villarule123 Posted July 19, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted July 19, 2021 (edited) https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/39049601/view/2986431641634388284 So Valve have announced what they hope to be a Switch killer in that they both work in the same way, but the Deck being much more powerful, customisable , and thousands more games playable on the console. I rolled my eyes when I first saw this, but I'm now on the hype train when I think of the potential of the system. You'll be able to emulate all the old games, current games on the Switch may even play better on the Deck, it supports Linex and Windows, and you can play all the Xbox games through Xcloud. £350 is a bargain compared to the Switch, I've gone for the 256gb one at £459. Edited July 19, 2021 by villarule123 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 Interesting concept. I can only hope it has more success and more long-term support than the Steam Controller and the Steam Machine. I don't think I'd invest much cash in a first gen Valve hardware product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 19, 2021 Administrator Share Posted July 19, 2021 The Steam container for ChromeOS is due very soon. I suspect that the two run on the same platform (container). It will obviously only be useful with a reasonably powerful Chromebook, but there is at least one in production with a discrete GPU. Most of my Steam games will run on my core-i5 just fine though (I haven't bought anything on Steam in 5 or 6 years). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 I'm not sure Valve will consider it a "Switch killer" even though everybody else will make that comparison. It's just that we are at the point now where stuff like this is possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bielesibub Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 Looks like a great bit of kit. With it being an 'open' platform, I can think of a few non gaming uses for it. As for gaming on it though, I gave up playing games on a PC when I couldn't install Command and Conquer: Generals on my PC back in 2003ish, I didn't have the graphics card that the game was expecting. I'd spent thousands on various PC components (and manual config - remember config.sys, auto exec.bat?) to allow me to play games like Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Quake II....I gave up with the tech churn and stuck to playing games on my consoles/arcade machines/pinball tables. It was always a great feeling with a console knowing that the game you'd just bought would just work. I'm probably far too old school. My eldest has got a gaming set-up down in our man cave with three large gaming monitors all with uber refresh rates and resolutions, why would you want to play a PC game on a handheld? Surely handhelds are great for short burst arcade games, in which case why not stick with a Switch as the games will have been created with that platform in mind? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 42 minutes ago, bielesibub said: I'm probably far too old school. My eldest has got a gaming set-up down in our man cave with three large gaming monitors all with uber refresh rates and resolutions, why would you want to play a PC game on a handheld? Surely handhelds are great for short burst arcade games, in which case why not stick with a Switch as the games will have been created with that platform in mind? This is where I am on it as well. Portable gaming in general isn't really for me. I can see a few use cases like someone that has a lengthy public transport commute, playing games on the go could be good fun, or someone that travels and stays away overnight might want one to get their gaming fix. Or even people that have had to sacrifice their gaming room for a kid's room or something. Kids are always the main audience for mobile platforms, I think, and I'd have loved one of these when I was in my teens. I can see plenty of reasons other people might want one, but I don't see a use for it in my life, I have a vastly more capable PC, and if I'm not at home, I am doing something else and not wanting to play PC games. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 22, 2021 Share Posted July 22, 2021 so this thing will be able to run football manager, game pass, connect to my PS5 controller and have a TV docking station? i need to do more research on the memory and the trouble that will cause but i think i might get one of these rather than the new xbox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted July 22, 2021 Share Posted July 22, 2021 6 hours ago, villa4europe said: so this thing will be able to run football manager, game pass, connect to my PS5 controller and have a TV docking station? i need to do more research on the memory and the trouble that will cause but i think i might get one of these rather than the new xbox (Sold separately) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 22, 2021 Share Posted July 22, 2021 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Keyblade said: (Sold separately) Yeah I think thatll be OK as long as its not silly money, about £50 is alright Otherwise for me it'll be competing with a game pass TV app Not interested in a handheld Edited July 22, 2021 by villa4europe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted July 22, 2021 Share Posted July 22, 2021 29 minutes ago, villa4europe said: Yeah I think thatll be OK as long as its not silly money, about £50 is alright Otherwise for me it'll be competing with a game pass TV app Not interested in a handheld I'm thinking about it too, I'm not much of a PC gamer, mostly for convenience reasons but there have been times where I've felt "ah I wish I had a PC". This + the dock could really solve that issue. I'll wait to see how standardized the performance is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villarule123 Posted July 30, 2022 Author VT Supporter Share Posted July 30, 2022 Got mine coming next week, had to wait over a year since I pre-ordered it as there's a massive queue to get one. Looking forward to testing it out, but not sure if I will keep it in the long run. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harkanon Posted August 1, 2022 Share Posted August 1, 2022 On 30/07/2022 at 14:45, villarule123 said: Got mine coming next week, had to wait over a year since I pre-ordered it as there's a massive queue to get one. Looking forward to testing it out, but not sure if I will keep it in the long run. Please report back. I should be getting mine soon too. A pal of mine put straight onto eBay and made a fair whack on it. I intend to keep mine and mainly for emulation. Hopefully doesn't turn into another dust collector. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingram85 Posted October 8, 2022 Share Posted October 8, 2022 (edited) Just ordered a base model and a dock. Only going to be using it for older games and emulation I think so didn’t need the bigger faster mem/storage. Well I hope I don’t anyway. Edited October 8, 2022 by Ingram85 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villarule123 Posted October 9, 2022 Author VT Supporter Share Posted October 9, 2022 22 hours ago, Ingram85 said: Just ordered a base model and a dock. Only going to be using it for older games and emulation I think so didn’t need the bigger faster mem/storage. Well I hope I don’t anyway. It's a great bit of kit. It can emulate anything up to the Nintendo Switch. It's a little tricky to set it all up but there's loads of guides on Youtube/Reddit to help you. It can basically play any game out there. It can run most games off itself, Xbox games from Xcloud, PC games at a higher framerate if you stream them from your PC, PS4/5 games streamed from your PC, and Nintendo games emulated. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingram85 Posted October 10, 2022 Share Posted October 10, 2022 (edited) 18 hours ago, villarule123 said: It's a great bit of kit. It can emulate anything up to the Nintendo Switch. It's a little tricky to set it all up but there's loads of guides on Youtube/Reddit to help you. It can basically play any game out there. It can run most games off itself, Xbox games from Xcloud, PC games at a higher framerate if you stream them from your PC, PS4/5 games streamed from your PC, and Nintendo games emulated. I’ve mainly bought it as a way to play games from my collection that aren’t BC or available on modern consoles that don’t look good or run well. My main game is a not very well known game called Sudeki. I have it on Xbox and while I can enjoy it on original hardware on my crt I’d rather have the steam version that looks loads better. Play it on my tv through the dock with an Xbox controller and I’m all good. Another example is Driver Parallel Lines. I can free up a lot of space on my shelves. Quite a few of my ps1 games can be gotten on steam and will look better (Tomb Raider games for example). A handful of ps2 games (half life, soul reaver 2 etc..) and a bucket load of Xbox games and that’s all before I’ve even started thinking about emulation for stuff like GameCube and Wii. Then there’s ps3/360 games that run like ass on console that are available on steam (dark sector/mini ninjas etc…) Old games held hostage on old hardware can be freed up now. Im rather excited. Edited October 10, 2022 by Ingram85 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingram85 Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 It’s here! Just got to go shopping first then can come back and set it up and play! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingram85 Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 Hmmm, most of the games I wanted to get appear to be unknown or unsupported. To play legitimately I wouldn’t recommend this for older games despite them being available in the steam store. My own fault for not double checking this. Im hoping a few of them in time become viable like the first 5 Tomb Raider games, Soul Reaver/Legacy of Kain games, Thief Deadly Shadows. At the moment, I’m a bit disappointed. Looks like have to go the emulator route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ingram85 Posted October 22, 2022 Share Posted October 22, 2022 Getting a bit more used to this now. Downloaded a couple of ‘unsupported’ games and they work fine. Only issue I’ve had is Thief only accepts keyboard and mouse not controllers. I wonder if there is a list somewhere of the games that run fine on it that aren’t ‘approved’. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daft Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 (edited) I am so tempted to pull the trigger and get one. I think this could be right up my alley for certain games I don't otherwise play much on my PC. I was drooling a bit over a new Switch, but the options the Steam Deck opens up is really tempting. Thinking I'll get the 64Gb version and chuck in a 512Gb SD card to start with and upgrade to SSD internal storage later on. Edited November 13, 2022 by daft Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daft Posted November 14, 2022 Share Posted November 14, 2022 What version did you get @Ingram85? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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