Valve Will Start Selling the Steam Deck Next Month

It's official: Valve's Steam Deck gaming portable will go on sale starting February 25th. The Verge reports: According to the company's blog, customers who have reservations will get an email on that day and have three days to place an order. Valve also says that it'll release new batches on a weekly basis, so if you've got a reservation, March will be the time to keep an eye on your email.

Here's some more info from Valve's announcement: "We will start sending invites shortly after 10:00 am on February 25th, PST. Order emails are sent in the same order that reservations were made. You can only order the Steam Deck model that you originally reserved. Your reservation deposit will be applied to the final price of Steam Deck, and shipping costs are included." Valve says that the orders placed on the 25th will start shipping out on the 28th.

Re:

[bhcompy]

Steam Link still works, though, unlike Google services that get shut off

Re:

[bhcompy]

These types of devices are almost always appliance style. They're fire and forget. I don't really care if they discontinue them as long as they work. For the most parts, small electronic appliances have very little in the way of replaceable parts, so when it dies it dies, but for Steam Link, it was priced accordingly.

That said, Steam Deck is more of a mini-pc than an appliance, so possibilities are pretty wide open (not that I expect the core functionality to ever cease, even if they stop making them,

Re:

[bloodhawk]

You should care, if you expect to get good games support you need them to not be abandoned, no major dev with focus or even bother testing a game against it if it isn't actively supported.

Re:

[sudonim2]

I'm getting it just as a potable Linux machine with decent specs. I might even reload it with Mint instead.

Re:

[iampiti]

It's not abandoned by any reasonable definitions of the word: I have one and I still receive regular firmware updates. And that's years after the device was last sold. One recent update even had a completely revamped UI.
So no, it's not abandoned at all.

Re: Valve is to gaming hardware...

[doragasu]

Steam Link is still receiving updates, as is my Valve Index. I do not have one, but Steam Controllers AFAIK continue working perfect. I do not understand your claim.

And about the Deck, even if they stop pushing updates, who needs them when you can install whatever OS you want and whatever client and game you want?

Re:

[Luckyo]

Depends on if you can install a different OS on it and if there's functional driver support for the hardware. If you can install proper windows/linux on it, it's still going to be a proper pocket PC.

Backwards compatibility...

[SuperKendall]

So, any way I can use these unopened Steam Link controllers I still have with this Steam Deck... :-)

Meh

[Osgeld]

Underpowered, kind of expensive, and fails to do its major function in a decent way. I get people like these things but I don't say to myself ..."gee what would be great is a nintendo switch that starts at 400 bucks and I get all the hassle of a operating system AND fiddling with game settings to end up playing on ultra low settings on 2 gen old games!!"

Re:

[Narcocide]

Come on, it's not that underpowered. I'm skeptical about the claimed performance of latest-gen windows games through proton, but you're not gonna have to play anything last-gen on ultra-low. This is way faster than my current desktop hardware which definitely can handle all previous-generation games on at least medium.

Re:

[Osgeld]

yea there's some extra thick marketing BS "play all the AAA titles blah blah blah" our feature include .... an analog stick ... in 2022 as the 3rd selling point

I dunno we will see, I have used some of AMD's ultra portable soc's on some embedded stuff at work, and its not fair to compare apples to jeeps but they had a lot of points on that generation on how good it could game, in reality it struggles to smoothly render their own website.

Re:

[Kitkoan]

You might want to check those numbers against reality.

https://wccftech.com/steam-deck-handheld-console-benchmarked-60-fps-with-decent-image-quality-in-several-aaa-games-30-fps-in-cyberpunk-2077-at-native-resolution/

Steam Deck Gaming Performance Benchmarks:

Shadow of The Tomb Raider (High) - 30+ FPS Average
Shadow of The Tomb Raider (Custom) - 60+ FPS Average
Doom Eternal (Custom) - 46 FPS Average
Doom Eternal (Low) - 60 FPS Average
DOTA 2 (High) - 47 FPS
DOTA 2 (Low) - 80 FPS
Cyberpunk 2077 (High) - 20 - 30 FPS

Re:

[Osgeld]

some gettin pretty old games on that list at slightly above 720p resolution, if you are good for that fine, to me its meh

Re:

[Kitkoan]

I wouldn't call Cyberpunk 2077 or Doom Eternal as "pretty old games".

