On the 15th of July, 2021, the Valve Corporation, the creator of Steam and many revered gaming franchises, announced that they were developing a handheld gaming device called the Steam Deck. Given the lacklustre announcement of the new Switch OLED, the internet grew excited at a new handheld gaming device that could compete with Nintendo as they’re the only major gaming company with handheld devices on offer. Given how exciting the Steam Deck might be for both PC gaming, of which I’m quite the fan, and handheld gaming, I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts on the device.
I should probably first start by giving my thoughts on handheld gaming in general. As a child, I was quite the enthusiast of handheld gaming devices. One of my first gaming devices was a Game Boy Colour on which I enthusiastically played the first and second generation Pokémon games. The Game Boy Advance was probably the peak of my excitement for handheld gaming devices. Generation three of Pokémon was the generation that I spent the most time playing and I became enthusiastic about many other franchises such as Fire Emblem, handheld versions of the Final Fantasy games, Advance Wars etc. While I did pick up a Nintendo DS as well as a Sony PSP, I spent less time playing them than I did previous handhelds as my enthusiasm for PC gaming was on the rise. Once the Nintendo 3DS, Sony PS Vita and Nintendo Switch had been released, I had lost almost all interest in portable gaming and didn’t bother picking up any of these new consoles. I confess that when I first heard that the Nintendo Switch was going to be a hybrid system that involved both portable and home gaming, I assumed that it was just a gimmick and that the system would do poorly just like the Wii U did. Turns out that I was completely wrong on that account since the Nintendo Switch is now estimated to have sold around 89 million units and has proven that there is still a demand for portable gaming.
The first inkling we had that Valve was going to develop a portable gaming device was when we heard that the term “SteamPal” had been found within Steam’s code. Understandably, a lot of people had numerous questions such as what operating system it would run on, the control schemes on offer, pricing etc. However, we did not have to wait long and the Steam Deck was announced in July. Valve has cleverly drip-fed us information over the following weeks so that the Steam Deck has continued to make the headlines of many gaming websites. Having explained all that, I believe that it’s now time to actually take a look at my own personal thoughts on the handheld Steam Deck.
While many people chose to focus on the hardware, which I will discuss in just a moment, my interest was actually in the announcement that the Steam Deck would be running SteamOS 3.0. For those unfamiliar with SteamOS, it’s an operating system that’s based on Linux and was developed for Steam Machines, an attempt to bring PC gaming into the living room that ultimately ended in failure. While there are a variety of factors for why the Steam Machine ultimately failed, one reason often given is that SteamOS was incompatible with many of the games that run on Steam and, for those that did run in SteamOS, the performance was far worse than on Windows. However, Valve are overhauling SteamOS, moving from Debian to Arch Linux but, more importantly, it’s going to feature a compatibility layer called Proton that, at the moment, can run the majority of games on Steam and, for those that don’t yet run through Proton, Valve have stated that their goal is “for every game to work by the time we ship Steam Deck”.
With regards to the hardware itself, there is plenty to talk about. When you look at a picture of a Steam Deck, you’ll notice that there is a surprising variety of control options. In addition to the standard face buttons, joysticks, a d-pad and shoulder buttons, you’ll also notice two trackpads on the front. These trackpads are to simulate the precision that many PC games demand when using a mouse. Additionally, the Steam Deck features gyroscopic controls that can be turned on and off to do “precise little micro-movements”. It’s also worth noting that there are two additional buttons on the back that can be mapped to provide extra functionality.
Looking at the internal hardware itself, the Steam Deck has 4 AMD Zen 2 8 thread processors, an AMD RDNA 2 with 8 compute units and 16GB quad-channel RAM. The storage varies depending on the model you pick up with the €419 model coming with a 64GB eMMC SSD (which seems incredibly small to me), the €549 model coming with a 256GB NVMe SSD and the €679 coming with a 512GB NVMe SSD. It’s worth noting that Valve have stated that each Steam Deck will have a microSD slot to allow additional storage. While these specs are very impressive for the price tag, it’s important to note that this isn’t too dissimilar to eighth generation consoles and that Valve have stated that their baseline for the system is that games run at 30fps on the 800p screen.
I’ll admit that I was mildly tempted to pre-order the Steam Deck but, looking at my lifestyle, I ultimately decided against it. I don’t travel enough to justify spending a lot of money on a portable gaming system. However, I am very excited to see the Steam Deck offer competition in the portable gaming market which Nintendo has traditionally dominated. I’ll also be curious to see whether this handheld will appeal to non-PC gamers or if only those already interested in the platform will use it. Additionally, I’m excited to see Valve push their Linux operating system again which may increase the number of Linux gamers and help break the stranglehold that the Windows operating system has over the PC gaming market (see image above).
While I myself will not be amongst the first to pick up the Steam Deck, I’m still quite excited about the many possibilities that it opens for PC gaming as a whole. Let me know your opinions on my thoughts on the new handheld Steam Deck, whether you’re excited about the Steam Deck, whether you’ve already pre-ordered one, your thoughts on SteamOS 3.0 and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.