Valve Steam Deck • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#51

Post by sascha_sl » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

mikl wrote: post #17

Typo in the title. It’s “Steam Deck”, not “Steam Desk”. Interesting that Valve is diving deeper into hardware. Remember when they still made video games? Remember when there was still a hope they would some day release Half-Life 3?

Don't forget Alyx exists.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#52

Post by kmnc » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

Whoever named this an idiot, my first thought was reading “Stream Deck” and I thought it was streaming device. Valve makes good hardware but their marketing is terrible leading to abandoned hardware that enthusiasts rave about. The marketing page is white... it is Valve... why is the marketing site white?!?!

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#53

Post by Minor49er » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

The button placement seems really high, but it might be comfortable to play while resting the bottom on a table.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#54

Post by echelon » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

This looks like it will trounce the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo doesn't even have new hardware in the pipeline other than an iterative OLED screen.

Now that Nintendo depends on a single portable console, is there a risk that they'll go the way of Sega?

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#55

Post by ezoe » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

>SteamOS 3.0 (Arch-based)

What? So they ditched Debian?

>1280 x 800px (16:10 aspect ratio)

Yeah... that's like 2000s.

Seriously who what this? For those who can spend fortune for the PC games, they have better options. Those who can't spend that much, Nintendo switch is probably better for the gaming.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#56

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

Gotta admit, I never saw that coming. I thought SteamOS was dead after the failure of Steam Machines and Valve was only continuing with their Linux efforts because it's still a useful hedge against Microsoft locking everyone in the App Store. I totally did not expect them to copy the Switch use-case with it.

I'm anxious to see how this turns out. Valve's history with hardware is not so great, so it could go nowhere like Steam Machines, Steam Link, and the Steam Controller did. On the other hand, it could end up all but killing off PC gaming if it is super successful. If it lands somewhere in the middle it will at least be yet another boon for Linux gaming brought to you by Valve as more developers will port or ensure compatibility with Proton.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#57

Post by dyingkneepad » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

Will these be as hard to find as the PS5 currently is? I suppose this should be affected by the silicon shortage as well...

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#58

Post by mikl » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

sascha_sl wrote: post #51

mikl wrote: post #17

Typo in the title. It’s “Steam Deck”, not “Steam Desk”. Interesting that Valve is diving deeper into hardware. Remember when they still made video games? Remember when there was still a hope they would some day release Half-Life 3?

Don't forget Alyx exists.

Alyx is a VR game, not a video game in my book.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#59

Post by caslon » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

NegativeLatency wrote: post #48

caslon wrote: post #38

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 mov…

USB 2 on a mobile device might be for limiting power consumption?

Nope, it's on the dock. One USB-3, two USB-2. There's no power consumption reason for the dock.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#60

Post by moritonal » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:32 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'd argue the opposite.

The Steam Controller was a work of technical art (albeit without the centuries of experience in ergonomics its competitors had).

The Steam Link was a few years ahead of its competitors.

And the Steam Vive's Lighthouses were a literal light-speed ahead of the Oculus for a while.

Fully agree however that you're right that they're too small to support a hardware long past its release when the market share is too small.