Valve Handheld: Steam Deck

How many qualifiers need to be checkboxed for two products to be in the same product category?

For this discussion (not argument), lets classify all mobile PC gaming products to be in the same category, regardless of IOS.

NVIDIA-JXD-980x620.jpg

nvidia-project-shield.jpg


They've all failed to achieve mass-market success because they were over-priced and half-assed.
The NVIDIA Shield already fit a product category: it was tablet. They sold it as a "gaming tablet". Except it didn't have joysticks, and it was on Android, which was one of its greatest problems, because that platform didn't really have any games for which you'd need joysticks, and so any other tablet or phone could already do that stuff. That's why it didn't change anything, and their "TegraZone" fizzled (later rebranded "GeForce Play" which also fizzled). They created a product that didn't have content to sell, so the product didn't sell, and so the content wasn't created. Classic capitalist catch-22.

Otherwise, it was hardly half-assed or poorly priced. The Tegra K1 was more impressive as an APU in 2015 than this R5-5300Uish APU is today in 2021. It also retailed at $299 MSRP, and was later slashed to $199, so pricing wasn't the issue, because it had a superior pricing floor to this Steam Deck.
I am not calling 'decks' not made by Valve 'Steam Decks' and I highly doubt Gabe Newell is giving other multi-billion dollar corporations permission to infringe on his copyright, despite how literal the title of this PC Gamer article title is.


How do you know that? He let all these companies market their products as "Steam boxes" back in 2015, and he is such an open-source ideologue, there's no reason to believe he will change SteamOS from what it's always been, and restrict the v3.0 as a proprietary OS for his own product.
*Sigh*

Ok, I think you're misinterpreting me.

We agreed on more mobile PC platforms being good, right? I don't mean several different companies making Steam Decks, I mean several different companies making several different mobile PC platforms with the product category called 'deck.'

Hell, how was the name 'desktop' or 'laptop' agreed to across the industry? Did someone try to copyright it?

For now, for the lack of a proper name for the product category, lets just call them 'decks.'
Apple spearheaded the home PC market. The Apple II is often credited for popularizing this market. They didn't let other companies sell their product under that brand. If you go back and watch old interviews the media struggled at first to coin a term for the rubric. Finally "PC" stuck because it was the simplest abbreviation of many tried, and easily remembered: "personal computer". But naming and defining the larger product category wasn't Apple's preoccupation. Their preoccupation was creating and maintaining a product that filled a need, and generated a demand.

You're already calling these other products "decks". You're borrowing the term from Steam. See how the confusion is ingrained in this approach? That's why I believe Steam needs to protect this branding, and resist other decks purporting to represent the user experience they intended to offer.
So, that being said, I am very skeptical about cloud-gaming being legit because of internet speeds, connectivity, and latency issues still being a large issue across the world.

Stadia was a failure on its release day because basically no one believed Google would fix these issues, and they were right.

So, if you're right about this and I'm wrong, again, I'll paypal you enough to buy a six-pack of your favorite craft beers, ok Mads?
As I just showed in the Services thread there is already a Cloud gaming service (NVIDIA GeForce Now) which streams games with a lower input latency than the PS4 and Xbox One averaged in testing in 2015. That's with a hardwired connection, though. The WiFi adds another layer, and it is problematic.
Steambox had its issues, obviously, and its biggest issue was that practically everyone that wanted to play PC games on their flat screen TVs already were doing that with the desktops or laptops with HDMI cables.
This is the great hope. Everything rests on this. The Steam Deck actually does something other products don't already do better for a lower price. If this product succeeds it will be due to this. The Switch has shown a massive appetite for portable gaming. The other thing it has going for it is that in 2021 PC gaming is probably finally ready for this. All games are made to work out-of-the-box with dual-analog controllers. Driver support is already there (at least on Windows...not sure about SteamOS). So there is already a ton of games that can be played. It isn't a platform without a product. It actually has something to sell.

I just think it is far better in the short term if Gabe controls the branding to build a reputation.
 
That's a big selling point for sure. I've used a Vita, PSP and phone before, but emulating on pc/Windows is so much easier. Just think how many games you can stick on a 1TB SD card.

Other big ones for me

-mini pc on the go
-always wanted a windows tablet
-steam library on the go (biggest selling point). There are so many JRPG's I prefer handheld, especially the older PS1/PS2 games that look better on a small screen. I'm playing wargroove on my switch right now, far better on the toilet lol


I see myself also using this a lot to portably stream movies/series while keeping my phone free for phone stuff/web browsing.

I hope the battery is easily replaceable/upgradable.
I think people are getting huge ideas of what this thing COULD be, before we have any actual experience and reviews for it.
 
