Rumors of a Valve game console turned out to be true, as the company announced the Steam Deck handheld console set for release in December 2021. Steam Deck reserves open July 16 at 10 a.m. PST/1 p.m. EST for a small fee.
Steam Deck is built on a custom Steam operating system and lets you play your entire Steam library. Valve promised a smooth experience, and IGN, during an exclusive hands-on playtest, said the console ran Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on the highest settings with minimal issue.
The Steam Deck features three storage models:
Base Model
- 64 GB eMMC
- $399
SSD Model
- 256 GB NVMe SSD
- $529
Bigger SSD Model
- 512 GB NVMe SSD
- $649
All three support microSD card expansions.
Here’s the Steam Deck spec list:
- 1280 x 800px (16:10 aspect ratio)
- 7 inch LCD Screen
- AMD APU
- CPU: Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
- GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.0-1.6GHz (up to 1.6 TFlops FP32)
- APU power: 4-15W
- 16 GB LPDDR5 RAM
- Bluetooth 5.0
- 3.5mm stereo headphone / headset jack
- Multichannel audio via DisplayPort over USB-C, standard USB-C, or Bluetooth 5.0
Steam Deck will also have a dock that sells separately and connects to additional display devices, e.g. TVs or monitors.
Finally, Valve said Steam Deck will let you download any PC app to the console, including other game launchers and non-steam games. How this will change the PC gaming space will be sure to be interesting, being able to play AAA PC titles and indies on the go with some reasonable power behind the hardware will be a breath of fresh air for some.
[Source: Valve]
