I’d love for valve to do to other markets, what they’ve done for the handhelds in terms of Linux. I could see the improvements they’ve made easily translate to something like a laptop or a set-top box.
I’m not sure if a steam laptop would be successful. You can install steam on most laptops on the market (with some exceptions like ARM-based laptops or chomebooks). Same applies to a “steam console”, just pick any small PC and put steam in autostart.
However, the deck features innovative controls and a rare form factor. There is just no device that has the same feature set as the steam deck.
This is a pretty small niche though. I feel like (except for dev boxes and single-board computers) there aren’t too many small PCs that would fit well near a TV. Even something like a steam deck SOC in a case around the size of a Mac mini would be great. Bonus points if they gave it a more powerful GPU
The set of people who are interested in PC gaming but don’t have a gaming PC, or the people interested in couch/console gaming who don’t have one is pretty small.
I’m surprised there isnt more of a market for that stuff. Similarly, I could see a set top nintendo switch doing well, I haven’t undocked mine in ages. Kinda silly to have all that extra hardware going unused. And the price point could be very attractive to non handheld users… But yeah, the steam box flopped
To be fair, Valve didn’t put a ton of resources toward Steam machines, they kind of expected other companies to take the risk for them.
But the real problem is that people will expect much better performance from a Steam machine vs a Switch because PC gaming is often more focused on performance and Nintendo demographics instead expect a unique gaming experience. So the Switch can get away with simpler games at a lower resolution, but I really don’t think Steam can.
Anything Steam releases would need to at least match XBox and PS5 in terms of performance, and probably beat it to be compelling (otherwise why not just buy an XBox/PS5?). The reason the Deck works is because it offers a new way to play games that just don’t exist elsewhere, so the competition is a lot lower than a set-top box would be. They have way better hardware than Nintendo, they can be cheaper than handheld PC products because they can expect a cut of digital sales, and they have the talent to tune such a device (they are a game studio, after all).
I would love a new Steam Controller. Basically, just give me the Steam Deck controller separate from the rest of the device.
I didn’t love the big track pads of the OG Steam Controller, but I really like having track pads for certain games, so I hope they can find a design that feels and works well. Gyro aiming on the Deck is also really nice, and I love having four back buttons.
The issues with a set-top box is that the Deck SOC doesn’t work well at higher resolutions, and you kind of need that for a non-handheld, console-like experience. So they’d need beefier specs to support 1080p on the same titles that the Deck supports at 720p, and many people will want a 4k option as well. So they’d need a new SOC or a dGPU, which would bump the price of the device significantly. They tried that already with Steam Machines, but it just didn’t catch on (to be fair, they didn’t commit to it very hard).
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