The Nintendo Switch (OLED model) wasn't the "Pro" upgrade many expected it to be with 4K support and new internals but before its announcement, other handhelds aimed to take the role of the "Switch Pro". The AYA NEO and GPD Win 3 are among those devices shooting for that nickname since they are able to run recent AAA PC games on the go, given that they are handheld gaming PCs. Their efforts and popularity, although niche, enticed companies like Lenovo and Tencent to make similar concepts or patents; indicating that these indie companies might have more serious competition in the future.

It seems like this will indeed be the case and these handheld gaming PC manufacturers will need to brace themselves as Valve is itself entering this market with a Valve-branded handheld gaming PC. This news was actually reported back in May and today we have the official confirmation. In a Steam post today, Valve revealed the Steam Deck, an AMD-based handheld gaming PC that is expected to begin shipping in December 2021 in select regions.

The software giant partnered with AMD to create a custom APU for the handheld that is said to be "optimized for handheld gaming". "It is a Zen 2 + RDNA 2 powerhouse, delivering more than enough performance to run the latest AAA games in a very efficient power envelope," reads the announcement.

It will run on SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based) and there will be several models of the Steam Deck, which differ on the storage capacity, with the base model starting at $399. However, every model will include a microSD slot for additional storage capacity. For more details about the models available and their price, refer to the image below:

You can find additional specs details in the images below (click/tap to enlarge):

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And just like the AYA NEO and GPD Win 3, the Steam Deck will also have a dock which will be sold separately. This accessory will provide ports for external displays, wired networking, USB peripherals, and power. More details about the dock's pricing will be announced at a later date but you can find some specs details in the thumbnail below:

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Valve says that the Steam Deck will start shipping this December to the United States, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom, with more regions coming in 2022. However, to be able to purchase one, you will need to book a paid reservation which will let you pre-order when the time comes. This reservation fee will also count towards the Steam Deck purchase price.

"The main reason for reservations is to ensure an orderly and fair ordering process for customers when Steam Deck inventory becomes available," writes Valve in the announcement FAQ. "The additional fee gives us a clearer signal of intent to purchase, which gives us better data to balance supply chain, inventory, and regional distribution leading up to launch."

Reservations for the Steam Deck will open Friday July 16th, 10am PDT. For more details about the new handheld gaming PC, head to the source link and official Steam Deck website linked below.

Are you interested in getting one?

SOURCE
Steam Deck Official Website

 

[DonCaballero]

It reminds me of the SEGA Nomad!

 

[koimayeul]

Now I was eying the OLED switch as my first portable since the vita's but this totally beat it! I got massive libraries among epic, Ubi, GOG, itch and Steam against the two xenoblade chronicles that I would actually want for Switch... Killer GabeN, a deal with Gamepass and GeForce now and it's sealed, also great to give competition for big N milking fans for years with the monopoly... Hyped AF!!

 

[jomaper]

1280x800 oh.

 

[Rahkeesh]

Now I was eying the OLED switch as my first portable since the vita's but this totally beat it! I got massive libraries among epic, Ubi, GOG, itch and Steam against the two xenoblade chronicles that I would actually want for Switch... Killer GabeN, a deal with Gamepass and GeForce now and it's sealed, also great to give competition for big N milking fans for years with the monopoly... Hyped AF!!

While valve isn't locking this thing down, they have zero reason to promote competitor's ecosystem and Microsoft has zero interest in getting their ecosystem running on linux. The whole windows store stuff is incredibly locked down and where people have found workarounds for origin and EGS on linux, I doubt that will ever happen for windows store. Really the long-term play here for Valve is still to try and push more gaming to linux so they can escape any attempt to make the Windows store ubiquitous.

 

[eriol33]

If this doesn't prompt Nintendo to release switch pro, nothing will

 

[anhminh]

On marketing aspect, this won't caught on. The exclusive game is the only way to market a handheld. Every time an exclusive game announced, people will heard about that handheld and talk about it, like "this is a good time to own a Switch".

This though, this will only see some spotlight on annouce and maybe on release day. After that, there is almost no occasions its name would be say again and then people will quickly forget about it just like every other Steam handheld.

 

[Xzi]

1280x800 oh.

Eh who cares, it can output to any display and 1080p would give you 2 hours battery life max.

 

[tech3475]

Any news on if the internal storage can be easily upgraded or whether it’s just the mSD slot?

 

[Xzi]

Any news on if the internal storage can be easily upgraded or whether it’s just the mSD slot?

As far as we know right now, internal storage can't be upgraded regardless of which SKU you get. There will definitely be modders who attempt it anyway, so we'll have to wait until launch to know for sure.

 

[samuzomoxo]

As I mentioned in my review for the AYA NEO, the more competition, the better for us consumers! Looking forward to how this turns out!

so wrong argument that ultra liberal use to make you think this
there are so many example that prove that just a trick

 

[Pipistrele]

Pretty happy about this announcement - considering the history of Valve hardware releases, I’ll pass on it for a year or two to see whether they manage this one well, but cautious optimism is still optimism.

Though there’s already weirdos who already claim it as “Nintendo killer”, and yeaaah, that’s obviously not going to happen. Unless Steam Deck gets released with HL3+TF3+Portal 3 as exclusive titles or something, it’ll barely leave a dent on Switch sales, and target audience is definitely more niche at least for this one. Maybe in the future, if first instalment establishes itself well enough (and that’s assuming dedicated handhelds won’t get absorbed by cloud gaming, which is arguably a much more pressing danger for Nintendo's handheld dominance).

