Steam Deck - SteamOS, Zen2 4C/8T, RDNA2 1.0-1.6 TF, 16 GB LPDDR5 88 GB/s, starting at $399 [2021-12]

Mine is pushed from Q1 to Q2.
FeelsBadMan

 

https://steamcommunity.com/steamworksvirtualconference/steamdeck?tab=live

Tomorrow

 

My email predicts February 2022. The interesting thing is I don't recall pre-ordering one!

 

More likely a late night drunken purchase. Hence.. no recollection.

 

YouTube playlist from their dev conference.

 

I spy with my little eye

 

Phil tweeted about having a Steamdeck a while ago didn't he?

 

Yeah he did, he's raved about it and playing xCloud games on it.

 

One X player with a 5700U might give the steam deck a lot of competition. The high resolution screen is really nice and it seems to get some pretty good performance. I wonder what an rdna 2 version of thi could do. Guess we have to wait for next year

 

I'm not seeing it. Maybe for the very non price sensitive minority submarket but I don't see how any of these alternatives are going to really be competing against the Steam Deck. A quick search shows that device likely starting at $1000 if not $1200.

The pricing model of the Steam Deck essentially puts it in a class of it's own for the vast majority. Not to mention the likely more practical/accessibility after sale support (including warranty) for western markets. Valve essentially has a pseudo console model in that they can essentially shift profit taking (albeit not as directly) to their cut of software sales that no other alternative can do. They also seem like they have much more leverage on hardware contracts (eg. RDNA2 first) than any of the small players will ever have. They also seemingly will be able to leverage their position for even software level optimizations to some extent from at least some games/developers targeting the Steam Deck as essentially a hardware platform like a console.

Unless someone else big like Microsoft decides to make a push with a similar model the Steam Deck essentially is for all intents and purposes has no direct competitor.

 

The chip wasn't actually for Valve first. Supposedly it was MS first but it's also on AMDs general roadmap

 

By first I was really referring to all these alternatives currently from much smaller companies essentially buying off the shelf when hardware's publicly available. I'm aware that Van Gogh was on the the roadmap and that it allegedly was rumored for Microsoft (also there were earlier rumors pointing to Google in some capacity as well). Microsoft was an example of a hypothetical company that would have the resources/capability (maybe even more so than Valve) to launch an actual direct competitor.

I'd wager the size of the Steam Deck release comparatively also has other economy of scale benefits to other aspects of the hardware as well.

I just don't see how all these small companies with no vertical integration/platform plans or capabilities, effectively having to negotiate with much less buying power with suppliers, and likely no presence on the software side can serve as a direct competitor.

 

Final packaging
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1675180/announcements/detail/3122680206583792326

 

I think its all about the cadence. When does a new steam deck launch? Is it 2022? 2023 ? 2024 ? For some a 2023 OneXplayer with I dunno a 8 core zen 3 and a rdna 2 apu with better performance than the deck , perhaps more ram also and larger built in ssd's since prices will continue to fall. IF there is no new steam deck in 2024 and its still van gogh then we may have other companies come out with Zen 4+ RDNA 3 apu machines and so on and so forth.

As it is now if a company gets its hands on van gogh and puts it in this onexplayer it could already give a compelling. It does have a 8.4 inch 2560x1600 screen giving you a 358 ppi. The steam deck is a 7 inch screen at 1280x800 with only a 215ppi. The onexplayer is a larger device allowing for much better cooling

you can see here it has dual fans with a larger heatsink. They allow you to run the chip at different wattage and clock speeds if you want to choose performance over battery.

Of course something with the size of OneXplayer but with the ease of upgradability of the aya neo would b e great too
.
Accessing the nvme drive is as simple as removing a few screws. I think its something that valve could have implemented better on their deck.

Your right with economy of scale. The steam deck will sell a lot more than any of these machines. They had over 500k preordrs in the first weekend. But that doesn't mean there isn't a growing market to support these other machines. Also we can see from the OneXplayer that they can quickly iterate on hardware while keeping the same over all design. OneXplayer offers multiple cpu options from both AMD and Intel now so it should help them keep costs down across models.

I think for valve the question is if their success will cause others to jump in.

Dell already has their UFO concept https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020...s-pc-gaming-on-a-nintendo-switch-like-device/

Any of these small companies can also be bought by a larger company already buying chips at scale

 

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675180/view/3117055056380003048

Feb 25th

I have Q2 but it be nice if I get lucky and get mine in March. (edit: I am traveling to italy the start of april to vist family and would love to have my unit by then)

 

Decided to order one as well and sell my Switch. Switch games are so expensive that I end up not using the console much.

 

The steam deck should be able to emulate the switch



the neo pro has the better cpu but only a vega gpu. So It will be interesting to see what happens as the emulators mature.

 

Embargo is up

 

Watching the tear down with gamer nexus , looks like they were pushing temps of some components to the brink. They are going to add thermal pads to try and improve the temps. It seems like the vent section doesn't bring in much air. I wonder if a 3rd party fan blowing into that would help a bit. I figure people are going to make custom backs to fit another fan or larger fan.