@mesome713: oh, nm. I forget who that was. But either way - sure, if you're basically using the iPhone as a "remote desktop terminal" for games it's a better one than a Steam Deck would be because it's a nicer screen
@Telekill: This is closer to the Vita than the Switch. These devices are not new, so Nintendo would have no grounds for a lawsuit solely based on the design.
@davillain-: This is powerful enough to emulate Switch. Unless you play online games, you don't need a Switch for anything (other than legally dumping games you own if you have a hackable one.
I'm aware of the emulation when it comes to Nintendo games and stuff like that but its the support long term is what I want to know if Valve is dedicated for years to come. Don't get me wrong, it sure does gives the Switch a run for its money indeed, I'll wait for reviews how it all turns out.
You can't emulate Nintendo Switch lol You need at least GTX1080 to emulate WiU properly. Nintendo Switch requires even more power.
There seems to be a lot of hype over the deck, and while it seems cool it's not special. You can do all of those things already today by grabbing yourself a 11 laptop.
Also, if people want low end pc hardware in this handheld format, then any company could do the same thing. Acer, lenovo, Sony, Microsoft, pretty much any and all of the laptop manufacturers out there.
My prediction is that these guys are going to wait it out to see how well valve does with their deck. Then if it does well, it's going to be a all out, maybe 10 different types of deck being released on the market.
@blaznwiipspman1: The main issue is the storage. Call of Duty is 240g. So many AAA games are insanely big on Steam. Nintendo Switch has small storage but it’s games are insanely compressed. For example DOOM eternal is almost 100g on PC where on Switch it’s 18g.
Now what Steam Fanboys will tell you, hey, it’s not meant for AAA games, it’s mainly for Indies. Then why not just buy a Switch?
What you’ll have to do to get this thing to work is install Windows on it and stream games via Steam Link and GamePass. Which is what phones do.
You can do all of those things already today by grabbing yourself a 11 laptop.
Not really, no. I certainly agree anyone could make something like this (and will, if it's a success), and there have been some variants on it already in recent years. So it's not like Valve did something special.
But in order to get *this* experience in your example you'd need to find an 11" gaming laptop with a proper GPU (not integrated graphics), that also had touchscreen, and buy a Steam controller (for the gyro aim [much better than analog for FPS] and dual haptic trackpad mouse functional replacement) and an Xbox controller (for the normal analog and d-pad function) - and even then it wouldn't be the same device experience. Because now you've got to set the laptop set up on something and take both controllers with you too instead of just holding the thing in your hand and gaming.
It's the same problem I have with anyone saying their laptop "is" a Switch. It's just not. Sure, with PC being so customizable you can bend the experience into something Switch-adjacent (or Deck-adjacent) but a laptop =/= a handheld and I think consumers make a choice about how they really want to dig in with games on the airplane/bus/porch. One isn't objectively better but it's a decision-point. This is an all-in-one kind of thing, which won't be as powerful as a gaming laptop. But will be smaller and cheaper and... well, all-in-one
@xantufrog: It also lacks the massive storage space a laptop can hold. A laptop can store a ton of AAA games. To where this device can only store a few.
You can do all of those things already today by grabbing yourself a 11 laptop.
Not really, no. I certainly agree anyone could make something like this (and will, if it's a success), and there have been some variants on it already in recent years. So it's not like Valve did something special.
But in order to get *this* experience in your example you'd need to find an 11" gaming laptop with a proper GPU (not integrated graphics), that also had touchscreen, and buy a Steam controller (for the gyro aim [much better than analog for FPS] and dual haptic trackpad mouse functional replacement) and an Xbox controller (for the normal analog and d-pad function) - and even then it wouldn't be the same device experience. Because now you've got to set the laptop set up on something and take both controllers with you too instead of just holding the thing in your hand and gaming.
It's the same problem I have with anyone saying their laptop "is" a Switch. It's just not. Sure, with PC being so customizable you can bend the experience into something Switch-adjacent (or Deck-adjacent) but a laptop =/= a handheld and I think consumers make a choice about how they really want to dig in with games on the airplane/bus/porch. One isn't objectively better but it's a decision-point. This is an all-in-one kind of thing, which won't be as powerful as a gaming laptop. But will be smaller and cheaper and... well, all-in-one
Well its not like the deck hardware is all that special, its just an AMD apu with low end gpu, so it won't be hard to find something similar to it in a laptop, 11 inch or not. Its not gaming hardware, heck it doesn't even look all that different from my current laptop that I paid $500 for 2 years back . Theres so many questions about the deck...i mean if it follows the pc cycle, will there be a new version of the deck every year, just like laptops and desktops? Now that valve opened the flood gates, how long before all the manufacturers start working on their own stuff? I mean acer will probably release something cheaper than even the deck. Sony might even get in on it lol...a vita successor sort of. Forget sony, whats to stop nintendo from doing it? Releasing a portable PC, that also has their own nintendo store on it dedicated to nintendo games?