The NVIDIA Shield already fit a product category: it was tablet. They sold it as a "gaming tablet". Except it didn't have joysticks, and it was on Android, which was one of its greatest problems, because that platform didn't really have any games for which you'd need joysticks, and so any other tablet or phone could already do that stuff. That's why it didn't change anything, and their "TegraZone" fizzled (later rebranded "GeForce Play" which also fizzled). They created a product that didn't have content to sell, so the product didn't sell, and so the content wasn't created. Classic capitalist catch-22.

Okay. Point taken.

How do you know that? He let all these companies market their products as "Steam boxes" back in 2015, and he is such an open-source ideologue, there's no reason to believe he will change SteamOS from what it's always been, and restrict the v3.0 as a proprietary OS for his own product.

That was already after Steambox failed, right?

Not saying he should have allowed it anyway.

You're already calling these other products "decks". You're borrowing the term from Steam. See how the confusion is ingrained in this approach? That's why I believe Steam needs to protect this branding, and resist other decks purporting to represent the user experience they intended to offer.

Yes, until there's a better word for it so I don't have to type 'Rectangular Mobile Gaming PC With Dual Full-Sized Analog Sticks' repeatedly.

And I agree, I hope Dell doesn't name their product 'Alienware Deck' when the prototype name 'Alienware UFO' is more unique to them.

As I just showed in the Services thread there is already a Cloud gaming service (NVIDIA GeForce Now) which streams games with a lower input latency than the PS4 and Xbox One averaged in testing in 2015. That's with a hardwired connection, though. The WiFi adds another layer, and it is problematic.

Yes, and its also hard to believe Microsoft has the server infrastructure to have hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS, of gamers streaming XBX games at the same time at 4K 60FPS.

This is the great hope. Everything rests on this. The Steam Deck actually does something other products don't already do better for a lower price. If this product succeeds it will be due to this. The Switch has shown a massive appetite for portable gaming. The other thing it has going for it is that in 2021 PC gaming is probably finally ready for this. All games are made to work out-of-the-box with dual-analog controllers. Driver support is already there (at least on Windows...not sure about SteamOS). So there is already a ton of games that can be played. It isn't a platform without a product. It actually has something to sell.

I just think it is far better in the short term if Gabe controls the branding to build a reputation.

Based on what happened with Steambox, it still would have been far more successful if they had ironed out the problems with SteamOS, which made most of the games nearly unplayable on launch, and the updates in the days and weeks afterward weren't enough to repair the situation and Steambox completely failed.

If Gabe is a man that learns from his failures, and I'm not so sure he is based on the amount of diets he's failed, he would have had his #1 priority for Steam Deck would be for the SteamOS to be able to perfectly optimize it to play any game on Steam.

So yeah, count me in the 'great hope' crowd.

If he fails in this, some angry psychopath is going to take Gabe out like the first victim in Se7en.
 
I think people are getting huge ideas of what this thing COULD be, before we have any actual experience and reviews for it.

Outside of how well it plays on their custom OS, and feels comfort/weight wise, all the other benefits can be safely assumed. Being a PC, and knowing its specs, we know what to expect.

The best part is the practically zero risk in reserving one. Still though, I'll be waiting for Digital Foundry to get their hands on this before I drop the $900 or so. Damn Canadian $$!
 
The only thing that worries me is that it's basically XSS. I don't mean to insult that but I'm wondering how well it's going to run upcoming titles, basically it doesn't seem very futureproof at all.

Regardless it's good that Nintendo is getting some competition. They've gotten so lazy
 
The only thing that worries me is that it's basically XSS. I don't mean to insult that but I'm wondering how well it's going to run upcoming titles, basically it doesn't seem very futureproof at all.

Regardless it's good that Nintendo is getting some competition. They've gotten so lazy
It's not even close to an XSS in terms of performance.

For AAA titles this device can be expected to run 720p@30fps on "Low" settings. As posted on the previous page:

Ryzen 5 5500U
The more demanding games are tested at 720p starting with Watch Dogs: Legion @3:02
 
It's not even close to an XSS in terms of performance.

For AAA titles this device can be expected to run 720p@30fps on "Low" settings. As posted on the previous page:

Ryzen 3 5300U


Ryzen 5 5500U
The more demanding games are tested at 720p starting with Watch Dogs: Legion @3:02

Wait so it's worse than an XSS?
 
The only thing that worries me is that it's basically XSS. I don't mean to insult that but I'm wondering how well it's going to run upcoming titles, basically it doesn't seem very futureproof at all.

