Any buzz for this new handheld from Steam/Valve? Valve’s gaming handheld is called the Steam Deck and it’s shipping in December - The Verge
If I can stream stuff to it from my PC, it does kind of appeal for pottering around the house. If it can do save state stuff, then that might also make it an interesting buy to me. But it's not a 'must buy' thing for me right now.
Same, not a must-buy. Probably wait for second hand to use as in-house streaming if the screen is nice. I can't imagine 8 CU (20% of 6700xt CU at half clock rage, so ~10% performance of 6700xt) is going to age well as solo gaming device. Actually, the 64GB devices looks like it's destined to be a mostly streaming device. But I do wonder if I can buy the 64GB version and add my own 1 or 2TB NVMe drive. That'd be a £450 1TB device, better than their £560 0.5TB. I have already got a bluetooth game controller + phone holder to do in-house streaming. It was also readily achievable through nVidia Shield handheld. So the bigger screen and better ergonomic would be the features I'm interested in.
It might turn out to be an emulation beast, which is more interesting to me than playing CS GO on the err... go. I wonder how commited/well thought out/supported this will be. Valve OS, Steam Machines and the Steam Controller were all commercial disasters and Valve showed no interest in hauling them out of the pit they threw them in. With this I wouldn't consider it for at least a year to see if it's a product with a future or not.
its basically a open ended mobile pc, emulation machine, mobile media machine, gaming, do what you like with it.
I want one. Not until they are established and available though. CBA pre ordering, I will wait until they are in stock.
I've reserved my spot. Took me an absolute age because the infrastructure Valve spun up for this launch got absolutely thwacked, but I got there in the end. Going for the top-end 512GB model, because why not. I already wanted an Aya Neo or a GPD Win 3 and the Steam Deck spanks the pair of them in terms of price. Battery life could be dicey though, "between 2 and 8 hours" is a very wide estimate! Aside from the microSD card slot, the storage is apparently not upgradeable on any model. I don't know whether that means 'not upgradeable' as in 'if you take it apart you'll void your warranty so don't do that mmm'kay', or 'not upgradeable' as in 'it's soldered down so no chance mate'. I'm pretty confident in saying that this will be an emulation beast . As @Gunsmith also mentioned, even if Valve drop this hardware project like they've dropped every other hardware project except VR then at least it won't be locked down to proprietary software.
Looks like no-one loses their place in the queue, they just take 2 months worth of steps back. Sadly, this means no portable gaming for Xmas.
No, but it's still frustrating. We were both hammering the reservation page for hours and could not secure a reservation; I actually got through the end of the process a couple of times but didn't get any kind of confirmation. Several times it even blocked me from further attempts for a while because apparently I was trying to complete checkout too quickly. I managed to get through in the very early hours of the next day and by that time I'd ended up waaaaaay down the list.
kinda expected this tbh, and with the recent car and shower fiasco i personally am happy to wait as it will take me a little time to replenish the savings
Anyone taken delivery yet/got any feedback to share? From what I've read it's capable, ideal for us lot, runs hot but not for very long at all before the power goes and yet is probably worth a punt if a) you don't need it for long journeys and b) are prepared to accept the fact that this is v1.
From what I can see it's probably best to wait on this any way. It still has a ton of kinks that need ironing out.
Got mine on day 1. 512GB with the good screen. I use the internal storage for Steam library games and an SD card for emulation. I also bought a Logitech Ergo trackball (which is bloody good for palm/wrist comfort) to do Desktop Mode stuff. Haven’t used a keyboard with the Deck, nor attached it to a monitor. My gaming machine (3090+5950X) plus PS5 have been gathering dust ever since. It turns out chilling on the sofa (propped up by cushions) with noise cancelling headphones on, while the missus watches whatever on the TV really suits me. I mention the cushions because people have said the weight of the handheld is causing them aches and pains. So picture yourself feet up on the sofa, back at a 45 degree angle one elbow pushed into the sofa back and the other is pushed into a cushion. This appears to prevent me feeling any pains and this is how I play my Deck every night. I’ve never had any aches and pains since getting the Deck. Next … battery. This is an issue for lots of people … and yet not for me. If I play demanding games then the battery can drain after 2.5 hours. So I bought a 20,000 mAh 65w Baseus power brick. It’s a great device and I’ve used it for charging my Deck, iPad Pro and iPhone - at home and in coffee shops - I can’t stress how useful this is. I’ve actually used it for charging my Apple devices more than the Deck so it turns out a great investment. Games. Platformers are a pure joy to play which is why Hollow Knight has taken over my life. It feels like it was made for the Deck. Vampire Survivors has been my goto for mindless/tired fun. I managed to manually get the controls sorted for Psychonauts 1 - at the time it wasn’t a supported game, I don’t know if it’s still unsupported (P2 is supported). I’ve lined-up (tested working on Deck) Fallout 4, Skyrim and Witcher 2 to play in the future. All 3 of these games were badly supported on ultra wide monitors or had other quirks and therefore I never really got into them even though I got them on their day one releases. I’m REALLY excited to play them all on Deck soon - especially Fallout 4 because my mother bought it for me for Xmas many years ago before she passed away. It works and looks very good. These games (and others) that don’t like ultra wide monitors will fit the Decks’ screen beautifully and the 1280x800 resolution looks wonderful on such a small screen - for once in my life I’m not necessarily begging for more pixels … and I do love lots of pixels! I’ve tested lots of games and been very surprised how good