The tariff situation makes it a bad idea to release or even announce new hardware right now. What they should do is finish Steam OS so they can officially release it for all platforms.
It ain’t powerful enough for modern titles sadly. I’m trying to say that there’s a space where Valve made steam machine with niceties of SteamOS and power of say PS5 can really thrive.
I think it’ll happen soon. Tariffs threw a wrench in everyone’s plan but Strix Halo currently exists. Ryzen 395+ is in minipc’s now and should give a solid ~PS5 level experience that should come down in price over time as AMD releases successor generations. At least now could be cheaper with Valve putting somethings out with razor thin margins expecting to get return from software sales
One of the bigger issues about PC gaming these days is the shader compilation stutter. Valve is able to precompile and upload these for SteamDeck, so a fixed hardware “console” from them will solve this problem too.
SteamDeck is pretty weak but games are still sort of optimised for it. Same would be true for such a console, making devs focus on a target platform directly.
Assembling PC yourself can have its own issues. You may not get all the ROPs, or a new Windows update may break your games, or you may occasionally update drivers to make a game more playable without black screens, or wouldn’t turn on with a controller when set up as a “console”. I’m not saying it isn’t doable, but there is an audience for consoles who would love whatever SteamDeck has done for handheld but in console form, and may not want to bother with setting everything up. Valve can disrupt that
Steam can’t release a “console” soon enough.
The tariff situation makes it a bad idea to release or even announce new hardware right now. What they should do is finish Steam OS so they can officially release it for all platforms.
You can connect the deck to your tv if you want a “console” experience.
It ain’t powerful enough for modern titles sadly. I’m trying to say that there’s a space where Valve made steam machine with niceties of SteamOS and power of say PS5 can really thrive.
I think it’ll happen soon. Tariffs threw a wrench in everyone’s plan but Strix Halo currently exists. Ryzen 395+ is in minipc’s now and should give a solid ~PS5 level experience that should come down in price over time as AMD releases successor generations. At least now could be cheaper with Valve putting somethings out with razor thin margins expecting to get return from software sales
I did that at my friends place: Worked very good. Screen was turned off and connected my xbox controller.
Minor nitpick: If it’s connected via a powered dock they should circumvent the battery.
Thousands of them already exist. They’re called PCs.
There’s some nuance.
Millions you mean.
Hundreds of millions.
And if you want that SteamOS experience; Bazzite and ChimeraOS is nice