sort of pervert I am. 

 It's a PC, lad. Just put on Lula: The Sexy Empire and leave no doubt in their mind that you are a pervert!

I think I've decided I'm going to put an order on the 256GB model. another £110 is pushing it for me, and that space on the SSD is more than enough for a couple of boot partitions for SteamOS/Windows and a handful of games that don't run well on an SSD. Emulated stuff can easily fit on a single Micro SD card with another linux distribution ready to go, like Batocera.

Again, though, I'll have to see how it handles being taken apart before actually putting money down. I really don't like the idea of not being able to replace the SSD or Battery, as both degrade over time.

[Giddas]

Yes, I'm looking at the 256gb model as well, the centrists' choice.

[Ry]

I cant seem to reserve one. 

 

Oh well. I can wait. 

[the_debaser]

I’m going to go for the 512 I think, it says the storage is faster but looks the same type of drive as the 256 so who knows? Hopefully ETAprime or some other YouTuber will get it early and see how it performs for emulation. 

[yakumo]

Going to wait for reviews on this, it sounds too good to be true.  Want to hear Rllmuk user reviews but oh man this Steam Deck sounds like a winner.

[yakumo]

1 hour ago, Wiper said:

I thought I'd do a quick scale comparison of the Steam Deck to another oversized monstrosity, and to the most perfectly sized of all handhelds:

 

 

(scaled based on the given widths of 18.36, 25.9 and 29.8cm, respectively)

 

On the plus side, it is at least slightly lighter than the cumulative weight of those two devices: 260g Vita + 491g Wii U gamepad = 751g vs 669g Steam Deck. So, you know, it'll be slightly less uncomfortable to hold than a Vita stacked on top of a Wii U gamepad.

 

What about the Atari Lynx hey?.

 

 

[Ry]

So can Games be installed on external micro SD cards?

[Siri]

27 minutes ago, Ry said:

I cant seem to reserve one. 

 

Oh well. I can wait. 

6pm UK time, hombre.
 

14 minutes ago, Ry said:

So can Games be installed on external micro SD cards?

Yeah. Although speeds via SD cards wildly vary and are generally not great, so you'll only want to keep games that really don't give a shit about load times (ie. indie games, a lot of legacy PC games, smaller install size games) on there. Larger games can suffer up to double the load speed, but actual in-game performance shouldn't be a problem.

[Wiper]

29 minutes ago, yakumo said:

 

What about the Atari Lynx hey?.

 

 

 

Wouldn't fit in the picture.

 

 

(in reality, the [original, massive] Lynx falls between the Wii U gamepad and Steam Deck in width: 27.3cm vs their respective 25.9 and 29.8 cm. It's also shorter than both; 10.8cm vs 13.5cm and 11.7cm, respectively)

[Wiper]

And hell, to be a little more helpful:

 

 

Lo, the holy trinity of unfortunately-sized handhelds (plus the perfection that is the Vita) is complete.

[Girth Certificate]

fuck, portable Fallout 3 tho

[yakumo]

7 minutes ago, Wiper said:

And hell, to be a little more helpful:

 

 

Lo, the holy trinity of unfortunately-sized handhelds (plus the perfection that is the Vita) is complete.

 

😗

[Siri]

3 minutes ago, Wiper said:

And hell, to be a little more helpful:

 

[snip]

 

And lo, the holy trinity of unfortunately-sized handhelds (plus the perfection that is the Vita) is complete.

Also handy: if you put a Vita (260g for the WiFi only model) on top of a Wii U Pad (491g), it's 82g heavier than a Steam Deck (669g), so you get a good idea if you're emaciated enough to struggle holding it for more than ten minutes.

TBH (and again, no judgement until it's actually in my hands), having the Wii U Pad on hand has reminded me that it was perfectly fine to hold because of the rounded grips at the edge of the pad. Like the Steam deck now, thankfully.

[Rorschach]

If the idea catches on, given manufacturers will be able to use Steam OS for free should they choose, there should eventually be all sorts of form factors to choose from. I'm thinking 4:3 screens, detachable controllers—the variety will depend on the size of the market really.

 

I can't imagine it will be easy for some small outfit for make something truly competitive with this, mind. Definitely wouldn't be able to subsidise the cost, or get AMD to design a custom APU, or add specialised parts like touch-sensitive joysticks. But if you just want something less huge that runs the same OS, that's a lot less tricky. I can see the kickstarters already.

[Mallet]

Almost every handheld I have had has needed a third party grip to make it tolerable for me to hold for long periods, the Vita and 3ds both needed a grip and I find the Switch to be painful to hold for extended periods. The 2DS was fine and I always really liked the WIi U gamepad so I'm happy Valve went for this design.

 

My Vita is much less pocket friendly once I put the grip on.

[auntyclimax]

4 hours ago, Zio said:

 

Just throwing this out there, but if you were to install Windows on this thing, you could have GamePass for PC on it.

 

That and XCloud - this could at last be the portable xbox. 

 

I feel this is aimed at me. A Mac user, Switch and Xbox player - often yearning for the indie titles in the Steam sales.

 

[footle]

4 minutes ago, Rorschach said:

If the idea catches on, given manufacturers will be able to use Steam OS for free should they choose, there should eventually be all sorts of form factors to choose from. I'm thinking 4:3 screens, detachable controllers—the variety will depend on the size of the market really.

 

I can't imagine it will be easy for some small outfit for make something truly competitive with this, mind. Definitely wouldn't be able to subsidise the cost, or get AMD to design a custom APU, or add specialised parts like touch-sensitive joysticks. But if you just want something less huge that runs the same OS, that's a lot less tricky. I can see the kickstarters already.

it’s like the steam box never happened

[Siri]

 

4 minutes ago, Rorschach said:

I can't imagine it will be easy for some small outfit for make something truly competitive with this, mind. Definitely wouldn't be able to subsidise the cost, or get AMD to design a custom APU, or add specialised parts like touch-sensitive joysticks. But if you just want something less huge that runs the same OS, that's a lot less tricky. I can see the kickstarters already.

Yeah, there's been plenty of crowd-funded machines already (Aya Neo, GPD Win 3, GX Pro), but I can see Microsoft having a crack at making a portable if this takes off - they already have the hardware manufacturing chops if you look at the Surface (especially as they're Intel-based x86 units, and Intel want to make Iris GPUs a thing), They have an operating system they can subsidize in Windows 11, and they have a product to sell in the form of Windows Store/Game Pass.