New Valve / Steam handheld console "Steam Deck"

Yeah, if I were using it for work I'd "need" an upgrade, too. But it's being used to play games of its approximate vintage, and there's no reason it couldn't do a bit of light dev as well.

 

One advantage to his approach, assuming he's buying at least 60 series cards, is being able to play around with the latest technologies as they become available. RTX is a fun experience and even more fun to play around with in an engine, but DLSS is a true game changer in my opinion and can make up most of the difference between cards.

 

His latest 'upgrade' a little while ago was an Nvidia 970 card, so... not exactly the case with my best mate. Bringing this topic up with him, he has little interest in this latest tech too.

Not saying folks don't or can't do as you say. Just not the case with my penny pinching best friend.

 

I did have a beefy i5 quad core before I bought this old i3 system. An AMD A9 laptop I bought a few years ago outperformed my desktop i5, CPU wise, even though the i5 had more cores and more Ghz. That told me I was paying for hardware I didn't need in my desktop.

I've had higher frame rates before and using the old i3 system now I don't see a big difference. I'm using Windows 10 Pro and it's not slow and neither is Unity. Today's games depend mainly on the gpu not the cpu. This is true for VR as well. I did the Steam VR test and it told me my nvidia 1030 GPU would prevent me from playing VR. It gave the green light for my i3 processor.

I'm a penny pincher.

I'm the same way with phones. I have never spent $100 for a smartphone, I don't care what brand it is. My $29 phone can take pictures/movies, watch movies, call, text, and run apps just like a $1,200+ smartphone can.

The whole point of my posts for this thread is the gaming PC in your hand thing sounds cool but it's a waste of money and time. I think Valve's new handheld gaming computer would only be a plus for gamers who use consoles mainly not PCs. However, once they make the jump to desktop gaming they won't pick up the Valve device again unless they're going on a long road trip. The best gaming experience on this planet is a desktop PC.

 

No, it can't. Try something like running a full blown Augmented Reality APP and watche the CPU and battery melt.

 

Windows 10 can run off of just about anything and Unity's performance is largely dependent on the project you are working on so you can't just point at these two and use them to prove anything about your purchasing decision.

I can make Unity run off of a Pentium 4 adequately if I'm developing Pong, but I'm not developing Pong and am instead developing a several hundred thousand dollar plus video game which would be an awful development experience at best and completely impossible at worst.

I had to upgrade away from a mainstream six-core/twelve-thread processor because major tasks like making builds were taking a few hours. When you are a paid professional the last thing you want to tell your boss is that you're sitting there twiddling your thumbs because you made a stupid purchase and if you do you won't be paid for long.

Just saving money doesn't automatically mean you've made a smart purchase.

No. Once upon a time I had a similar outlook when it came to phones and then I bought a Google Pixel phone and suddenly discovered that everything I thought I knew was simply stupidity on my part.

I'm not saying you should run out and purchase the most expensive phone in existence because that would be just as stupid as purchasing the cheapest one you can find. What I am saying is that the difference between devices rapidly increases for a while before it levels off around a certain amount and it's where it levels off that the true value is to be had.

My first phone was around the same price as you paid and lasted a few months. My second phone was used off of eBay for around the same price as you paid and lasted the same length of time before it stopped being practical.

My third and current phone cost $350 during a Black Friday sale and has lasted me a few years now and will most likely last years to come. In fact if I set aside the desire for new and better features the reality is this phone would likely last a decade or more.

If I had bought cheap phones I would have had to buy at least ten phones in the time that I have owned this phone thanks to how flimsy and borderline useless they would be. What's $350 divided by ten phones? Only $35. Very close to the amount you paid. Funny how that works.

Worse yet all of those cheap phones would be running old hardware and software. A quick check of Net10 shows that their $30 phone only has and is stuck on Android 9. Meanwhile my Pixel 3a has Android 11 and will be getting Android 12 soon which means not only three years of features but three years of security updates too.

 

My original post was why, in my opinion, the new STEAM Deck is not a smart move for Valve. It's competing against laptops. Lunchbox computers did too and that's why they never caught on. I brought up my current system that is based on older tech because it can do what the Deck can do, play games. And it can do other things like any other computer can do; but the Deck can't. Like word processing/office work, etc. And my system cost less than the Deck. Others think I'm wrong. Fine. Good. Democracy is working. Others stand by their opinion and I stand by mine.

