(Photograph courtesy of Steam’s Twitter @Steam)
The world of gaming is forever changing, and PC gaming is no exception to this rule. One of the biggest issues that many people run into when it comes to showing interest in being a PC gamer, is both the pricing of having a good PC set up, and having the room for the setup. Valve may have found a bridge to these problems with its recently announced handheld, the Steam Deck. Appearing to be much like the Nintendo Switch in both its look and portability, the Steam Deck will allow gamers to bring their entire Steam library of games with them on the go, opening up PC games to those who previously could not play.
The Steam Deck has an AMD APU containing a quad-core Zen 2 CPU with eight threads and eight compute units’ worth of AMD RDNA 2 graphics, with 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. In other words, it’s basically designed to be a portable gaming computer. It also comes with different tiers of storage including 64GB eMMC storage ($399), 256GB NVMe SSD storage ($529), and 512GB of high-speed NVME SSD storage ($649) with the option to further expand on this storage with a high-speed microSD card slot, according to Valve. In comparison to the pricing of some PC setups that can run over into the thousands, this makes the Steam Deck a much more affordable option for those who have shown interest in PC gaming but have never been able to afford it.
The device also has the ability to be placed on a dock that will allow gamers to hook the Steam Deck up to either their television or a computer monitor. Little is known about the dock right now other than it will, unfortunately, be sold separately. This too is a lot like the Nintendo Switch, allowing people to choose if they want to play entirely on the go, or attach to an external display. This will be especially convenient for anyone who may have been interested in gaming using Steam but simply didn’t have the room for a PC set up for their gaming. To anyone who already has a PC and is interested in the portability option, Valve has also stated you’ll be able to stream games to the Steam Deck directly from your gaming PC using Valve’s Remote Play feature if you’re interested in even more power outside of the features that are designed to emulate the regular Steam app on a desktop.
For gamers who are interested in strictly playing the Steam Deck as a portable gaming device, they’ll be pleased to find that it comes with a huge number of control options. It has two regular thumbsticks but also has two trackpads beneath the thumbsticks, which could give players more precision for games like first-person shooters. The front of the device also has ABXY buttons, a D-pad, and a 7-inch 1280 x 800 touchscreen. Once again similar to the Switch, it has two shoulder triggers on each side, and there are four back buttons as well as built-in microphones. The Steam Deck even includes a gyroscope for motion controls.
Reservations for the Steam Deck are available for those who already have active Steam accounts. Valve is attempting to keep reseller bots and scalpers at bay by offering the reservations to previous Steam players first, as well as having a refundable $5 reservation fee and allowing only one purchase per person. To anyone who has tried to get their hands on the latest Xbox or Playstation, the attempt at preventive measures is appreciated. The reservation should not be confused with an actual preorder. It more or less puts you “in line” to be able to purchase the Steam Deck once the inventory is available. It will provide you an invitation to preorder later on, and if you miss that window, your $5 will be refunded to your Steam Wallet. The first Steam Decks will be available in the United States, Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom in December of this year, with other areas following some time in 2022.
Written by Ashley Laney
Hi, I’m Lynn, and I Make.
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