[bitontheslide]

Gaming giant Valve, which runs the Steam store, has announced a portable console that will play PC games.

The Steam Deck has been likened to the Nintendo Switch console in appearance but Valve says it will have the components of a high-end gaming laptop.

The built-in display is limited to high-definition 720p graphics but the console can also be connected to an external display.

One analyst said the device could start an era of handheld PC gaming.

"Valve has managed to deliver a product at an attractive price point for the specs and is sacrificing hardware profitability to kickstart what it hopes will be a new category of gaming PC devices," said Piers Harding-Rolls, research director for games at Ampere Analysis.

"I expect this to appeal most to existing Steam users that are interested in having a companion device for playing games away from their main gaming PC."

Like the Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck has a touch screen and two thumb sticks. However, Valve has added two track pads to give players mouse-like controls for their PC games.

It is twice as heavy as Nintendo's device, weighing 669g.

The console will run SteamOS and is built on Linux, which means owners will be able to use the device as a Linux-based PC to browse the web and even install rival games stores.

Software known as Proton will let Windows PC games run on the system without developers having to produce a new version of their titles. However, not every game will be compatible.

"Valve is probably hopeful that people spending more time on Steam using Steam Deck will buy more content through its store front to help offset the hardware costs for the company. In this sense, it's a bit of an experiment," said Mr Harding-Rolls.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57862944

i can see this ending up in a letter to Santa

[Oliver_W]

Tbh I'm more excited at the prospect of having a portable emulator than the Steam aspects themselves !!

[Cherie]

I don’t understand gaming at all, but we were discussing hand held stuff they got for Christmas recently, one year we shelled out for hand held play stations which they barely used...that looks like it

[Shaun]

Probably the PSP or the PS Vita, Cherie? Those were both pretty poor performance-wise but the biggest handheld Sony consoles.

This is interesting if it really does have a high performance... Nintendo have been floundering for far too long with hardware that was last seen as acceptable in 2010, and just seem to refuse to adapt and put out a Switch that can actually hold storage or run games that look good. If Valve can edge them out of the handheld market they might actually buck up their ideas.

[arista]

£349 for the entry-level machine

It needs 1080P at that high price
not cheaper 720P

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by arista

£349 for the entry-level machine

It needs 1080P at that high price
not cheaper 720P

The only reason it’ll be able to run recent games to any acceptable standard is that they’re rendering at 720p. It’s not about the cost of the display… it’ll struggle to churn out the horsepower for 1080p in many games.

[arista]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

The only reason it’ll be able to run recent games to any acceptable standard is that they’re rendering at 720p. It’s not about the cost of the display… it’ll struggle to churn out the horsepower for 1080p in many games.

Yes but it needs 720P and 1080P
for that cost.



Some Games are OK in 1080P


But Valid Points from Wise TS

[bitontheslide]

you can connect it up to an external monitor for higher resolution

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

you can connect it up to an external monitor for higher resolution

It’ll tank frame rate (like the switch in graphics-intensive games)

It has some decent stats but at the end of the day, it’s a mobile chip and mobile GPU and marketing at £350… you can’t churn out consistent performance at 1080p on a gaming laptop for under £700… and that’s on a proper processor like an i7 or whatever, and a less specialised/downscaled graphics chip too. And with better cooling options. Cooling is going to be a major glass ceiling for any handheld.

I think Valve is most likely selling at net loss (like the console market usually does on release) but they’re not going to take THAT much of a net loss.

We’ll see though. It might auto-adjust to low settings when connected to display. I suspect there will be some upscaling to 1080 from 720 (text and menus etc render at 1080, actual 3D assets render at 720) or maybe some 900p upscaled which was common a few console generations back. It went out of fashion but 900p is actually a very decent compromise for hardware that struggles slightly at full 1080.