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Valve announces a new portable, Steam Deck

Hmm, I need to check the W11 on the lumia 1020 again.



Food Cake GIF
 
Steam Play Proton (or just Proton) is a Valve-developed compatibility layer for Linux, which allows Windows games to run on Linux with no native versions necessary. At its best (i.e. for 'whitelisted' games) it allows a Linux user to buy and play Windows-only games on Steam, as if they were native Linux, with no performance loss or, occasionally, with better performance. The vast majority of tested games (75% as of now) rate "Gold" or higher or ProtonDB.com, which means they can be played through to the end, with at worst minor glitches or some performance loss.

Valve has also promised a big update for Proton to roll out ahead of the Deck's launch, bringing with it many more improvements to compatibility, chief among them being multiplayer games running BattlEye or EasyAntiCheat protection (which do not work at the moment).

So it's not going to be ALL games, in all likelihood. But with any luck, upwards of 80% of any given Steam library is going to be playable out of the box.

Can they use direct X? If so how given that it is proprietary to Microsoft? If not then how can it work?
 
I know that you can install Windows but every time someone mentions that it sounds like deleting Steam OS is a must. Can you have both?
You can dual boot. Acccessing files between the two should also work, but I don't think you'll get much out of it unless games provide binaries for both.
 
The $399 model is really appealling in many ways, but I know it won't fulfill all my needs. I hate that we have to choose one to reserve now and commit to that model.
 
The comments in this thread. Folks must have NINTENDO stock. This is a spectacular black eye for them. Could this flop, possibly. I don't see it especially at 399. I can't count the number of times I've taken my SWITCH with me while mumbling "I'd rather be playing Baldurs Gate 3." Hell you can run CITRA on this thing.



Lack of storage? It has twice the storage of the SWITCH and an expansion slot for ridiculously cheap cards. Storage isn't even close to an issue here.



Why would you need to "jail break" anything? You can do whatever you want to the thing out of the box.
"Spectacular black eye" for Nintendo is hilarious.
I'm not saying they're not taking the piss with the price of the switch oled, and this isn't a neat device, but, you know how much this will impact switch sales numbers?
I'll spoil it for you: It will have zero impact on switch sales numbers. People buy a switch to play Nintendo games.
 
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"Spectacular black eye" for Nintendo is hilarious.
I'm not saying they're not taking the piss with the price of the switch oled, and this isn't a neat device, but, you know how much this will impact switch sales numbers?
I'll spoil it for you: It will have zero impact on switch sales numbers. People buy a switch to play Nintendo games.
But this can play Nintendo games. It might even play Switch games full speed.
 
But this can play Nintendo games. It might even play Switch games full speed.
Irrelevant. Casual consumers won't go anywhere near the hoops and loops needed to run emulators they have to set up and download roms to.

Wake me up when the portable steam machine is running Metroid: Dread at 60fps without fucked up textures.
 
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You can dual boot. Acccessing files between the two should also work, but I don't think you'll get much out of it unless games provide binaries for both.
It's kinda annoying, I just don't want to miss out on portable Gamepass and Play Anywhere but it feels like things will get janky to get there. Microsoft should just put Linux versions and Gamepass on Steam, I'm still giving them subscription money and get my activities tracked, should be enough.
 
"Spectacular black eye" for Nintendo is hilarious.
I'm not saying they're not taking the piss with the price of the switch oled, and this isn't a neat device, but, you know how much this will impact switch sales numbers?
I'll spoil it for you: It will have zero impact on switch sales numbers. People buy a switch to play Nintendo games.

Nowhere in my comment did I talk about sales numbers, but thank you for the spoiler. No one is expecting this to sell anything even close to the SWITCH. That isn't the point. This makes NINTENDO look bad in the same way something like Monster Hunter Stories or Temtem makes NINTENDO look bad: it shows an incredible lack of tech innovation and interest in giving consumers actual value.

. . .honestly didn't think that needed to be spelled out.
 