Regardless it's good that Nintendo is getting some competition. They've gotten so lazy

I don't think this is competition to Nintendo at all.
 
Wait so it's worse than an XSS?
Yes, by a significant amount. As I wrote on the first page, its gaming power is close to the original PS4. That 5500U should be a very close match.

The Steam Deck is running an identical architectural pairing as the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. It pairs a Zen 2 CPU with an RDNA 2 GPU. Makes it very easy to compare. Apples to apples.

CPU
  • Steam Deck ------> 4 cores, 8 threads; 2.4GHz - 3.6GHz* (4W-15W TDP)
    • *can't maintain peak frequency for long, especially if SMT aka hyperthreading is on; has to manage heat & power consumption
  • Xbox Series S ---> 8 cores, 16 threads; 3.6GHz** (25W TDP)
    • **can just park at this peak frequency when needed because it's a desktop unit; will park at 3.4GHz if SMT is on. The true peak power draw for either SoC is much higher than the TDP quoted, if they are deliberately pushed for the sake of testing, but practically speaking, the Steam Deck will try to stay in that 15W range while the Xbox Series S won't mind guzzling as much as it needs
GPU
  • Steam Deck ------> 1.6 TFLOPS RDNA2 (4W-15W TDP...same SoC as above)
  • Xbox Series S ---> 4.0 TFLOPS RDNA2 (100W TDP)
RAM
  • Steam Deck ------> 16GB LPDDR5; 16GB@88GB/s#
    • #@rikwebb illuminated in post #96 below Valve has updated their specification details on the RAM to note that it runs at a quad data rate, not double data rate, so I've doubled this bandwidth accordingly
  • Xbox Series S* --> 10GB GDDR6* [8GB@224GB/s + 2GB@56GB/s]
    • *uses the GPU's VRAM as shared system RAM; this RAM is incredibly fast, but the Steam Deck does have an advantage in that there is a larger overall pool of RAM
SSD
  • Steam Deck ------> 64GB eMMC* = ?? ; 256GB/512GB NVMe SSD = ??
    • *the eMMC draws less power, but will definitely be slower than a traditional NVMe SSD
  • Xbox Series S ---> 512GB NVMe = 2.4GB/s throughput
 
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Unless it can somehow play Nintendo exclusives, it is not, at all.
I don't understand this logic. Consoles that can't play each other's exclusive libraries are considered competitors to each other.
 
I don't understand this logic. Consoles that can't play each other's exclusive libraries are considered competitors to each other.

imo, nintendo's successfully marketed/maneuvered itself into a "differentiated" position, and one that's kind of unique (ie: mercedes/bmw/etc vs ford... but in a world where mercedes is the only luxury automaker) they don't really have competitors. hence, why they don't really have game sales, at least not compared to... every other console and pc.

they've embraced their super closed ecosystem that's heavily dependent upon their own ip. iirc, almost every top seller is an exclusive... and most are published by nintendo
 
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I don't understand this logic. Consoles that can't play each other's exclusive libraries are considered competitors to each other.
Because no one buying a Switch for nintendo exclusives is suddenly going to buy this instead just because it is handheld.
 
Yes, by a significant amount. As I wrote on the first page, its gaming power is close to the original PS4. That 5500U should be a very close match.

The Steam Deck is running an identical architectural pairing as the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. It pairs a Zen 2 CPU with an RDNA 2 GPU. Makes it very easy to compare. Apples to apples.

CPU
  • Steam Deck ------> 4 cores, 8 threads; 2.4GHz - 3.6GHz* (4W-15W TDP)
    • *can't maintain peak frequency for long, especially if SMT aka hyperthreading is on; has to manage heat & power consumption
  • Xbox Series S ---> 8 cores, 16 threads; 3.6GHz** (25W TDP)
    • **can just park at this peak frequency when needed because it's a desktop unit; will park at 3.4GHz if SMT is on. The true peak power draw for either SoC is much higher than the TDP quoted, if they are deliberately pushed for the sake of testing, but practically speaking, the Steam Deck will try to stay in that 15W range while the Xbox Series S won't mind guzzling as much as it needs
GPU
  • Steam Deck ------> 1.6 TFLOPS RDNA2 (4W-15W TDP...same SoC as above)
  • Xbox Series S ---> 4.0 TFLOPS RDNA2 (100W TDP)
RAM
  • Steam Deck ------> 16GB LPDDR5; 16GB@44GB/s
  • Xbox Series S* --> 10GB GDDR6*; 8GB@224GB/s + 2GB@56GB/s
    • *uses the GPU's VRAM as shared system RAM; this RAM is incredibly fast, but the Steam Deck does have an advantage in that there is a larger overall pool of RAM
SSD
  • Steam Deck ------> 64GB eMMC* = ?? ; 256GB/512GB NVMe SSD = ??
    • *the eMMC draws less power, but will definitely be slower than a traditional NVMe SSD
  • Xbox Series S ---> 512GB NVMe; 2.4GB/s throughput
Interesting-- considering this, the placement is then a bit puzzling to me. Seems they should have waited until they could pack better hardware into it. Still looks cool and a Linux based Steam OS is appetizing.
 
