Steam Deck, The long game

Gaming
1

Just been wondering about the target audience here and thinking we have made a few too many assumptions.

I know, I know…

“But this device is cool, it will run most, if not all my steam library, and I can play it on the train or when I am away from home!”

“Isn’t it obvious who the target audience is? and it runs on top of Arch, how cool is that.”

Look I hear you, but I think Valve is making a bigger play here. Yes it is cool for these reasons, and I will definitely be purchasing one, for these reasons.

If steam isn’t compatible with all the steam library, or at least the majority of the Steam library then it is dead in the water. It needs to get the current steam players on board to get any traction. But ultimately this is a play for the mobile space.

Any other gamers out there who were excited to begin with about what iPads could do?

But as a gamer ended up being totally disappointed with what you could play on it?

I think the mobile market is huge, and if Steam can get into that space, then they would be crazy to miss the opportunity.

I think one of the bigger goals here is to break into the mobile market with PC hardware. Something that Microsoft has been trying to do, and failing for the last 10 years.

Where Steam Machines tried to compete against the consoles and failed. Steam Deck will compete against the Switch and against the mobile space. Because let’s face it, gaming on mobile devices sucks.

This is why Microsoft are not going to get in Valves way, because they recognise this as an opportunity.

So that is my two cents worth.
Feel free to tell me what you think. :slight_smile:

Am going to get slammed here for stating the obvious.

2

By that you mean Valve is paving the way for Microsoft software to make it into the mobile space with much greater ease/usability?

3

No. I don’t think the iPad was ever positioned as a games device and I’m pretty sure it couldn’t even run iPhone apps and games until iOS 12.

Nintendo Switch/Switch Lite, 3DSes both new and old, DSes and DSi-s, Game Boys Advances SPs and Micros, Colors, Pockets, and the big ol’ DMG-01– Nintendo has decades of high quality mobile gaming experience. (Not to mention the wildly successful Android and more successful iOS apps)

It’s not going to be easy to take on the King. Especially when the Switch seems to be getting the same indie games. Steam Deck better bring something to the table that makes me want to lug it around because the Switch has momentum and Mario. Will that thing be the Steam Sales? Will it be the ability to run emulators quite well? Only time will tell but I do know that if they can’t deliver either promise of library compatibility and anti-cheat functionality then this whole thing is DOA.

4

I don’t know, Just thinking… If Valve can create some demand in the small form factor pc market.

The least Microsoft can do is sit back and see how this experiment goes.

Did I sound like I knew what I was talking about there? Well some of the logic sounded good anyway. :slight_smile:

Look, it makes sense, It now looks like both Apple and Google are locking Valve and Epic out of the mobile market. Kind of forces Valve’s hand. They have to do something to break into mobile market.

5

How long before someone creates a Steam Deck focused distro for just running emulated games on the thing?

Would be so tempted to strip Steam OS to give it a try. Or put in one SD card to boot into your retro games distro, put in another SD card to boot up OpenELEC.

How open will the firmware be? Will anyone be able to code for the trackpad, or will you be limited to using it through Steam OS or windows?