Exactly. Honestly this thing will probably become a portable Xcom, Battletech, Battle Brothers, Monster Hunter, and Stardew Valley machine for me. All older games, all lower power use games, and all stuff I hate carrying/pulling out a laptop to play.

Sounds perfect on paper. But trust me. It will have a shitload of compatibility problems.

Agree

Make it happen, Pat!

I think he popped something there

Of course Pat would have to pay Ian $3.50 every time he uses the button.

If you preorder now it’s just $5 and you won’t get it before lots of people have it and review it.

Youll be waiting till 2023. My preorder is shipping Q2 2022

After thinking on it for a bit, I decided to bite the bullet reserve the priciest model. Even I don't end up putting Windows on it for emulation and other PC market places, 650 is still worth it to me to play my steam library portably in a simple manner. Hopefully I don't regret this in a years time, as I have never preordered hardware before.

@@pictonomii3295 On the plus side, you should have 3-4 months of the first early adopters playing around with them, so if the hardware is horrible somehow, you can cancel before it ships. Also, FYI, similar hardware to the Steam Deck (GPD Win/Max for instance) has held it's value really well, so if you end up disliking it you'll probably be out very little money if you sell it.

@GlobalDataConspirator I did, but I ended up canceling as I bought a new gaming laptop instead. It didn't really make since for me to have both since a don't get out much. I hope you're enjoying yours though.

yup you are the perfect target audience.

I have a great desktop for gaming, but zero interest in getting another laptop for the odd time I want to game on trips and will collect dust the rest of the time. I fully agree that this will run a ton of my older Steam games and I am way more likely to just pull this out to game on, or use to stream to TV's on trips for movies. Hell I'm more likely to even watch movies on the Deck rather then my phone.

Can get the dock too, hdmi and plug keyboard and mouse.

True, and they are selling the Index VR headset which is a particularly complex and high quality product. They should have experience from all of those devices on both the design, production, and support. Hopefully it all comes together for this Steam Deck. I think keeping production numbers up to meet orders will be their main problem, assuming no major hardware glitches or performance issues once they are benchmarked.

I don't think that's a good mood I think he is high

lol, I can’t remember exactly what that is, but I think it’s something icky…

@@jimpatterson1111 Cleveland is a brand that specializes in making industrial sized Steamers for the restaurant industry.

@@jimpatterson1111 don’t Google it.

They're really similar actually, hadn't noticed before this comment. Steam Deck is about 1" wider, but height and depth are almost the same. Pretty funny.

Yup, you'll be able to enjoy the menu's at 8k on your 30,000 dollar TV but you ain't playing games at that res. I doubt most stuff would even boot up at 8k on this thing. They'd just nope out immediately. Same with 4k, this hardware is designed to run decently smooth on the included screen and maybe do 1080p at low to medium settings on a TV/monitor but much beyond that is asking for a miracle.

Minesweeper in 8k xD

Isn't 8K on such a small screen overkill anyway?

@@shinigami146 The screen is only 800p. You can hook it up to an 8k60hz or 4k120hz tv/monitor if you want.

@@rev0lu7ion Gotcha. Thank you.

PREACH!!!

You can still use the USB C port to connect a high speed external drive, and if the base model has an empty M.2 slot then you can just add more storage

@@twicethemegapower3995 Fair enough. But I just mean that it's probably closer to 500 for the base system once you add in the cost of things you might need. I guess you could say the same about the switch or any console. I just think people are going crazy about the price a little too much.

Should be noted though that Valve is promising compatibility with a variety of USB-C docks. not their own. So if you happen to have one for your mobile phone you may very well use it. 64 GB is fine for small-time gaming and emulation, so it's not like there isn't a use case there. P.S. Some good popular game sizes: Sekiro 15GB, Hades 12GB, The Surge 2 17GB, DMC 5 34GB,.. I have games installed that can't fit on 64GB right now, but you're not that hard up with this limit.

