The Nintendo Switch (OLED model) wasn't the "Pro" upgrade many expected it to be with 4K support and new internals but before its announcement, other handhelds aimed to take the role of the "Switch Pro". The AYA NEO and GPD Win 3 are among those devices shooting for that nickname since they are able to run recent AAA PC games on the go, given that they are handheld gaming PCs. Their efforts and popularity, although niche, enticed companies like Lenovo and Tencent to make similar concepts or patents; indicating that these indie companies might have more serious competition in the future.

It seems like this will indeed be the case and these handheld gaming PC manufacturers will need to brace themselves as Valve is itself entering this market with a Valve-branded handheld gaming PC. This news was actually reported back in May and today we have the official confirmation. In a Steam post today, Valve revealed the Steam Deck, an AMD-based handheld gaming PC that is expected to begin shipping in December 2021 in select regions.

The software giant partnered with AMD to create a custom APU for the handheld that is said to be "optimized for handheld gaming". "It is a Zen 2 + RDNA 2 powerhouse, delivering more than enough performance to run the latest AAA games in a very efficient power envelope," reads the announcement.

It will run on SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based) and there will be several models of the Steam Deck, which differ on the storage capacity, with the base model starting at $399. However, every model will include a microSD slot for additional storage capacity. For more details about the models available and their price, refer to the image below:

You can find additional specs details in the images below (click/tap to enlarge):

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And just like the AYA NEO and GPD Win 3, the Steam Deck will also have a dock which will be sold separately. This accessory will provide ports for external displays, wired networking, USB peripherals, and power. More details about the dock's pricing will be announced at a later date but you can find some specs details in the thumbnail below:

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Valve says that the Steam Deck will start shipping this December to the United States, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom, with more regions coming in 2022. However, to be able to purchase one, you will need to book a paid reservation which will let you pre-order when the time comes. This reservation fee will also count towards the Steam Deck purchase price.

"The main reason for reservations is to ensure an orderly and fair ordering process for customers when Steam Deck inventory becomes available," writes Valve in the announcement FAQ. "The additional fee gives us a clearer signal of intent to purchase, which gives us better data to balance supply chain, inventory, and regional distribution leading up to launch."

Reservations for the Steam Deck will open Friday July 16th, 10am PDT. For more details about the new handheld gaming PC, head to the source link and official Steam Deck website linked below.

Are you interested in getting one?

SOURCE
Steam Deck Official Website

 

[Kioku]

Am i the only one seeing a huge issue here? switch already has storage issues and switch games are bare bones and compressed so that they are minimum in size, this thing runs pc games, pc games are not compressed and have loads of modes and settings to tweak so are people expecting to uninstall 100+gb games on this? will they keep installing and deleting games all the time? because sd cards are extremely expensive even the ones at 512gb and they cant hold that many pc games at all.

So for me this will be a huge damn issue, and if you decide you want to play another game and need to install 150gb from a random network when away from home you will be disappointed on the time you will take or before battery runs out, i mean i see most people will only keep like 1 or 2 games installed or just waste a crap ton of money on sd cards to carry around.

While, yes, some games are releasing with file sizes close to if not in the triple digit GBs? Most still aren't. 512GB is more than enough storage for quite a few games on the go.

I would hope that those planning on buying one are informed on the limitations that will inevitably come from this device.

For me, I'll be putting boomer shooters, some RPGs and Retroarch on it. I have zero plans to do serious gaming on this thing.

 

[pedro702]

While, yes, some games are releasing with file sizes close to if not in the triple digit GBs? Most still aren't. 512GB is more than enough storage for quite a few games on the go.

well they are advertising this to run AAA games and games are not getting smaller, they are getting bigger so we might see way more games like cod file sizes like 200gb in the next couple of years.

so imagine buying the 64gb version you cant already installs most AA games since you need os space and well your out of luck you need to buy an 512gb card which is already pretty damn expensive and you can fit like 2-3 AAA games in there and your stuck.

Sure there are smaller games but in the future every game will come out bigger and bigger and not going smaller, they are all going for 4k textures and in the next 4 or 5 years they will go for 8k for sure.

so i can see many people just getting sick of running out of memory and having to delete games and reinstall all the time or carry a pocket full of micro sd cards around.

 

[Kioku]

well they are advertising this to run AAA games and games are not getting smaller, they are getting bigger so we might see way more games like cod file sizes like 200gb in the next couple of years.

so imagine buying the 64gb version you cant already installs most AA games since you need os space and well your out of luck you need to buy an 512gb card which is already pretty damn expensive and you can fit like 2-3 AAA games in there and your stuck.

