Valve Steam Deck • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#31

Post by Shadonototro » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #23

Tech specs – https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech 800p resolution is a bit disappointing, but I guess that's the only way to get a good frame rate without a massive power-hungry GPU.

7", bigger resolution would be useless, and a waste of ressources tbh, it's a portable console, i'd rather have better FPS and better battery life than higher resolution with lower FPS

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#32

Post by legitster » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

seneca wrote: post #16

Valve has a pretty bad track record with hardware, do they not? I'm not very aware of this industry, but the vague impress I have is that they've tried this a couple of different ways and it hasn't gone well for them. I'm curious why they would make this play again.

The Steam Link was awesome. Their VR headsets are the industry standard. The controller was niche but I heard good things. Steamboxes weren't really a hit, but I don't consider them a failure either (users still got fully functional gaming rigs).

So no, I would disagree with that assessment.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#33

Post by post_break » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

This looks great. A Nintendo switch with more than a handful of AAA titles and shovel ware and power. I’ll be buying I think since the Nintendo DS is dead, switch isn’t for me, Sony gave up. This looks like a winner.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#34

Post by Bayart » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

seneca wrote: post #16

Valve has a pretty bad track record with hardware, do they not? I'm not very aware of this industry, but the vague impress I have is that they've tried this a couple of different ways and it hasn't gone well for them. I'm curious why they would make this play again.

They've got a good record with making hardware, but not making it mainstream.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#35

Post by vbernat » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #21

https://www.steamdeck.com/en/tech > Operating System: SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based) > Desktop: KDE Plasma This is sure to excite the Linux community.

And they switched from Debian to Arch. Can't say I don't understand them, but I would have thought there would have been better bases than a rolling distribution (Gentoo, NixOS, Fedora).

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#36

Post by mankyd » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

What os does it run? And the more important follow up: what games can it therefore run?

I _assume_ it's linux, but that must limit the games to protondb and linux compatible games which, speaking from a lot of experience, misses quite a few.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#37

Post by porphyra » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

Reubend wrote: post #18

seneca wrote: post #16

Valve has a pretty bad track record with hardware, do they not? I'm not very aware of this industry, but the vague impress I have is that they've tried this a couple of different ways and it hasn't gone well for them. I'm curious why they would make this play again.

The people who have used their VR hardware say it's excellent.

I have a Valve Index VR headset. It was clearly the best on the market when I got it last year. The controllers and headset tracking are great and the video quality was a notch above the competition (though recent newer headsets have closed the gap). However it did have some hardware issues such as crackling audio in one of the speakers, so I ended up removing the headset speakers and wearing my own headphones. Anyway, overall I'm satisfied.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#38

Post by caslon » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

First impressions:

Really good hardware for the price.

They fixed the worst thing about SteamOS: It's now got an Arch base.

They're definitely overcharging for storage, but I imagine it'll be easy enough to modify one, so it probably doesn't matter much.

Why is any company having more USB-2 slots than USB-3 these days?

Going with a relatively low resolution compared to modern ones is actually a surprisingly smart move, given how small the display is.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#39

Post by mindvirus » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

seneca wrote: post #16

Valve has a pretty bad track record with hardware, do they not? I'm not very aware of this industry, but the vague impress I have is that they've tried this a couple of different ways and it hasn't gone well for them. I'm curious why they would make this play again.

I think their hardware has been great. The Index VR headset is high quality, and so was their controller although it didn't seem to find market fit.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#40

Post by Shadonototro » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

Forbo wrote: post #27

Shadonototro wrote: post #13

Finally a linux gaming console Now valve, for the love of god, PUSH NATIVE LINUX GAMING, proton only as a way to supplement the library.. Reduce your steam tax for the companies that provide a native linux build I will not buy this if your main selling point is "proton" As for the price, 419€.. very bad marketing, 399€ would have been perfect... you got greedy for 20€, that'll hurt sales

It looks like it is $399 USD, so the price point may mostly be a conversion thing. Edit: Just looked up the conversion rate, right now 399 USD is 288 GBP? Weird. The mid tier is 529 USD, so something like 382 GBP. Upper tier is 649 USD, or 468 GBP.

Ah, 399 USD sounds already better