Edit: And I admit I got off track in bragging about my system and my spending habits which warranted correction by others.

 

I'd say it's competing against the Switch. Though it's a Switch that can play your entire Steam library. The Switch which has sold about 50 million units, and the Steam Deck has been completely booked out pre-orders.

By all accounts it's already been a smart move and will continue to be a smart move. As soon as they're available in Australia you can get I'm getting one.

 

Actually the Deck can ...

 

It is a PC in a fancy wrapper. It has an usb connector. Plug a hub in, attach a keyboard, and it should work just fine, although the text will be probbaly on a small side. You can also use bluetooth devices.

 

It has a dock

 

I'm starting to wonder if you've looked into the device at all as it can do anything a PC can do thanks to being built off of PC hardware. Valve has even said that while it comes with Linux pre-installed nothing prevents you from replacing it with Windows and running apps natively rather than via Proton.

It's no more competing against laptops than a tablet with a keyboard, and I would even argue that it isn't competing against the Switch but rather filling a niche that up until now has been vacant. Previously if you wanted to play PC games the only way was very clunky due to power demands but this is going to change that completely.

 

Well this thread aged well, just got my Steam Deck yesterday, installed 23 of my "great on deck" Horizon Zero dawn, The long dark, Stick of truth, oblivion, Disco elysium, No mans sky, Star Dew Valley
It rocks, when I unboxed I thought eep! too big, but once I picked it up, the form factor, every button feels right, natural hold for triggers and back buttons, desktop mode is fine to, Yakuza Kiwami is amazing.
I love it. Installed a 512gb sd card,
Also used a basic USB C dock and connected a 28" monitor, keyboard and mouse, can see it functioning as a backup pc for me.

 

I also received my Steam Deck this week. So far, I am very happy with it. It plays a lot of games really well. It is larger and heavier than the Nintendo Switch, but still pretty portable. The controls built into the Steam Deck feel way better than the joycon ones built into the Switch, but maybe not quite as good as a separate game controller.

 

Going by Valve's reluctance to update the specs for Index, I wonder what the future holds for the deck? I imagine it may be in their interests to beef up it's performance a bit so you could have a scenario like the index being a bit portable.

I'm interested in the device if it gets lighter and smaller.

 

We'll likely see maybe a single Steam Deck revision and then nothing because, much as the thing is Valve's top hardware seller right now, that's likely more because of how Valve rates top selling items. When these things are calculated, it's based on dollars and not unit figures, which dramatically inflates the view of things.

But the thing is that literally nobody outside of like the deepest hardcore audience, the kind who buy everything, even knows this thing exists. It has even less of a public awareness than VR, partly because literally only one company makes them and they never really get advertised.

 

It is a rather large and captive audience that is constantly advertised at. I wonder how many people who have steam, see that deck every week?

That's better marketing than Sony at times. Due to it being sustained.

Sure, people don't want one immediately, maybe. But that index keeps selling with it's trashy old screen even though way better hmds exist. At full price.

 

They still don't sell in my region. Shake fist.

 

in the steam HW survey the "AMD AMD Custom GPU 0405" is now 7.57% of linux GPU use
And linux use is 1.18% of steam use
So that combines to a mighty 0.089% of steam users currently using a Steam Deck
assuming that the HW survey is representative

 

Question is: is that 0.089% profitable enough. Because steam user number are kinda huge, it's a world wide platform.

 

Keep in mind there is limited availability even now almost half a year after the launch date. That percentage will grow as devices continue being delivered. I just checked the store page and the earliest you can get one if you order now is October.

 

well it says 7.57% of linux in June and that's +2.37% over May (so 5.20%). That's a decent rate if sustained

 

The odds of that being sustained is pretty unlikely, I'd say. Almost all of their sales I'd wager came from the initial announcement and preorders from, again, the extremely hardcore audience who buy everything.

 

I don't know, according to the GetMyDeck calculator (So take this with a grain of salt) the rate at which they've been shipping out units has grown almost exponentially over the past few weeks and they've only fulfilled 16% of reservations before mine. I reserved mine like, a week after reservations went live. At the end of June, it was only about 2%. So, if 2% of Steam Decks before me was enough to raise the number of Linux users by 5.20% (Edit, misinterpreted the stats above) the percentage of Linux users using Deck by 2.3%, it definitely seems like that number will continue to climb for a while.

