We’re not getting a vague time frame for a grand plan to reshape the PC industry, but instead a specific piece of hardware with a specific release window in December 2021. Photo by Sean Hollister / The Vergeīut with the new Steam Deck, Valve is in control once again. The final Steam Controller, alongside an earlier development kit. By then, that Alienware Alpha had been on sale for nearly a year already. Alienware was one of the few to build a bespoke Steam Machine, but it wound up running Windows first instead - because Valve and its hodgepodge collection of partners didn’t manage to launch the Steam Machines initiative until November 2015.
Somewhere along the line, Valve decided to leave the vast majority of the hardware to existing PC manufacturers, whose Steam OS offerings were a mess, running the gamut from “it’s our Windows box, but with fewer games because it’s running Linux” to dubious designs Valve wound up disavowing. You couldn’t really buy the original Steam Machine. It never broadly sold the impressive prototype it demonstrated for us in November 2013. When we exclusively revealed Gabe Newell’s plans for the “Steam Box” in 2013, he originally explained that Valve would sell its own Linux-based living room PC, while simultaneously creating an ecosystem where partners would deliver a wide array of good/better/best boxes as well, creating an entire new category of gaming PC.īut Valve’s own box didn’t make it to market. There are plenty of reasons why Valve’s Steam Machines failed, but one towers over the rest: Valve was never in control of its own hardware destiny. Here are six reasons why this isn’t Steam Machines all over again - and, a few brand-new reasons to be skeptical. (Even if the Steam Deck’s $399 starting price might seem close to Nintendo’s $350 Switch with OLED screen, you’re not getting Mario, Zelda and Metroid on a Steam Deck.) But having watched Valve closely over the past nine years, I don’t believe it will flop like the Steam Machines either. I’m not deluding myself into thinking it’s a Switch-killer.
It’s called the Steam Deck, and you can read all about its specs, extensive controls and TV docking station right here. Only this time, its Steam Machine dreams and unusual touchpads have been rolled into a 7-inch handheld PC that looks and works like a Nintendo Switch. Six years after launching a line of Linux game consoles that went down as one of the biggest tech flops of the past decade, Valve is trying once again.
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