Sure there are smaller games but in the future every game will come out bigger and bigger and not going smaller, they are all going for 4k textures and in the next 4 or 5 years they will go for 8k for sure.

so i can see many people just getting sick of running out of memory and having to delete games and reinstall all the time or carry a pocket full of micro sd cards around.

Yeah, it's the same problem we're seeing with the current Gen consoles. The unfortunate truth is that this is the best we're going to get because of limited storage expansion options without emptying your wallet. Short of building your own mini PC, or buying a laptop.. Even then, those will run you a pretty penny.

At the very least, I would have liked to have seen a full size USB type A port on the Deck..

 

[Xzi]

Microsoft will join this market, it's just a matter of time. They're the perfect company to do it. No better way to push Game pass than that...

I'm not so sure. Game Pass is going to be available on any given portable PC anyway, and Microsoft is kinda doing their own thing in that space with Surface/other mobile products. But it is possible they were just waiting for someone else to "break the seal," so to speak, so that they didn't have to compete with Nintendo directly.

 

[Axido]

so imagine buying the 64gb version you cant already installs most AA games since you need os space and well your out of luck you need to buy an 512gb card which is already pretty damn expensive and you can fit like 2-3 AAA games in there and your stuck.

First of all, AAA games suck nowadays. Whoever deems them worthy of being installed onto anything should have to live with the consequences.

Second, AAA games with 4K or 8K textures couldn't even make use of those properly on the Deck, since it doesn't have the hardware to do anything worthwhile with them. For games that can be modded, you could be lucky enough to see any textures the Deck wouldn't need anyways being removed, which would shrink the filesize considerably. I don't see developers going the extra mile to implement that themselves, though.

Besides that I wouldn't call a 512GB micro SD card expensive. Compared to the premium you'd pay for the 512GB Deck those 70 bucks you'd have to shell out for a micro SD card of said size are peanuts. I for one got enough external HDDs (ever thought of those?) lying around to not worry about the lack of space on the 64GB model.

If you need to play games on the system that exceed 100GB in size, I'd advise you to stay away from it. Games with that file size will either look awful on the thing or run at very low framerates.

 

[barnhilltrckn]

I have a 256gb version on hold for myself. I believe I got lucky seeing as how the Steam servers were so swamped lol

 

[Noctosphere]

hum... care to explain guys?
Of ALL the AAA games I own, I think only one exceed 100GB (WOW in this case)
Pretty much all AAA games I own (I'd say released past 2015-2016) are around 40-70 GB each
Also, WOW has A LOT of big expansions and updates, hence why it exceed 100GB

Also, with this kind of portable PCs being more and more popular, I hope video games companies will start thinking about making 4/8k textures optional at download, so that people like me who still stick with 1080p don't have to be forced to get them (if it isn't the case already)

 

[Kioku]

hum... care to explain guys?
Of ALL the AAA games I own, I think only one exceed 100GB (WOW in this case)
Pretty much all AAA games I own (I'd say released past 2015-2016) are around 40-70 GB each
Also, WOW has A LOT of big expansions and updates, hence why it exceed 100GB

Also, with this kind of portable PCs being more and more popular, I hope video games companies will start thinking about making 4/8k textures optional at download, so that people like me who still stick with 1080p don't have to be forced to get them (if it isn't the case already)

Not even just the textures, but the parts of the games you may not even play anyway. So, I could install Campaign only because I don't want to play the multiplayer or vice versa... or even extra modes like map makers or theaters. Things like that.

 

[EvilJagaGenius]

I'm not so sure. Game Pass is going to be available on any given portable PC anyway, and Microsoft is kinda doing their own thing in that space with Surface/other mobile products. But it is possible they were just waiting for someone else to "break the seal," so to speak, so that they didn't have to compete with Nintendo directly.

Does anyone know if Game Pass games run on Linux via Proton or Wine? It would make a great addition to this machine.

About file sizes... The biggest games on my hard drive are Titanfall 2 (~70GB) and PSO2 (~90GB). I know some other games like Path of Exile and Warframe are no slouches either. Again, I'm not sure if those games run on Proton/Wine.

I'm not sure if this is going to press developers into rediscovering compression and bringing their games back down to manageable sizes - my guess is no, this looks more like a companion to a gaming PC or console where that's less of an issue - but it's frustrating that some good games are unplayable out of the box on the 64GB model. Love Titanfall 2. I can't really blame Valve though, they're not responsible for other devs' file sizes. 64GB can still fit a lot of games.

I think this'll make a great portable home for moddable games, like Quake, GZDoom, and Source Engine mods. Open-source games too, with the native Linux ports.