 

None of what you said is relevant to this part here:

There is a pretty firm cap on the size of this userbase.

 

Yeah. The Steam Deck that I received this week was the one I pre-ordered last year the day it was announced.

 

The deck is just a stop gap before Valve next big ambition anyway, seems like priming linux gaming (no dependence on other's OS) and cheap portable VR (owning a hardware platform instead of relying on others). Just strategy to future proof the money making steam platform.

 

I can't really see portable VR getting bigger than Steam Deck in the short to mid term. VR is its own thing, so I wouldn't call Steam Deck as a stopgap. It's strong on its own to remain a mainstay. But, yeah, it could very well lead to a Quest 2 competitor down the road.

 

Pico Neo 3 already exists.

Spoiler

 

... I never said there are no other contenders? I just agreed with GimmyDev that Steam Deck could lead to Valve doing a Quest 2 competitor down the road because there are similarities in format and manufacturing process.

 

They heavily implied as such, while they discouraged anyone fron running vr on the deck, they also send early version to vr influencer, which is were the rumors started.

 

Meta just cut off the subsidies and raised the price of Quest 2 by a third. If Valve comes in with a subsidized VR headset like they subsidize the cheapest Steam Deck model, and they deliver a better product on top of that, they could very well win the VR race.

 

In the John Carmack interview he said something about next Oculus VR device being a more high-end product. That may or may not be true but you'd think Valve would prefer they were the high-end gaming platform.

 

Prohibitive pricing slows down VR adoption. I think Valve wants VR to go mainstream and a Quest 2 competitor is the way to go. Steam Deck is also not really high end gaming.

But VR has nothing to do with Steam Deck. We should probably try to stay on topic.

 

High end generally subsidies low end market by leading with captive early adopter enthusiasts demographics, it's probable that quest was just a bit too early on the adoption curve to mainstream and will suffer for it, but from the market perspective they help seed the ecosystem with the cheap hardware, but I don't think they will be market leader in the long term, they just took the cost of R&D for the benefit of competitor who will mostly just iterate on the innovations by copying them. Bringing the form factor of the quest 2, as independent inside out tracking solution, was a great advance for the medium, where early enthusiasts were less than thrilled because if low specs needed. Can't wait to see someone like nintendo enter the dance, because software need a boost.

All I'm saying is it's going to be fun in the future.

 

Does it? Even after the price hike the Quest 2 is easily in the spending range of gamers, as is the PS VR. More expensive gear is also within the price ranges of the enthusiasts it's aimed at.

For business use (training and the like) I've not once heard even a hint that the prices of commercially oriented stuff is prohibitive. To the contrary, it's cheap enough compared to the activities it'd ideally replace or enhance that the pricing is considered attractive in many cases.

For both home and business use, however, the real pain point is dealing with all the rigmarole that goes with it. Setting up and then using a headset which isolates you from the world you're physically in is high-friction effort.

 

I'm sure they are, but I doubt that's the reason for the subsidy, as I doubt that they were getting $100 worth of data out of the average Quest 2 user. That's based on the price bump. Basing it on the price gap to the closest competitor it's a lot more than that.

I think it's more likely that they're willing to take a price hit now as a future investment into market dominance. That's completely in line with their attempt to re-brand online interactive content as "the metaverse" while simultaneously rebranding themselves to "Meta". They probably care less about making profit now than they do about essentially controlling the market if / when this becomes the next big thing in mass media.

And considering that I recently got an invite to a government / industry conference about "applications of the metaverse", I'd say it's working.

 

I stated that in the context of the previous poster saying that the next Oculus headset might be high end and that Valve would also prefer to stay high end whatever that means. But high end only serves the enthusiast market where people or businesses can afford $1k+ headsets with $3k+PCs to run it with decent frame rates and need relatively large empty spaces for lighthouse/etc tracking.

That is cost prohibitive to mainstream adoption and the direct opposite of self contained and relatively cheap Quest 2, which is the main driving force of VR adoption right now. Hence why I think Valve would be angling for a Quest competitor rather than a new high end headset if market growth is their goal. Although with the new GPUs that can push way more pixels at higher framerates on the horizon, high-end could also be on the table.

 

Quest 2 have the sweat spot for image quality, the gpu only is lagging. It's just a matter of time. Also at one point we will probably loop back to phone, if tracking continues to evolve with ar apps, we will have de facto inside out tracking with 120fps screen at high resolution.