Re:

[jwdb]

I think you're looking at the wrong target market. You're not going to run Crysis on the Deck, so to speak, but it should be just as good as a Switch for all sorts of indie games. I'm in the market for a Deck or a Switch, and the upside of the Deck is that I don't have to go re-purchase dozens of games that I already own on Steam. It only takes a dozen or so games before that price difference between the two is gone, especially if it's true (as I hear) that Nintendo's sales are far rarer than Steam's.

Re:

[MemoryDragon]

Not a problem, i have 700 games in my steam account, most of them literally 99% run in Linux only a handful are graphics monsters, which sets me up with a portable console which when I buy has about 650 working games including things like Contrast, Witcher 3, etc... (yes you can play most of those games if you turn down the graphics settings to ps4 level)
If you want to play for instance Cyberpunk with all settings to high you are of course the wrong target for this console.
If i had to buy 650 working games

Re:Meh

[ledow]

Strange.

I see it as incredibly powerful for a battery-powered PC-compatible platform in a handheld.

I see it as cheap as I don't have to rebuy ANY of the 1300 games that I have on my account for the last 18 years. That alone means that the mainstream consoles are priced out for me... even if you bought the last gen, there's no telling if you can use them on whatever handheld might come out, and the cost of each game is way in excess of my average Steam purchase (and that's not even counting bundles, deals, keys from other sites, trades, etc.). I know people who have spent more on ONE CONSOLE than I have on my Steam account in 18 years. (The websites say my "value" of my account is about £5-10k. I once added it up, which is quite tricky to do, for the real cash I'd dropped on all sites to get those keys, and I hadn't even parted with half that).

1/3rd of my Steam library was Linux compatible 5 years ago when I checked (when I was booting up SteamOS, which is 8 years old). That situation has only improved. I don't need *EVERY* game to make it viable, and all the ones I want will likely be totally supported by the looks of the developer blogs for such things.

P.S. there is no operating system management when you have SteamOS. It works a bit like Steam. You let it update and it just works or it doesn't. Given that you'll be using SteamOS on the Steam Deck, if it doesn't work you'll be justified in complaining. But you're not going to be sitting there having to edit systemd init files to get it to boot.

"Fails to do its major function" - what? Let me access my Steam library casually to play the occasional game on the move?

I've been waiting for the Deck for YEARS. I wanted a SteamOS console but they were far too expensive for the time and not easy to get hold of, and there was never much "officiality" to them, they were just PCs running software. This is just a SteamOS handheld, which is even more attractive to me, but also an official, supported, designed-for device.

I haven't dropped money on a console in decades. The Deck, though, I have a Q1 reservation for.

Re:

[samwichse]

I see it as cheap as I don't have to rebuy ANY of the 1300 games that I have on my account for the last 18 years. That alone means that the mainstream consoles are priced out for me... even if you bought the last gen, there's no telling if you can use them on whatever handheld might come out, and the cost of each game is way in excess of my average Steam purchase (and that's not even counting bundles, deals, keys from other sites, trades, etc.). I know people who have spent more on ONE CONSOLE than I have on my Steam account in 18 years.

Well, in that one paragraph you took me from "meh" to "oh yeah, that's right. I should buy this."

But

[Draconis183]

I wonâ(TM)t but it until I play Half Life 3

Re: But

[Draconis183]

I canâ(TM)t even edit it. Oh well.

Will it be able to dual boot Windows 11?

[tom_asdf]

Does anyone know if it will be able to dual boot into both Steam OS and Windows 11 Pro ?

If it can run Windows 11 + USB3 dock + dual monitors, it can replace my home PC as well.

Re: Will it be able to dual boot Windows 11?

[ThoolooExpress]

It's just a PC, so yes it will. How sketchy that ends up being remains to be seen, given valve's full disk image based update mechanism. Nothing stopping you from just dual-booting Windows and a different distro, though.

Can't wait to get my preorder

[jason777]

This is a total win for me. When I travel in for holidays, it sucks lugging my alienware laptop and all accessories just for some evening gaming while on the road. It would be awesome to have this for some quick pwning of noobs while mobile. The fact that this is a PC is awesome. You could use it like a PC in a pinch, and also change the OS if you want. Run full Windows 10? Go ahead.

Re:

[BitCortex]

It would be awesome to have this for some quick pwning of noobs while mobile.

Ages ago I bought a laptop for the same purpose but found that, even relative to my full-size PC, the difference in form factor neutralized my noob pwning ability. Pwning noobs with a game controller on a tiny screen would have been ludicrous. But that's just me and the games I was into back then. YMMV.