 

[Noctosphere]

Not even just the textures, but the parts of the games you may not even play anyway. So, I could install Campaign only because I don't want to play the multiplayer or vice versa... or even extra modes like map makers or theaters. Things like that.

well, I guess in most games, the same engine is used in both campaign and multiplayer
So installing one means installing the other minus few featues
For example, if you want only the campaign, you'll only need cinematics
While if you want only multiplayer, you'll need the client-server connections files

 

[mattyxarope]

well, I guess in most games, the same engine is used in both campaign and multiplayer
So installing one means installing the other minus few featues
For example, if you want only the campaign, you'll only need cinematics
While if you want only multiplayer, you'll need the client-server connections files

Something like COD is massive because it downloads single player and multiplayer and languages and their battle royale. I think they changed that now but it was huge - like 150gigs.

Honestly even if I buy a game (I rarely play online), I typically download the cracked version of my purchased ones so I can choose to not have languages I don't speak and other unnecessary files on my hard drive. It saves a lot of space.

 

[Xzi]

Does anyone know if Game Pass games run on Linux via Proton or Wine? It would make a great addition to this machine.

I very much doubt there's any Linux equivalent of the Xbox app, but dual booting is always an option.

There is the possibility Microsoft brings Game Pass to Steam in the future, and there are already a couple distros for accessing EGS on Linux.

 

[SaberLilly]

This isn't a bad little device for the price, the market for handheld computers is still relatively fresh and this thing would be prime to get a piece of the pie especially at 399 dollars. The addition of NVMe SSD slots really makes it appealing for me. HOWEVER, gaming on an APU does not really seem that appealing to me when i have a laptop with a 1050 ti in it. I can see this being a really nice Retroarch box/GeForce Now game streaming box though.

 

[Goku1992A]

They're not competing with any of this lol, it all works on Steam Deck.

Okay so to clarify you need to have a game on steam to play this. Like you cant play a pirated steam game that is what I'm saying. Like to clarify I can't put emulators like Dolphin and etc.. on it

@Memoir
For me personally the price of $400 isn't a big deal but what does it bring to the table? It just seems to me the only people who benefit from this who want to play their steam games on the go. My issue is "maybe I'm wrong" many people seen how successful the switch is and they want a piece of the cake. Nowadays you can steam a game so it really doesn't make sense to buy expensive equipment to stream but I'm guessing with this you can download your steam game and play it on the go.

 

[Kioku]

Okay so to clarify you need to have a game on steam to play this. Like you cant play a pirated steam game that is what I'm saying. Like to clarify I can't put emulators like Dolphin and etc.. on it

@Memoir
For me personally the price of $400 isn't a big deal but what does it bring to the table? It just seems to me the only people who benefit from this who want to play their steam games on the go. My issue is "maybe I'm wrong" many people seen how successful the switch is and they want a piece of the cake. Nowadays you can steam a game so it really doesn't make sense to buy expensive equipment to stream but I'm guessing with this you can download your steam game and play it on the go.

1. Yes, you can put Dolphin on this device. It's a full fledged PC.

2. You pretty much pointed out the purpose to this device and any device like it. Obviously it's not for everyone. It doesn't have to be. Game streaming still leaves too much to be desired for it to be practical for your average consumer. To be able to play it natively on a device without the need for cloud gaming instantly beats out things like GeForce Now and the like.

 

[xdarkmario]

defiantly not preordering but it has some of my interest. But i also have a beast ass desktop anyway so im not on need of it.
also my fingers are cramping just LOOKING at that button placement
but if possible id rather install windows embedded edition (if that even exist anymore) on it

 

[Rahkeesh]

Does anyone know if Game Pass games run on Linux via Proton or Wine? It would make a great addition to this machine.

This is never going to happen. Microsoft Store security is too tightly embedded in the Windows OS and all gamepass PC releases go through that.

If Microsoft wants anything to do with Deck I'm pretty sure their play is to force windows onto it. Or else stream cloud stuff from a browser.

 

[Xzi]

Okay so to clarify you need to have a game on steam to play this. Like you cant play a pirated steam game that is what I'm saying. Like to clarify I can't put emulators like Dolphin and etc.. on it

As Memoir said, you can play pirated games, emulated games, DOS games, whatever. It's a desktop-based OS, and you're free to install a different OS (WIndows 10 or 11), or even dual boot. Install Origin, Battle.net, Uplay, EGS, GOG, every launcher known to man if you want.

This isn't a console, it's straight-up a PC. No limits on the software side.

 

[Goku1992A]

@Xzi and @Memoir

It's impressive I will give it that. But from my research you need to buy the $500 model as the 64gb model doesn't seem worth it.

For those who are interested this video is really good.

 

[Pickle_Rick]

@Xzi and @Memoir

It's impressive I will give it that. But from my research you need to buy the $500 model as the 64gb model doesn't seem worth it.

For those who are interested this video is really good.

I'll agree with that. The 64GB model is basically limited to an indie machine. I got the 256GB model because you really need it for AAA games.