 

By looping back to phone, do you mean using the phone as both the screen and the GPU? If the answer is yes, then i think you got a point, but it's most likely going to be the solution for casual VR users (akin to what Google Cardboard was).

 

I disagree. I think that the lack of accessibility/comfort options does slow it down more than the price. There are relatively cheap VR headsets, both new and used and yet...

 

I mean yes, but consider it's like saying mobile phone are for casual computer user, it's true, but it put enormous pressure on the market.

 

Two very different usecases. Non-casual (...pro?) computer users (mostly enthusiasts) are going to be reluctant to use a phone for that purpose unless it provides some extra benefits. Casual users would be eager to try it out, as theoretically, the most expense they need to make is the cost of whatever those plastic phone things that are used for Google Cardboard-like functionality are and the price of an app.

 

We're talking Quest 2 vs high-end here. Quest is the main driver of VR adoption right now. 1k headset with 3k PC compared to Quest, which until recently was $299 for all-in-one package are vastly different entry points. High end can only reach so far, enthusiast market is niche. And even the cheaper headsets require a beefy PC which is cost prohibitive to growth. Comfort doesn't really factor into the equation if most people are priced out by default.

Not sure what you mean by accessibility.

 

If a game is good enough people will buy the hardware to play it, pretty much regardless of the cost. That's what originally drove PC development into 486s, Pentiums and Pentium IIs etc. I suspect that's what Carmack was chasing. It's difficult to do amazing things with low cost hardware. Unless it's not really low cost because you subsidize and take the money through your store like Steam or user data.

 

The thing is though, a PC can do far more than games. A high end VR headset is either just a toy or a training tool. And justifying the cost for a toy is increasingly hard, especially because there are a million more toys to buy nowadays. And all those other toys don't require a top of the line PC. Millions of people won't buy 4k+ worth of hardware no matter how killer the app is, enthusiasts will and most enthusiasts are already part of the market. i.e. I don't think many parallels can be drawn between CPU development in the 90s and current day VR.

Furthermore, amazing hardware gets cheaper at scale, so driving adoption first with Quest like machines makes sense. It's not like Quest 2 is the peak of mobile VR either. They have not refreshed it in a couple of years. And Valve already is in VR space and subsidize Steam Deck, they could also subsidize Steam Quest-like.

 

I mean just look at nintendo.

Of course it's different use case, but from the broader market, where do you think the money will be, and what that will mean for enthusiast? I mean AAA game are driven by console then you get some extra option to feel like your high end gpu is worth it, but nothing build from the ground up to exploit teh power.

VR got a significant bump with Half Life Alyx, it's only on high end, therefore confirmed that hypothesis.

 

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of hardware purchases.

If the game is good enough, it will drive some sales, but just as most people don't buy single use kitchen appliances, they don't buy expensive game hardware unless it will continue to have other uses. Hell, even your own example supports this. First, people were willing to shell out on PC because they were able to do other things on them. Aside from being gaming devices, PCs were business machines. Sure, you could play Doom, but you could also use text editors, spreadsheets, gradually expanding online connectivity that expanded use cases, all sorts of things.

Even in the case of game consoles, the average software attach rate for the PS4, as an example, was 8.75. The Nintendo Switch? 7.4. These devices are being sold on not just their existing library, but the ongoing support of the library as well. This also points to a flaw in your argument: that "doing amazing things" also drives hardware sales like that. The hardware in the Nintendo Switch, for all intents and purposes, is practically eight years old. It is not an amazing piece of kit, but it's cheap, does a lot, and has a wide variety of fun and interesting titles.

VR though? VR is still extremely niche and that's why we've seen more and more that its prices aren't worth subsidizing. It's why we also see it being pushed more towards business. You want to talk about people willing to buy the hardware for a good enough game? They made a goddamn Half-Life entry on VR and it barely moved the needle.

You need more than just a good enough game and VR doesn't have that. I can point towards more problems VR has as a platform, honestly. There's loads of fundamental issues there that just can't really be overcome that will forever keep VR as a niche.

 

Actually you could use 386 to do all the text editing, spredsheets and online connectivity you wanted. Games was the primary driving engine. The fact that we don't have that many truly comparatively amazing games as we did back then, or the fact that VR causes nausea etc. is a problem that a lot of people are trying to overcome. And that plays well to devices like Nintendo Swich which are not high end.

 

How old are you?