Why do I need a dock? As long as it comes with a charger I’m good.

This is a more portable laptop. These devices are far from new. I honestly don't get the buzz behind this. I've seen these Switch killers for years and barely put a dent into Nintendo's market.

I envy you, I loved my visit to Japan. I'd give anything to go back.

Except Half Life 3.

That's any privately held company, not just Valve.

@@DevilSurvivor69 Yeah, but how many video game companies are like that? Most are owned by Tencent now, lol :(

Exactly. They thus didn't even drop Steam Machines. If you bought one from those vendos, wait until they release SteamOS 3.0 and you're done. Proton is awesome.

The only reason that has kept me from buying a Switch is the pricing of the games. PC has the best sales, not to mention a shitload of great giveaways. I'm spoiled. I just want a handheld to play games and this is perfect for me, having hundreds of titles on PC. The things I'm waiting to see now is actual battery life tests and how windows games perform under Proton.

LOL yeah that's true.

Agreed, it's more a laptop with a tiny screen than a gaming device

You can swap in a larger hard drive.

Nah man. The price to performance ratio for this thing is ridiculous. Even Tech-savvy families that are looking for a new family desktop for video streaming will be tempted at the price of $400. You're talking the power of a $1200+ desktop and a $1500+ laptop. They'll sell at that price to be used for Crypto mining all day.

@@majestyzx9081 This is NOT the same power as a $1200 desktop or a $1500 laptop. Let's all reign it in here. Is it a good value for this kind of device? Yes, but let's not start hyping are selves up and making this thing out to more than it is. You'll be able to get medium to highish settings on the 800p screen it has at between 30-60 fps on anything modern and it should tear through older/indie stuff. The CPU is based on 2 year old zen 2 cores and the GPU has 8 RDNA CU's. The cheapest AMD card currently has 40 RDNA CU's and the Xbox series S (the $300 dollar one) has 20 to give that some context. It's a 15 watt part, it's not magic.

And that's exactly what I've been wanting. A portable indie machine that isn't butchered like the Switch.

“Hey its your FRIEND Tommy...”

Just soft mod your switch or put steam link on your phone and be done lol.

@@xdjrunner Soft modding your Switch won't let you run Steam games on the go. Steam Link would work to a degree, but latency might be an issue and you might want to leave your LAN.

This was a stupid reaction due to the fact Nintendo NEVER said a thing about a Pro version. That situation proved that people listen to clickbait way too often and run with rumors and outright BS far too often.

The internal storage is really anemic on these offerings. I REALLY hope someone can figure out how to get a 1 TB NVMe SSD card in one of those. I hope you tinkerers the best and can’t wait to see what comes of this.

It's upgradable but it uses an uncommon 2230 sized M.2 form factor vs. the normal 2280 form factor.

Gabe confirmed they all use a 2230 socket. No idea how easy that will be to access, though.

@@MadJackChurchill1312 They said it's behind the heating stuff, so you have to take things apart. Wouldn't recommend it.

I'm positively sure that Valve has thought this over and have a system in place for steam to detect if you're playing on one of these and discourage, or just hide or filter the sales of games that won't work on the device. My desktop is nearly 7 years old as this point and is just now starting to run into issues with running modern games at a full 60FPS on 1080P+ resolutions. Computer upgrades, especially in gaming, are coming much more slowly in the last decade or so than at any time in the past. I can easily see this thing having a good 7 year modernity lifespan as far as playing the newest games at high to max settings.

got my $5 in. I liked what I heard and saw.

Reserved mine within 15 minutes of the reservations opening. Took that long because the servers were overwhelmed. Emulation will be a big part of my use.

I love my steam link. I've never used a program or device to stream from my desktop to another source in the house that allows me to use my desktop in any room in my house with no performance issues at all.

I don’t know why so many people think gaming companies are highlanders. There can be more than one.