About the controller, I think the dual shock has all of those features, and if it doesn't already connect to the PC, then it will at some point. Heck, even phil spencer said the xbox controller would get an upgrade to match the dualshock.
@girlusocrazy: Which is just gonna raise prices even more. This isn’t like putting a 512 sd in your Switch and holding hundreds of games. This is spending big money just so you can store a couple more games.
@blaznwiipspman1: The main issue is the storage. Call of Duty is 240g. So many AAA games are insanely big on Steam. Nintendo Switch has small storage but it’s games are insanely compressed. For example DOOM eternal is almost 100g on PC where on Switch it’s 18g.
Now what Steam Fanboys will tell you, hey, it’s not meant for AAA games, it’s mainly for Indies. Then why not just buy a Switch?
What you’ll have to do to get this thing to work is install Windows on it and stream games via Steam Link and GamePass. Which is what phones do.
This device is so out of touch with gamers.
Thats a great point also. PC games are massive, the base model isn't even suitable to store 1 modern game. They might allow a sd card expansion but im not sure how that will work...running pc games off an SD card might even be slower than the 5400rpm drives.
@blaznwiipspman1: I don't understand how your post is counter to mine? I fully agree that the chipset "isn't anything special" - my whole post was about the form-factor and features. The dual-shock cannot replace the steam controller as a stand-in for mouse and keyboard - really there's no good stand-in, but the steam controller (built into the deck) is definitely the closest you're gonna get. But either way, my point is you have to buy at least one (but realistically two) controllers to go along with your 11" touchscreen gaming laptop to get into the territory of this. But why? The whole TLDR of my post is that laptops aren't handhelds. If they were, I wouldn't own PSPs and Switches and stuff. But I do, because my laptop isn't the same way to game on the go
@girlusocrazy: Yeah, but if you want to play small Indie games, why play on a 720p LCD when you can be playing on a 1080p Oled called Nintendo Switch?
IPhone doesn’t need storage. I can play games with my 4K Oled using the phone and also on my 4K Oled TV. Not downloading to your phone is amazing and fast to pick up and play real quick.
This news delivered quality entertainment. Meltdowns were more intense than anything seen in recent years. Not even the continuing pain over Returnal and game pass were this entertaining.
Nintendo's users are most likely going ape shit because they are not use to seeing "value".
Human nature to fear the unknown.
A decent version of it still cost 650USD. I think Nintendo fans with their portable versions at 200USD are just fine. And heck it even plays Doom Eternal as well.
I am a PC gamer myself, but i think my fellow hermits are delusional regarding the success of this whole thing. If I paid 650USD, I would expect a fooking value from it greater than 4 year old Nintendo Switch, which still retails at 330USD
@blaznwiipspman1: I don't understand how your post is counter to mine? I fully agree that the chipset "isn't anything special" - my whole post was about the form-factor and features. The dual-shock cannot replace the steam controller as a stand-in for mouse and keyboard - really there's no good stand-in, but the steam controller (built into the deck) is definitely the closest you're gonna get. But either way, my point is you have to buy at least one (but realistically two) controllers to go along with your 11" touchscreen gaming laptop to get into the territory of this. But why? The whole TLDR of my post is that laptops aren't handhelds. If they were, I wouldn't own PSPs and Switches and stuff. But I do, because my laptop isn't the same way to game on the go
Ive never used the steam controller before, so I don't know what the features are. I would think the ps5 controller would have all of those features already though, even the ps4 might. I recently bought an attachment to connect my xbox controller to my phone and stream xcloud on it. It might not be the exact same thing but its doable. Other manufacturers might release a handheld thats cheaper than the deck without all those fancy features. Which would you buy, the deck or the upcoming acer model thats $100 cheaper but with a normal joypad?
And yeah don't get me wrong, im also kind of interested in this, but im going to wait it out a bit. I have a feeling that the hand held space is soon going to turn into the wild wild west.
@blaznwiipspman1: don't get me wrong - i think this is a niche device to a niche audience. Not trying to sell you on it.
