*** The Official Steam Deck Thread ***

Defy Belief said:
Is that right?

Edit just looked and reservation is refundable within 30 days and after 30 days it'd be refunded to Steam wallet, so I assume not.
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I thought not was 48 hour window to make a reservation before the open market.
Haven't seen anything about paying within 48 hours.
 
opethdisciple said:
I did a quick google and unless the switch comes in different flavours a switch is £280 which is quite a bit cheaper than this valve device.

Almost £70 cheaper than the cheapest valvedeck.
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I don't see how it could possibly be cheaper & deliver a good experience. It's plus point & minus point are the same - it really lets you play most of your existing steam library, because it's a general-purpose machine running general purpose games. But by the same token, those are less optimised to it's specific hardware & it needs more grunt to deliver acceptable performance as a result. Plus it offers many control options & a decent screen. I imagine they are selling at a loss for every unit.
I'm a big switch fanboy but I rarely play handheld - I basically have it as the latest Nintendo console, the portability is a small bonus. But if I wanted portability, the prospect of tapping into 90% of my steam game library for just the price of the hardware would be pretty compelling, I think.
 
Very interested to see how this plays out. It looks very good in theory but I can foresee a few issues with weight and UI scaling being the main two outside of the storage/price issue. Switch games designed for the switch still have issues with small text on it's small 720p screen and it's supposed to weigh 2.7x as much as the original Switch, something I already feel is pushing comfort.
 
Moothead2 said:
Very interested to see how this plays out. It looks very good in theory but I can foresee a few issues with weight and UI scaling being the main two outside of the storage/price issue. Switch games designed for the switch still have issues with small text on it's small 720p screen and it's supposed to weigh 2.7x as much as the original Switch, something I already feel is pushing comfort.
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I think these are very important points. And it brings up how much this is supposed to draw new players into PC gaming vs how much this is supposed to sell existing PC gamers a handheld. Seems to me the 2nd proposition is much stronger, as they may have 100+ game libraries ready to go just for the cost of the hardware. At the same time, Valve are pretty ambicious & I imagine they'd want to expand the PC gaming userbase if at all possible. And if someone who can't afford a gaming PC is told they can play most of the top PC games on a £350 machine - that has some appeal, right ?
 
Quixote said:
At the same time, Valve are pretty ambicious & I imagine they'd want to expand the PC gaming userbase if at all possible. And if someone who can't afford a gaming PC is told they can play most of the top PC games on a £350 machine - that has some appeal, right ?
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It definitely does but it will depend massively on the faff involved. With a Switch you simply put the cartridge in, maybe download an update and play the game. Even using a Steam Link in the same room as my PC was a huge faff at times with things like launchers messing things up. I can't see the deck being a seamless experience like the home consoles are, PC gaming never is. The storage is a huge issue too for the casual market, the higher capacity models are pretty expensive and the lowest tier will barely fit Doom 2016 on it's own.
 
Moothead2 said:
It definitely does but it will depend massively on the faff involved. With a Switch you simply put the cartridge in, maybe download an update and play the game. Even using a Steam Link in the same room as my PC was a huge faff at times with things like launchers messing things up. I can't see the deck being a seamless experience like the home consoles are, PC gaming never is. The storage is a huge issue too for the casual market, the higher capacity models are pretty expensive and the lowest tier will barely fit Doom 2016 on it's own.
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If you restrict yourself to Steam games (let's be honest there are so many) it *should* be pretty plug & play *I guess?*. I'm not really sure, that's how it is on a desktop but that's native windows.
I also won't downplay the appeal of the switch, I'm a huge fan & I think it's seamless hardware software experience is so good. Just the universal pause with home button, suspend any game while paused with sleep - it makes it so fluid & seamsless to start & stop playing. I doubt this will equal that, although I'm not sure it needs to in order to have a market.
 
Got locked out of my steam account trying to pay lol, what a faff!! Told to wait a few hours before trying again wtf?!

Preordered anyway, no idea where i am in the queue.
 
Seems like a no-brainer to reserve one for £4 even if you aren't sure about it yet.

No commitment to actually buy one, and we can make a more informed decision as more info, reviews etc come out.
 
Like others have mentioned think I'd rather just have a GPD device - even my old GPD Pocket (1) holds up reasonably well and the newer ones much better.
 
I just got my steam account is too new to place a preorder. It’s 15+ years old I think. can’t be sure now but maybe even when steam first launched and I added my half life keys.....
 
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