@@TNTITAN right?! And here I am thinking more competition can only benefit me as a consumer and make the world a little less boring.

Isn't Diablo 2 getting controller support? Either way Diablo 3 has controller support if one wanted to play that.

No, it's the Atari VCS killer. ;)

Yep just like every other handheld besides the Switch, that's ever existed and the joycons suck for the quality and price. Forcing me to buy 3rd party joycons which I never do for consoles. Plus my friends doesn't register any right joy con so it's not without its flaws still.

Durante, a super famous PC and console modder, said it is as powerful as a Series X per pixel. So, at 800p, expect the same performance as a Series X. Forget 4K, though, no chance on this.

It's only targeting a small screen and can use things like FSR. It's plenty of power.

Essentially both these comments are repeating what I just said. PER PIXEL is a useless measurement when these two were talking about docking it for use on a TV btw. If that’s your primary use this is definitely not going to be the best purchase. For use as a handheld it should be amazing at 800p. Really looking forward to getting some hands on time 😁👍🏻

For me, this *is* a Switch killer. It's gonna be an amazing set up for Smash Melee with Slippi added. The Steam Deck can be a 4k, lag free, Melee machine with the dock if you really want it to be.

@@alexnetherton3245 Most people won't do that, so it's definitely not a Switch killer

@@cax1175 I definitely agree. Most people just want convenience 1st. I'm still glad Valve is putting an open platform out there. Personally, I think the value proposition is much better than the OLED Switch by comparison. They're different product categories, sure, but this is a system that pretty much solves all big issues with game exclusivity and poor preservation. I'm pretty exhausted with the $60+ price tag re-releases Nintendo keeps putting out, and Steam Deck is a great alternative. Emulation is perfectly legal if you already own the software, and I'd love to see my library of Nintendo games running on better hardware.

Sounds like some of the mainstream anti-cheat software is getting ported now in expectation of expanded linux support going forward.

Just about. People need to stop talking about "switch killer," because that's not going to happen. Steam Deck will do well with PC gamers who thumb their noses at consoles, but that's it.

50? Since when do you have the account? :D

Nintendo tried this with the new 3DS but only a handful of devs took advantage of the hardware upgrade. And the only split that it caused is with SNES games on the 3DS Virtual Console where only the new 3DS could play SNES games and those New 3DS only titles.

No non-emulated Zelda, Mario, Pokemon or Fire Emblem*

this is a pc , so emulation , and you will get , zelda , mario , pokemon and fire emblem...

store.steampowered.com/app/1118310/RetroArch/

not really feeling like emulating stuff when i can afford or access the real thing with less inconveniences, but fair enough

Games will be 720p to 800p with the onboard screen which I think is the intended performance metric. I expect there will be a hit if streaming to a TV with higher resolutions, unless the game is quite light to begin with. My understand is that Switch also takes a hit when streaming to a TV. I think they are really pushing this to be a mobile computer/console with the value added feature of streaming out to a TV.

@@Swarm509 Yes, I'm just cautioning that they're talking about "Oh, it can output 8K, it's future-proof" or "the xbox is dead" as if it will run games at 4K or 8K on a TV. It won't. This is laptop integrated graphics level here, it's not a 3090 magically operating in a 15 watt power envelope. This thing is going to be a fantastic handheld, but it's a *handheld* and only has around 1/7th the GPU power (or less) of an Xbox Series X, because that device can have a much larger power envelope. It'll be a great experience at 720p/800p. It'll be passable on lower settings for 1080p. It'll be completely useless for 1440p or 4K except for the simplest games.

@@guspaz Yeah, A bit of ignorance by pat on that. Most modern PC tech rocking a hdmi 2.1 or DP 1.4 can technically output 8k. I don't even think steam is being intentionally misleading or anything they are just stating what the hardware can technically do on a spec sheet. It's not like they did what Nvidia did with the 3090 and pretend it can do 8k when it can't without using DLSS in ultra performance mode lol

So true lol

Just get Gamepass, bud.

