Valve Steam Deck • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#291

Post by JeremyNT » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

css wrote: post #135

From the FAQ [0]: - What OS is Steam Deck running? SteamOS 3.0, a new version of SteamOS based on Arch Linux. - Will people be able to install Windows, or other 3rd party content? Yes. Steam Deck is a PC, and players will be able to install whatever they like, including other OSes. [0]: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/faq

This is an amazing bit of kit for the price, and it's just a normal PC running Arch Linux!

I hardly ever even play video games these days, but I'm absolutely buying one of these just to have a nice little portable PC.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#292

Post by rkido » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

ketzo wrote: post #44

There’s obviously a lot of people who like playing games in a more mobile format, as evidenced by the huge popularity of the Switch Lite / mobile gaming. Giving the PC games market access to that form factor seems, on its face, like an extremely good move. But we’ve seen products like this before — the NVIDIA Shield, for one. Pretty cool piece of tech, but didn’t exactly start a revolution. I guess the question becom…

The mere fact that NVIDIA Shield Portable didn't take off doesn't tell us much. It had poor design sensibility (i.e. it looked like ass, like some kind of portable Xbox designed in the early 2000s), and it ran Android, which lacks a compelling games library.

Steam Deck at least stands a chance, although I'm worried about the weight and the battery life.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#293

Post by Ancapistani » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

lasagnaphil wrote: post #238

shusson wrote: post #202

> 40Whr battery. 2 - 8 hours of gameplay Battery life doesn't seem too good.

I wonder if they would touch the Linux kernel a bit to improve things on power management. Vanilla Linux doesn't seem to provide good battery life for portable devices (at least, if we look at laptops.)

Given the time, skill, and inclination to tinker, Arch has very good power management. Also considering that Steam is throwing dedicated dev resources at this and it will end up being a very limited array of hardware to need to support, I would expect improvements here.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#294

Post by FinalBriefing » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

Bancakes wrote: post #121

Wow that's as powerful as a base model PS4.

Yea, that's a great base to aim for. Lots of great games will look respectable with those specs. I'd have loved a full 1080p screen, but at least its larger than the Switch's 720p.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#295

Post by maerF0x0 » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

I want to know if I can stream and play on a TV or external monitor. It will double the value of this device if I can also play on a bigger screen at home.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#296

Post by CosmicShadow » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

First thing I thought was, did they buy all the old Wii U's and repurpose them?

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#297

Post by choeger » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

Wow. This thing will either flop massively or change gaming. I really hope for the latter.

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#298

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

m-p-3 wrote: post #214

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #56

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 l…

I'm also wondering if they'll open the door to third-party apps on the Steam Deck, which could let you use it for other cloud-based gaming platforms like Stadia.

It's a PC running SteamOS (apparently Arch base with KDE Plasma). You can install anything on there that you can install in Arch, or install Windows or another Linux distro if you want. This is all in the copy:

"You can also install and use PC software, of course. Browse the web, watch streaming video, do your normal productivity stuff, install some other game stores, whatever."

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#299

Post by doctorsher » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

timw4mail wrote: post #77

echelon wrote: post #54

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?

I wouldn't count on the Switch going anywhere. PC gaming is a fairly small market compared to consoles these days.

Source? The console market (~45 billion) is larger than the PC market (~37 billion) [0], but I wouldn’t describe PC as ‘fairly small’. Maybe you have different data though?

[0] https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/newzoo-games-market-num...

Re: Valve Steam Deck

#300

Post by danso » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

IGN has a detailed hands-on which really boosted my interest:

https://www.ign.com/articles/steam-deck-hands-on-impressions...

The joystick layout looks funky to me, but apparently it works?

> However, as soon as I held it myself, the layout felt completely natural: the intuitive hand orientation when you grab the Steam Deck is more straight up and down, like holding the sides of a steering wheel, whereas with a controller your hands are at more of an angle. As a result, it’s easy and natural for your thumbs to reach the Steam Deck’s face buttons, D-pad, and thumbsticks.

And as a Mac user who has to load up Boot Camp to play most of my Steam library, a portable dockable PC is extremely appealing:

> As a result, in desktop mode the Steam Deck honestly just feels like a PC. The OS is Linux-based, but it feels largely familiar to Windows and is capable of running everything I threw at it from either platform. I played a bit of Factorio and Death Stranding with mouse and keyboard on a 32” monitor, and if it weren’t for the Steam Deck sitting docked next to me on the desk I would have forgotten it wasn’t running off a traditional desktop PC.