they look/run. Emulation. I bought a 1TB SD card to hold emulation stuff but tbh I think I could have got away with 256GB … I guess I might have a some big Steam games in future that hog all that internal storage and I can also use the extra space on the SD for Steam games plus emu. BUUUUT - I failed at emulation. The file system structures, etc is all new to me. I tried hard to follow the instructions for EmuDeck and EmulationStation but computer said ‘no’ … and by that I mean I was **** at it. LOTS of users have got it working no problem. I didn’t spend a long time at it though. I just ran out of time one night and gave up the fight. I’ve been distracted with my Steam library ever since. I WILL GO BACK TO IT THOUGH … I keep telling myself. And I will. I know the devs are heavily patching and improving the software. It’s worth them (and Valve) remembering that 95% of Steam users are Windows users. Emulation is going to be a MASSIVE part of Deck users lives. All my ROMs are currently on my Windows laptop. Apparently 3rd party software will solve the issue of transferring the files … BUT I really want Valve to allow us to plug in our Decks to a Windows machine and have the card storage detected … or something equally as useful to transfer files. Fan noise. Big issue for lots of people. Apparently there are 2 different fans being used. One noisy. One not so. I use noise cancelling headphones so I’m happy. I was surprised when I asked my missus if she noticed the fan and she said yes “it’s very loud”. But she also then said “but it’s ok, I don’t really notice it now”. She got used to it kinda quick. It’s worth saying she doesn’t sit very near me. The fan is quietest in lovely Hollow Knight, and loud in the final stages of a round of Vampire Survivors when the screen is starting to fill up with lots of monsters. Improvements I would like to see … 1) More sensitive screen/reactive. It’s usable in the games 10,000,000 and You Must Build A Boat, but it’s not a great experience for touch games. But when we’ve been spoilt with Apple/Samsung phones/tablets for so long, I would love to see that quality and responsiveness in the next Deck. 2) The plastic case could be fractionally better. It’s great, don’t get me wrong here. But I noticed a couple of Vloggers have mentioned the same - it can ‘creak’ slightly. It’s well known that Valve didn’t create an expensive machine in terms of build - the internals and software are incredible considering it’s their first machine. But yeah, it can creak. No biggie. 3) The ‘STEAM’ and ‘…’ buttons are flush to the case. I absolutely hate this. I hated flush buttons on PS4 controllers (screenshot and options I think they were), I hate them here too. Also both buttons give no feedback. Raise them up a little, give them a soft click or whatever, that would be perfect. And when I say perfect - I mean literally every other button is perfect. The positioning, the feedback, the use, it all works really well. But … 4) … the trackpads ‘travel’ when placing and lifting thumbs. This problem is easily demonstrated when trying to use a cursor in Desktop mode. The desktop is in 1280x800 so it’s kinda small on the screen, although very easily readable. Use the trackpad to move cursor - no problem. Press down on trackpad to click an icon - the thumb squashing down on the pad moves the cursor slightly. It’s annoying and it happens too easily. Also lifting and then placing thumb on trackpad will also have the cursor wobble or drift slightly as the trackpad reads every bit of area of thumb. This can be solved quite easily in software and I really look forward to that. 5) Transferring files between Windows and Deck. As mentioned. 6) The Steam store is a bit flaky. A bit buggy. It’s improving. And it’s very usable. But it’s still not the best experience it can be. 7) Quieter fan. 8) More power. 9) Less heat. Those last 3 are obvious really. This is truly an exciting start for Valve. So far it’s been the best tech purchase I’ve ever had. It’s a game changer for me to game in comfort in the same room as my missus with a couple of cats laying on me Oh it’s worth mentioning I’ve had most handhelds from Gameboy, GameGear, Lynx to PSP, 3DS and Switch. The old school stuff I used a lot. The new school handhelds I hardly ever used apart from holidays and travelling. I never really got into the Switch (gathering dust) and in 2 months I’ve used the Deck for many more hours than I’ve used the Switch, also bought at launch day. AMA. I will do my best to answer anything specific.
Wow! That's an amazing write-up and should set the standard now the main site has gone the way of a lolly in the sun. We need more of this. Fair props! And appreciated, without doubt I've picked some bits out I was hoping to get your further view on if possible... Do you need to use this often/have it plugged in much of the time when in use? Do you reckon you could do a flight to Oz just armed with this, for example? This sounds like you've come from 21:9 to Deck and are happy - this is good! I realise the screen space is massively different, but do you notice it much when playing? UI etc.? I don't know much about the emulation side, but have you tried running games from the SD to see about speed? Would you be able to test one? Why so? As above, I don't know much about it, but if this is a thing, what should we (I) be looking to use it for? Sounds like there might be an unexplored use-case... Yeah, this sounds like an oversight. Plug it in like a phone and see the storage card. Hopefully they'll fix this. Good to hear constructive, balanced summary. To be borne in mind but sounds like not a deal breaker, as you say. This does seem like it would be a bit annoying though - is the software fix something you know of or are hoping for? Why so? Is it an issue with existing library or new purchases/browsing? I was hoping this would work out - I think it's needed! You are clearly as old as me. Warbirds on the Lynx on the back of the bus, trying to be the new best mate of the guy who had one? Yep. I'll take the 3DS and the Switch off you whenever you get bored (or borrow them for any upcoming holiday for a rental fee)! ...oh. Games or console-related? Yeah, I get that too. I think it happens after the sparkly ring goes on. Well impressed, @monty-pup - nice one. I'm now torn between Deck and Quest and I blame you/Valve...