Yeah, it's going to absolutely murder developers interests in wasting effort and time trying to get ports of AAA games on the switch.

I wouldn't be surprised if certain switch titles run better emulated on this than they do natively on the switch. That nvidia tegra SoC is really very weak outside of specific scenarios.

@@devilmikey00 Rich at ReviewTech (however you may feel about him irrelevant), mentions an excellent point: Developers took time to optimize on switch ports, better or worse. The Steam Deck isn't "optimized" towards anything on the mid-high end pc gaming. The specs are not gonna give you something better than a gaming pc, and I can already see people's expectations wildly flying w/o even considering storage, battery life. I don't even wanna bring up rampant cheating on PC, and people still think "sony/Microsoft evil for charging online" well how else are they gonna pay for security and anti-cheat? These are all things PC gamers LOVE to ignore, just ask online communities like SFV or CS:GO. Console Online is secure for a reason: everyone hates DRM. Doesn't even matter if it's 800p, definitely won't be 60 fps for everything. I bring this up to be more consumer friendly towards other consumers: The Steam Deck hardware won't even be optimized to play emulators, and I dare anyone to challenge me on this *when we don't even have gameplay footage, but the specs are **_clear as day_* This is *_purely_* a switch alternative (portability), A Series S can do everything the Steam Deck can do (small form factor lol, and seriously can emulate for all you switch enthusiasts, *as well as the entire steam library* ... This thing isn't doing 8k docked at even the highest spec model. Mark my words, Valve needs to drop some more gameplay, because they got everyone a little overhyped. I acknowledge the potential of this device but I think it's *firmly* specc'd b/t a Switch and a PS4. Meaning it won't give people the power they think if they don't know how the hardware performs- luckily there are already tons of handheld PCs with the *_same_* specs, and better. Tl;dr, prepare to witness the bottleneck.

@@xdjrunner If these become popular it may incentivize a lot of devs to make their games run well on lower end hardware, or maybe gives devs who are working on Switch games more reason to port to PC since they are already doing the work to get it to run on that systems even older/less powerful software. I recall John Carmack, while talking about VR game design (and software design in general) that most modern devs and games are very sloppy with performance since they can brute force through things, and he was constantly pushing devs working on VR to clean things up. This could be a similar incentive for devs. In either case we need to see benchmarks when it comes out, but I expect this will still do well. An all in one package that works on the go is very popular for most people. The popularity of the Oculus Go shows us this, and it is a low power device to but is all-in-one. So a series S may be "better" spec wise it doesn't touch the same niche the Steam Deck does.

Yeah, you won't be able to run game pass on this without jumping through hoops and same goes for epic store or origin etc. There's a lot of stuff you can technically do here but not without installing windows first. Actually, I don't see much benefit to using steam OS at all, surely games would run better directly from windows vs using SteamOS + proton.

@@devilmikey00 let's not even start on windows drivers for this thing

@@blueshells50 Ugh yeah, AMD drivers are primarily what keeps me away from their graphics cards. I'd be fine with it but yeah if you aren't a PC gamer that's a huge pain in the butt. Especially in the day and age where some new games require the latest driver to run the game at all (hello doom eternals last update).

Depends on the future. For now only through Steam.

it does have 2 touch pad things and the thumbsticks should work pretty well

@@stoves5877 Age of Empires 2: definitive edition.. BEST RTS EVER!! to play competively at least you will need mouse.. and im sure the dock can do that... and keyboard

That's true. You'll have to spend an extra $20 on a USB-C hub so you can hook up your M&KB. I already have one for my phone. I think a lot of people do?

the only thing REALLY appealing is the price! most games i play are M&K but a laptop is expensive... Valve is losing their ass on this hardware hoping to make it up on the back end

@@boogie5 Valve makes billions on software sales a year any losses due to hardware is just pissing in the wind.