Is Valve’s Steam Deck the Switch Pro you were hoping for?

What a twist! You know that Switch Pro you were hoping for? The one with an updated GPU/CPU, 4K support, and an upgraded screen? It turns out that all those leaks were true! Just for the wrong company. Valve, the company behind the largest digital distribution gaming platform and creators of such games as Half Life, Half Life 2, and Half Life…. oh yeah…, just revealed the Steam Deck, a state-of-the-art handheld gaming PC that truly gives the Nintendo Switch a run for its money. At least in the spec department.

 

 

The Steam Deck is powered by custom AMD hardware and is capable of running your entire Steam Library with ease. Games like Death Stranding and Doom Eternal, which require a whole lot of power to run, is confirmed to be supported by the handheld. It even has dock support if you want to hook it up to a monitor or a TV. Oh yeah, the most impressive part about it is that it manages to pull it off with a price point of only $399, only $50 more expensive than the recently announced OLED Switch. Here’s a look at some of the consoles’ impressive specs from PC Gamer:

 

• CPU: AMD Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
• GPU: 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.0-1.6GHz (up to 1.6 TFlops FP32)
• RAM: 16 GB DDR5
• Storage: 64GB, 256GB, 512GB versions; expandable with MicroSD cards
• Display: 7″ diagonal, 1280×800 (16:10), 60Hz LCD touchscreen
• Audio: Stereo speakers that “pack a punch,” says Valve, 3.5mm stereo jack, dual mics, multichannel USB-C/Bluetooth output
• Controls: Two analog sticks with capacitive touch, D-pad, face buttons, analog triggers, bumpers, assignable grip buttons, “view” and “menu” buttons, gyro
• Trackpads: There’s two of them, and Valve says that they have “55% better latency compared to Steam Controller.”
• Wireless connectivity: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
• Wired connectivity: USB-C with DisplayPort 1.4 Alt-mode support; up to 8K @60Hz or 4K @120Hz, USB 3.2 Gen 2
• Battery: 40Whr, “2-8 hours of gameplay”
• Size: 11.7″ x 4.6″ x 1.8″ (298mm x 117mm x 49mm)
• Weight: Approximately 1.47 lbs (669 grams)

 

So what does this mean for Nintendo? Will the Steam Deck eat into their sweet OLED Switch sales? Judging by how fast pre-orders sold out, probably not. Nintendo fans come to Nintendo for the games, not necessarily the raw power of the machine. As long as Zelda, Mario, and Pokémon are exclusive to their consoles, don’t expect the Steam Deck to steal away too many buyers. But, looking at what Valve’s little handheld can do really gives me hope of what Nintendo and Nvidia may be cooking up for a Switch Pro, whenever that may happen. If Nintendo can pull off similar specs at a similar price point, they may really open up the door for one amazing new system!

 

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