But this can play Nintendo games. It might even play Switch games full speed.
Soccer mom buys this for her kid because you tell her that. Also buys Mario and Pokemon. Then comes back a few days later and yells at you because she can't even put the carts into the machine, much less run the games.
 
Soccer mom buys this for her kid because you tell her that. Also buys Mario and Pokemon. Then comes back a few days later and yells at you because she can't even put the carts into the machine, much less run the games.
Then I dump the Switch games with my OG Switch and get it running for her?
 
Then I dump the Switch games with my OG Switch and get it running for her?
Think that strategy will work for a store? That's what I implied by "comes back a few days later" and "buys carts" though I should've made that more clear.

Here at BEST BUY we no longer sell the Switch because it's trash! We'll have GEEK SQUAD install emulators on your Steamdeck so it can run Nintendo games.

"Then why not just buy a Switch?"

Because we hate that underpowered piece of crap and we hope Nintendo goes out of business!

.... it's a bold strategy, but I don't know if it'll work.
 
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I think people can be happy with the Steam library as a replacement for the Nintendo eShop, but that's just me. The Deck is way cooler than a Switch.
 
So God of War and Breath of the Wild shouldn't be exclusive to their own consoles?
In a n ideal world? no, they shouldn't.
Nothing "should be exclusive" for the sake of it and everything should release on any platform that's both commercially viable and powerful enough to handle the given title.

Incidentally, God Of War is going to be on PC soon, if rumors are to be believed, and BotW had its best version in the CEMU emulator for a while, so everything's peachy. More or less.
 
I honestly don't see the fascination of playing on a little device as a grow up.

Had all the handhelds, never touched them. Not even my iphone or iPad Pro which have their own set of amazing looking games
 
Been really out of the PC market. Been reading a bit, eMMC drive, are they really better than NVMe drives? Cause im thinking about getting the cheaper model and just add a micro-sd. Not sure yet.
 
Been really out of the PC market. Been reading a bit, eMMC drive, are they really better than NVMe drives? Cause im thinking about getting the cheaper model and just add a micro-sd. Not sure yet.
If there's any chance you'll want to install Windows on it, go with the 256 model.
 
Nowhere in my comment did I talk about sales numbers, but thank you for the spoiler. No one is expecting this to sell anything even close to the SWITCH. That isn't the point. This makes NINTENDO look bad in the same way something like Monster Hunter Stories or Temtem makes NINTENDO look bad: it shows an incredible lack of tech innovation and interest in giving consumers actual value.

. . .honestly didn't think that needed to be spelled out.
This still doesn't make them look bad in the least, and it's in no way competing with Nintendo. Nintendo pioneered this very form factor and docking as their premier product. They innovate in some ways, but never in raw horsepower. And they're never great value, which is annoying.
This is a cool system and I'll likely get one, but it's a tinkerer system.
 
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What a ugly monster lol, make everything ugly and uncomfortable so they can add touch pads lol. Looks as bad as those cheap and nasty handhelds from china lol
 
In a n ideal world? no, they shouldn't.
Nothing "should be exclusive" for the sake of it and everything should release on any platform that's both commercially viable and powerful enough to handle the given title.

Incidentally, God Of War is going to be on PC soon, if rumors are to be believed, and BotW had its best version in the CEMU emulator for a while, so everything's peachy. More or less.
Yeah without exclusives we wouldn't have to install Windows just to play Gamepass games, install Epic Games Store to play EGS exclusives, wouldn't have to buy three consoles for the living room, subscribe to three streaming and online services.
The hobby is broken, more or less.
 
I love the idea of this device and I think Valve are serious with this and also pricing wise.. it's very good.

There is one advantage though that the Switch OLED will have over this and it's space.
Yes both have 68 gigs but games are optimised and compressed like crazy for the Switch so it can fit on that game card or so people can play it without needing external storage... For the most part. You're rarely gonna get Switch games over 68g.

However PC games just aren't compressed at all, annoyingly so.
You're really gonna an SD card faster on Steam Deck faster than Switch.

You never know though, if something like this really and I mean really catches fire. Then pc developers could focus more attention on compression their games. Long shot though lol.
 