Interesting-- considering this, the placement is then a bit puzzling to me. Seems they should have waited until they could pack better hardware into it. Still looks cool and a Linux based Steam OS is appetizing.

ehh, i dunno. i don't understand the comparison to the consoles. it's using laptop parts, basically. and no gpu.

it's using a semi-custom amd apu (and a new [cutting edge] one with rdna 2) that's pretty awesome for what it is. but it's still just basically a laptop apu.

without adding an actual gpu (dgpu), it's not really going to compare to any desktops or consoles - even last gen consoles. but nor should it.
 
)
RAM
  • Steam Deck ------> 16GB LPDDR5; 16GB@44GB/s
  • Xbox Series S* --> 10GB GDDR6*; 8GB@224GB/s + 2GB@56GB/s
    • *uses the GPU's VRAM as shared system RAM; this RAM is incredibly fast, but the Steam Deck does have an advantage in that there is a larger overall pool of RAM
It's looking like 88GB/s for the Steam Deck ,they've updated the specs to say it's got Quad 32-Bit Channels
Screenshot_20210719-143216-500.png
 
It's looking like 88GB/s for the Steam Deck ,they've updated the specs to say it's got Quad 32-Bit Channels
Screenshot_20210719-143216-500.png
Cool, ty for the update, I was just going off the jpeg from your OP.

*Edit* Also, doesn't that mean it should be written "LPQDR5 RAM"? Seems to be an oversight to me with the shorthand.
Because no one buying a Switch for nintendo exclusives is suddenly going to buy this instead just because it is handheld.
Doesn't that just mean they're more interested in Nintendo exclusives? Thus, the Nintendo won the competition.
 
I don't think this is competition to Nintendo at all.

Unless it can somehow play Nintendo exclusives, it is not, at all.

So long as Nintendo keeps pumping out quality 1st party games, they will always have some demand for their systems

This will def dig into their market share though, namely the 3rd party crowd who bought the Switch to play those games on the go. That's the majority of switch owners, or at least a giant share.

I dont know how well this will emulate Switch games, but we'll have access to everything Nintendo made before that, and free if you so choose.

One thing Nintendo has really dropped the ball on is the virtual console on the Switch.
 
So long as Nintendo keeps pumping out quality 1st party games, they will always have some demand for their systems

This will def dig into their market share though, namely the 3rd party crowd who bought the Switch to play those games on the go. That's the majority of switch owners, or at least a giant share.

I dont know how well this will emulate Switch games, but we'll have access to everything Nintendo made before that, and free if you so choose.

One thing Nintendo has really dropped the ball on is the virtual console on the Switch.
I REALLY disagree that the majority of Switch owners bought it for 3rd party on the go. They did not buy a Switch so they could play inferior versions of Witcher and Doom on the go. They bought it for the same reason they buy most nintendo consoles, Mario, zelda, family games.

Also, so long as the Decks are priced the way they are, Nintendo has 0 to worry about.

What this thing does have is a potentially massive built in user base, considering no one would have to re-buy their games for a new console. Which is awesome.
 
This looks really cool but based on the hardware and price I don't think it's something I will be buying yet. If it was cheaper I'd definitely buy it but it's quite a bit too much for someone who has a decent PC and PS5/Switch already. I would like the convenience of being able to easily dock it to whatever TV/monitor since the Steam Link kind of sucks but not worth it at that price for me. I think it's a great idea and especially for people who aren't up to date with upgrading PC or choose not to go the PC route for whatever reason. This could eliminate the whole "well I would get PC but I like the convenience of sitting in my living room" thing for a lot of people.

One interesting thing I see being talked about is it being used for Fighting Game tournaments. The current batch of fighting games should be easily run on this hardware and generally speaking I think fighting games require lower specs than other genres. There's been a lot of talk about how PC versions of fighting games run better than the console versions but the issue has been the logistics of acquiring and setting up a bunch of PCs for offline venues. The Steam Deck could potentially steer that scene into going the PC route. It will depend a lot on how they perform while hooked up to monitors and other factors need to be considered too but it's possible.
 

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