The library in your hand
The history of handheld gaming is a long and perilous tale of false starts, shooting flares and almost total dominance from the Nintendo end of the market. Pretty much from the very second that Nintendo dips even the slightest foot into the handheld market they instantly become the undisputed champions of all they survey and everyone else who wants even a slice of that pie can just go wither. And a lot of that comes from Nintendo's size and market power, because creating a handheld device will always come with setbacks and limitations that require ports of games built specifically for these handhelds. Unless you're swinging the sort of income that Nintendo is, it's more likely that prospective handheld developers are going to cater to the team with the most spare revenue and audience, thus no one really had a chance in this market. The PS Vita had the staying power to hold on for a while, but distinct lack of support from Sony themselves killed off that dream. So if you want to compete on the handheld market you're going to need a console capable of securing as many ports as possible, to draw in a crowd, or simply make a machine powerful enough to play even more games than the Switch. Steam Deck, it seems, is heading the latter way.
That's right, like a Wrestling Heel in the twilight hours of that tournament bout he was eliminated from in the first round, the arbiters of PC are back around once again with a proposition that they know, this time, is going to just blow the market away. It has to, because the fact they haven't already is inexplicable. Valve have owned the PC gaming market for yonks, they know what gamers look for, putting out their own hardware shouldn't be this much of a hassle. And yet you've got the Steam Machine, a little box with limited support that, in hindsight, feels like an expensive beta test. The Steam controller, which seemed like it was poised to change the world, until it wasn't. And then there's the Valve Index, by all reports an absolute premium option to the VR world that works fantastically, but is prohibitively expensive and so will never win the common man over like the executives would want. What Valve needed was a middle ground, an affordable console with a great value proposition. And that seems to be where they're aiming right now.
That, honestly, is pretty impressive given that a lot of the games we see hit the Switch takes herculean efforts to port something that'll actually run on the piddly little thing. CD Projekt still insist their porting partners conversed with black devils in order to conjure up the Witcher 3 Switch port, yet apparently Valve can rock that game up to their machine with nary an effort. So how is it working? My first guess was game streaming, but that's apparently not the case; all these games are said to be native. (Which certainly speaks of a severe memory cap headed for excited future users) It's just a kickass machine built to run better than my gaming machine. (which isn't saying a great deal, considering my machine is held together by rubberbands and toothsticks.) And with that heft comes a hefty price, Newton laws dictate such, thus you're looking at 350 to 550 if you want PC gaming in the palm of your hands.
But in honesty, that isn't really all that bad at all. I mean, I couldn't source a PC for that money which could run all the games that this is said to be capable of, so something tells me that Steam is really taking a hit in the gut to be able to offer these prices and that makes them sort-of onpar with the recent next gen. (At least price wise. Again, not here to talk specs.) Oh, and if you're wondering why the price gap is so large, that 350 model only comes with 64 gig storage and not SSD. Basically meaning they'll be some AAA games that you just won't be able to play on it. (It's actually a little criminal that the base model doesn't have 256 gigs, anyone can see the way that game sizes have been ballooning in the past few years, this model could be practically nullified in less than two years time.) The big spenders get everything they could want, from 512 GB (still kinda skinny, I wonder if the Deck takes add-ons?) SSD, and a carry case. (As well as the longest wait, given how that version of the console is slated for late 2022)
And do you want to hear the best part of this console, at least to me? The fact that Valve are aware of potential scalpers and are making active attempts to cut them off at the pass. Can you believe that? When the big two companies are still doing nothing amid a wake of low stock numbers, Valve have done the bare minimum and made it so that brand new accounts can't mass pre-reserve copies for Ebay. I mean, that's happening anyway for whatever reason, but it's not an apocalyptic wave of resellers literally threatening to drown the market with scarcity. Now part of the reason this is possible is because Valve is handling purchases in house, but that's just more reason why it was stupid for the console developers to stop doing that. Shame on you Series X and PS5, you've been out-consoled by a PC store handler, shame on you.
Of course, for others the best part of the console will be getting the chance to play their massive steam libraries in a much more comfortable setting as they take their game with them, and these games are coming off of existing libraries, so you won't be forced to deal with insane handheld prices that dragon's like Nintendo force over their ecosystems. If only something could have been done about the design to make it less... objectively boring. Maybe add some colours, a little pattern on the back, some ergonomic handels, a maliciously sentient AI personality; I don't know, just give me some reason to put this on my desk with pride next to my Switch, instead of hiding it in my beside table alongside all those classic books I'm totally going to read one day. (I'm trying Tolkien, but you put in so many darn songs!) But if you've half a mind more than me and don't care about appearance, this does seem like the handheld solution that all those third party defenders have wanted to be for so very long. I wonder how the launch will inevitably bungle the whole thing up. (it's the way of things. It is- inevitable.)
Many will tell you that the reason why the Steam Deck is going to absolutely win this time around is because it's not competing with the Nintendo Switch, and whilst I don't think that's objectively untrue, I can see the argument. Nintendo have developed their niche and Steam is welcome to seek out theirs on the same platform, so long as they don't steer to closer to the plumber man's turf. I do see competition in the Steam Deck, but beyond all that I see potential, more than has ever existed for previous failed Valve ventures and more than Google Stadia ever had. I think it ties into the response, people seem eager to embrace this new handheld, excited for a new toy to play with, and that spirit of anticipation is just infectious even to lil ol' me who wouldn't pick up one of these if they were last weirdly affordable, undeniably powerful, proposedly comfortable Valve-branded boxes on the market. At least not yet, my vote is we give the things room to market to us before we start making advanced dinner plans and go picking out the bunting. But until then, quality first moves, Valve, lets see if they can keep their good string of press up until next year and the actual launch,
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