Do Valves hardware products usually drop in price 6-12 months down the line? Also talking about the 2nd hand market here.

This looks incredible but I'm not sure if I should pick it up straight away or wait 6-12 months to a year to get a better impression of how it runs and also get it cheaper.

Also another thing I hate about modern gaming hardware is how you now have to keep worrying about a company releasing an "updated" model and made your purchased hardware inferior in ~2 years. At least in days gone by if you bought a piece of gaming hardware you knew that was it until the next generation in 5 6 or 7 years time.
 
They better go all 90's edgy with the advertising

"come play with my deck"

"let your friends play with your deck"
 
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I honestly don't see the fascination of playing on a little device as a grow up.

Had all the handhelds, never touched them. Not even my iphone or iPad Pro which have their own set of amazing looking games
It's not just about " playing on a bus" or whatever. I would be interested in this simply as a portable travel device..like a console I can bring with me when I go foreign or when I travel to a hotel etc which I do quite often.

Because it can easily have a dock connected as well it makes for a perfect multiplayer travelling console...

The emulation scene should be amazing for this as well!

I say don't underestimate the power of a handheld.
 
Can they use direct X? If so how given that it is proprietary to Microsoft? If not then how can it work?
DirectX calls get translated to equivalent Vulkan calls. Win32 calls get handled by Wine. This is all bundled together in Proton. Simplified, but that is how it works.
 
I want the glass screen on the 512GB model more than I want the better storage. Too bad 256GB model doesn't have it. I'd feel selfish getting the top model since you can almost buy 2 base models for that price.
 
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Looks sweet. I'm not into handheld gaming so Id pass. The top model is $819 CDN! Add tax and youre breaking $900+. Yikes.

But the power/performance for an 800p screen is suppose to be solid given it's supposed to be about a 2 TF system.

Should be 60 fps gaming right? Since the systems is promoted as a PC, sounds like the frame rate should be unlocked too like PC gaming is, unless the game studios want to mess with Steam Deck versions capping frames at 30 or 60???
 
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I want the glass screen on the 512GB model more than I want the better storage. Too bad 256GB model doesn't have it. I'd feel selfish getting the top model since you can almost buy 2 base models for that price.
I want that too but can't that be fixed with a anti-glare screen protector?
 
Looks sweet. I'm not into handheld gaming so Id pass. The top model is $819 CDN! Add tax and youre breaking $900+. Yikes.

But the power/performance for an 800p screen is suppose to be solid given it's supposed to be about a 2 TF system.

Should be 60 fps gaming right? Since the systems is promoted as a PC, sounds like the frame rate should be unlocked too like PC gaming is, unless the game studios want to mess with Steam Deck versions capping frames at 30 or 60???
Yes it's a handheld form factor PC
 
I just realized this thing would have been a godsend pack in the old days. I would not have had to strap in my massive rig in the back of my car to go to a lan party. I could literally just take this, a dock, my peripherals while using a buddies monitor. Damn zoomers have it to easy these days lol.
 
Irrelevant. Casual consumers won't go anywhere near the hoops and loops needed to run emulators they have to set up and download roms to.

Wake me up when the portable steam machine is running Metroid: Dread at 60fps without fucked up textures.
Wake me up when Metroid Dread looks like a decent game that is any different to hundreds of indie metroidvanias already available at a fraction of the price.
 
Almost reservation time in my neck of the woods.
I am patiently waiting with my other computer set on the reserve link.

Also it has been confirmed that you can access the epic store on it.....I know its been stated this is a laptop but it still hurts my brain to think that way. I look at it and see a console.

 
6pm for me, so an hour. Gonna bag the middle spec. It's cheaper than I expected as I was used to seeing the number in dollars lol.

No reason not to reserve. You get your money back if you don't end up buying anyway.
 
One other way this shits all over the Switch - you'll be able to pair wireless bluetooth headphones with this bad boy when it's not docked.

What a stupid fuckin' decision that was on Nintendo's part.
 
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