To be concrete about what I'm referring to, the issue with the PS5 (or 4, or X1) controllers is they can only realistically be used as traditional controllers. Using them to stand in for M&K is RIDICULOUSLY janky. So for games with true controller support - no issue. Plug and go. But if you try to play an M&K game it either a) won't work or b) thanks to steam's configuration tools you can try to hack together some kind of clunky interface with missing button mapping, etc and it's just painful. Analogs cannot stand in for a mouse input (I'm not talking about precision - they literally track position in a different way so by and large mouse games are effectively broken on an analog device).
Steam designed the Deck (and the steam controller) to circumvent that to *some* (imperfect) degree by 1) adding more buttons (e.g., the paddles) but 2) most importantly the trackpads. They have a fully configurable system built in so you can use the trackpad as a roller-ball mouse, a laptop-like trackpad, a clickable button, a (crappy) d-pad, etc. You can even configure different zones on the pad to be different buttons (it's pretty cool! a pseudo-touchscreen on its own). So you get this explosion of functionality over a normal controller when it comes to using a M&K-only game - suddenly you can map TONS of buttons to the device and really work out a scheme that is most intuitive for yourself.
It's a godsend for trying to PC game on the couch or on the go without an actual M&K - it's also a total nightmare for someone who doesn't want to mess with that stuff. This is very much a "PC gamer's" gadget - someone who doesn't want to deal with that can benefit from simply downloading a profile that the devs or another steam user set up (let them do the hard work) but sometimes there's no replacement for doing the tweaking yourself, and it's kind of as anti-console-experience-like as you can imagine.
I hope that makes sense. I do think some people will buy this expecting a console experience and then throw it out the window faster than Techhog's Switch with the OLED reveal
@palasta: That's a positive IMO, and the hardware is an open platform where you can run whatever you want, I don't see the downside
Sure, if you are a (closeted) console gamer.
After steam machines and steam controller failed, why would this be any different? The one mild success Valve had with hardware was with VR, thanks to their piggybacking effort.
What? Why would you look at their previous failures (only 2 of them. not like they had 10 in a row) and judge their next product by their previous failures. The specs are out. They're great and miles better than the Switch. You can play everything available on pc, and that's thousands of games on the go. While Nintendo has laughable third party support, this has it all.
Only 2? What kind of company is Valve? First and foremost providing a distribution service for digital goods. Not a tech giant, hardware manufacturer or anything like that.
Yessure, steam machine specs were great on paper too.
@palasta: ...it is. I have one. It's murky on why it was discontinued - there appears to be a patent problem. But even if not, I think it didn't sell well. But you realize that has nothing to do with it being bad tech, right?
*edit* I have a feeling I know where this is going - let me forestall/amend: of course good tech is more likely to sell well vs bad tech, all things being equal. I suppose a more precise statement would have been "you realize the tech didn't need to be bad to sell poorly, right?"
i don't think latency will be that much issue. Just set streaming to data saving mode. Lower resolution. On a smaller phone screen, everything will look good. I tried with Geforce Now. It looks pretty neat on a smaller phone screen.
@TheEroica said:
@ivangrozny said:
Another thing that might kill this whole thing. Google Stadia with a 5G phone
30USD for a controller and Google Stadia subscription 10USD a month
Eww... I mean, I love the idea of portable gaming being well supported, but streaming with no latency is a way off I'd say still, no?
@palasta: It's murky on why it was discontinued - there appears to be a patent problem.
Because Valves halfassed deep strike into console territory has failed miserably. That's why. Isnt it kinda obvious when looking at what the steam controller purpose was? To close the gap between M&KB and gamepad. Its failure against the standardized and proven methods of input wasnt surprising and no (r)evolution happened.
No matter how great you think it is, it is useless tech and failed to do the job it was destined for.
To place a pre-order on Friday, you had to have owned a Steam account that made a purchase prior to June 2021. In addition, each Steam account was limited to only one pre-order, which cost $5 to place. As a result, scalpers were essentially blocked from creating batches of fake Steam accounts to secure multiple pre-orders.
@palasta: Mate, I have one. You are in absolutely no position to tell me it "useless tech and failed to do the job it was destined for" when it does on a regular basis. Doesn't work for you? Totally fair. Commercial flop? Seems like. But no. You have zero say over what is useful for me and yes it does bring tech to my computer no other controller I have does. Period.
Freaking weirdos around here with your bizarre "I LOVE company X" and "Company Y is the DEVIL"
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