Nintendo has found breakout success with its Switch console, and so it makes sense that other companies are trying to follow suit. After months of rumors and speculation, Valve has officially thrown its hat in the ring, announcing the handheld gaming PC called the Steam Deck, which will essentially function like a souped-up Switch that gives players access to their digital library of games on Steam.
As revealed in a report by IGN, the Steam Deck has a 7-inch, 60hz LCD screen with 1280x800 resolution. The Valve Steam Deck boasts an 8-thread CPU, 8 RDNA 2 compute units for the GPU, and 16 GBs of LPDDR5 RAM. A Switch-like dock will let Steam Deck users connect their handheld console to "external displays," but it will be sold separately. Overall, the Valve Steam Deck is significantly more powerful than a Nintendo Switch, though that boost in power comes with a much higher asking price.
When the Valve Steam Deck launches this holiday season (no firm release date has been announced at the time of this writing), three models will be available for consumers to choose from. This includes the 64 GB model for $399, the 256 GB model for $529, and the 512 GB model for $649. Valve's goal is to make it so players can take their entire Steam library on the go, so someone with a lot of games may want to opt for the 512 GB model. It's worth pointing out that this does not even take into account the Steam Deck dock, which doesn't have a price point yet.
Even the cheapest Valve Steam Deck costs more than the most-expensive Switch. The recently revealed Nintendo Switch OLED Model will retail for $350 when it launches on October 8, which is a full $50 cheaper than the 64 GB Steam Deck. The high price points may make it difficult for Valve to properly compete with the Nintendo Switch, but PC gamers may still be enticed by the opportunity to play their Steam games on the go.
Another reason why PC gamers may want to opt for the more expensive Steam Decks is that they will have better performance when compared to the cheaper model. According to the IGN report, the more expensive Valve Steam Deck handhelds will have faster SSDs, allowing users to load up their games much faster than the cheaper model.
This isn't the first time that Valve has tried to break into the hardware market. Some may recall the failure of the Steam Machines experiment, and while that may give some users pause, it does seem that Valve is investing more effort into the Steam Deck handhelds.
Source: IGN