 

[tech3475]

Pretty happy about this announcement - considering the history of Valve hardware releases, I’ll pass on it for a year or two to see whether they manage this one well, but cautious optimism is still optimism.

Though there’s already weirdos who already claim it as “Nintendo killer”, and yeaaah, that’s obviously not going to happen. Unless Steam Deck gets released with HL3+TF3+Portal 3 as exclusive titles or something, it’ll barely leave a dent on Switch sales, and target audience is definitely more niche at least for this one. Maybe in the future, if first instalment establishes itself well enough (and that’s assuming dedicated handhelds won’t get absorbed by cloud gaming by then).

I think Valve needs to get better at marketing and get these into more stores, not just exclusive to Gamestop, etc.

It's interesting and I might get it, not a true Switch killer considering the Switch's exclusives and mass market appeal, but if I do go through and it's good, it will most likely replace my Switch when travelling considering it can also be made to run other software such Netflix and VLC, even if it means dual booting.

 

[Xzi]

Though there’s already weirdos who already claim it as “Nintendo killer”, and yeaaah, that’s obviously not going to happen. Unless Steam Deck gets released with HL3+TF3+Portal 3 as exclusive titles or something, it’ll barely leave a dent on Switch sales, and target audience is definitely more niche at least for this one.

I'm not sure anything could "kill Nintendo" at this point, but I do think there is a decent chance this affects Switch's future sales numbers. It's priced very competitively, there's nothing to build or upgrade other than the micro SD, and the UI looks plenty user-friendly. Meaning this has appeal outside of the hardcore PC gaming crowd. This also isn't 2003, everybody knows what Steam is and a ton of people have decent-sized game libraries there, so Valve doesn't need a big promotional bundle to market it. They're already taking a loss on the hardware anyway.

 

[Deleted User]

The problem is a lot of stuff like Battleye probably won't cooperate. They kick VM users because they claim something like "90% of cheaters were using VMs", when people are still bypassing their crap because client side anti-cheat just isn't effect. People bypassed Vanguard a while ago, and people have been cheating in EAC and Battleye games for ages. For PC gaming in big games they should always be using server-side anti-cheat unless the game uses p2p traffic and only uses a server for matchmaking and account/purchase validation.

Anti-Cheats like EAC and BattleEye are effective, most cheaters won't be hacking their way into games using these two anti-cheats unless you pay a hefty price for the hack.
And for server-side Anti-Cheat systems... have you ever played CS or TF2?
Valve's Server-Side Anticheat doesn't work at all.

 

[Rafciu]

Thats good that something happens on handheld market. I still prefer switch over that device, im mainly console gamer. On PC im playing only strategies and i can't image playing them with on thic console on touchpad and tiny screen, yeah i know that i can plug this device to TV and using mouse but its not worth the money.

Maybe i get this at some point at price drop, it can be cool for emulation of Xenia, Cemu, RPCS3.

 

[such]

Valve hardware + button layout + pricing (those jumps are ridiculous) = wait at least a couple of years to see if Valve craps the bed + try one out before buying (probably tough to do in my neck of the woods) + continue waiting until a decent promo or a price cut. Or, going back to the whole Valve hardware thing, until they deem it a total failure and start dumping it for 90% off, I suppose.

And that's not getting into how the shortages and whatnot factor in here.

So yeah, I'll be postponing my excitement for... 3-4 years minimum, it looks like? It is interesting, I clearly am the target audience, I'd love me some portable New Vegas etc., but Valve hardware is not something I'd be comfortable pre-ordering even if I had this kind of money to straight up burn.

 

[Raendor]

On marketing aspect, this won't caught on. The exclusive game is the only way to market a handheld. Every time an exclusive game announced, people will heard about that handheld and talk about it, like "this is a good time to own a Switch".

This though, this will only see some spotlight on annouce and maybe on release day. After that, there is almost no occasions its name would be say again and then people will quickly forget about it just like every other Steam handheld.

Wat exclusives? Another lame mario or zelda with terrible graphics? Only die hard nintendoids will care about those while the valve library offers so much more and backed up by a far more powerful device. My switch’s been gathering dust around 2 years already and now will definitely will go to a second hand market while is still worth anything, because steam deck made switch now completely useless to anyone other than die-hard Nintendo fanboys.

 

[Pipistrele]

Wat exclusives? Another lame mario or zelda with terrible graphics? Only die hard nintendoids will care about those while the valve library offers so much more and backed up by a far more powerful device. My switch’s been gathering dust around 2 years already and now will definitely will go to a second hand market while is still worth anything, because steam deck made switch now completely useless to anyone other than die-hard Nintendo fanboys.

"I'm not interested in these games" =/= "Nobody's interested in these games". The hype for things like Splatoon 3, BOTW2 and SMT5 is pretty large so far, whether it's your cup of tea or not.

 

[krasaty]

"I'm not interested in these games" =/= "Nobody's interested in these games". The hype for things like Splatoon 3, BOTW2 and SMT5 is pretty large so far, whether it's your cup of tea or not.

Even then, yuzu will probably be able to play those on release or shortly after release at this point. Likely even on this system.

 

[Pipistrele]

Even then, yuzu will probably be able to play those on release or shortly after release at this point. Likely even on this system.

I like our boi Yuzu, but it's not polished enough just yet to be a sustainable alternative for the real deal - especially for newer games, which can throw in a ton of compatibility issues (stuff like Monster Hunter Rise and Bravely Default II are still borderline unplayable and crash-prone, to name a few). Especially since Splatoon 3 is a heavily multiplayer-based title, so yeah, so much for emulation with that one.