Valve has announced the Steam Deck, a portable game console starting at $399 modeled after Nintendo's Switch that links into the existing Steam store to support thousands of PC titles, and orders beginning shipping in December. Valve has previously entered the hardware market with Steam Machines, Linux computers that ran a dedicated Steam OS, and supported specialized controllers with trackpads also branded after the service. It's also spent years integrating controller support hooks into PC games that otherwise wouldn't support the feature, allowing keyboard and mouse-centric games to allow gamepad inputs at the push of a button. Accordingly, the Steam Deck seems like the logical conclusion of these earlier efforts.
Valve has come a long way from its days as a game developer partnering with publishers for the release of Half-Life. Launching Steam back in 2003 and requiring that players purchasing Half-Life 2 download it, the service has become the de facto way to access a vast majority of the PC gaming library. Users now accumulate huge libraries of digital titles via frequent Steam sales and take advantage of backend community features that go beyond simply keeping games updated. This has kept many tied to the ecosystem even when competitors like the Epic Games Store launched, a fact that could be rewarded now that Valve's portable hardware ambitions have been revealed.
As detailed on the portable's official website, the Steam Deck is a fully functional portable PC that runs everything that a desktop could on the go. Valve uses Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as an example of a cutting-edge game that players can now play portably on Steam Deck if they own it on Steam. The device supports traditional controller buttons, as well as a pair of trackpads and a touchscreen for more PC-centric actions. It also has four back buttons to map out more complicated controls, which will likely come in handy for MMOs, strategy games, and other titles. Using an official dock (sold separately), the Steam Deck can also hook up to a TV, and the console's Bluetooth and USB ports mean that players can use gamepads they already own during docked play.
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