No, but you can get a kinda-sorta feeling from steam stats. In July the “AMD Custom CPU 0405” was 7.56% of all Linux users on Steam, and Linux as a whole was 1.23% of total Steam users, so the Steam Deck comprised 0.09% of total Steam users in July, and Steam has roughly 120 million users, so there are roughly 100k Steam Decks in active use.
That’s miniscule numbers for a hardware device.
Right, that’s what drove my post earlier. It seems like a really neat device, and it does what it’s supposed to do, and people that bought it like it-- but they didn’t sell a ton of 'em, so it doesn’t say much about the future of handheld PC gaming.
It might be higher than the Steam Controller or the SteamLink, at least until they did the blowout sales on those. I think I got a SteamLink for $5 just because.
Heh yeah, me too. I have a Stadia Premium Edition in my closet too. In 20 years I’ll put it on a shelf as an oddity.
I’m hoping for a Steam Controller v2, hopefully coming if the Deck is a real success. Less focus on trackpads, more on joysticks and a d-pad.
For sure. They just haven’t been able to ship the things. Once supply issues get resolved (seems like it has been improving here) then we can hopefully start getting a picture of how many units they can move on this thing.
I appreciate the optimism here, but Steam Link and the Steam Controller should probably give you some idea of how this will go. Every day that goes by, the hardware ages more and more.
Good thing about Steam Deck is that it’s uh, PC. It does not require to sell tens of millions to entice developers to make games for it since they already make them, and it will be useful for whoever buys it regardless of how many units sell in total.
I wonder if Valve intends to go mainstream with it though. It would require actually marketing it to mainstream and selling in in Walmarts and shit.
This is not at all nintendo fanboy talk…
Yes, it really is a shame that the Switch is falling further behind on hardware every day.
I’m a Q3 estimated delivery guy, having ordered on 8/17. I’m basically waiting to see how flush I am when the order comes up to decide. As neat as some of the use cases may be, I’ll only ever play as a handheld. Docking this to a TV is not appealing given the low resolution and performance. A local Steam link (via my shield) will yield way better performance. Or I could get 5 years of Priority Geforce Now for the cost of the 256GB I ordered and also get better performance.
I’m talking myself out of it as I write this post, and yet… cool gadgets.
Brand new games designed specifically for Nintendo Switch come out all the time from Nintendo. You cannot play them anywhere else. That’s what drives Nintendo Switch sales.
There is no analog to this with a Steam Deck, and people are buying these expecting to play games like Elden Ring. Eventually, new games will not be playable on a Steam Deck and that will happen sooner rather than later. It’s a device that will always be specific to a point in time and not supported specifically like the Switch. The guy above you pointed that out in fact. It’s for people to play old games they already own.
We’ll circle around in a few years and see how this went.
Lest all you Steam Fans forget, I own a true Steam Machine. Ask me about its viability for anything current in 2022. I dare you.
Yup. That last part is basically the thing.
I appreciate the Dave baiting as much as the next fella but that isn’t a fair response. The Steam Deck hardware IS falling behind every day. It can just barely play graphically intensive games at 720p 30fps with FSR active today. Tomorrow’s games will be harder to run.
Of course that applies to all PC gaming hardware, but the Steam Deck gen 1 is so marginal out of the gate that I imagine it having a lot of trouble playing those AAA games in only 2-3 years. It’ll be great at indie and less intensive games for 7-8 years easily, though.
Such a shame it doesn’t support VRR.
This is an important point - the average gamer loves his physical DRM in the form of console exclusives, it is what the console market runs on.
But the life of the Deck will extend far beyond its capacity to play the latest AAA titles - it already can’t play cutting edge graphics, and its really not even close, despite the impressiveness of DLSS/FSR on it. But there is a constant influx of new content that is playable on Deck, which is releases that are not cutting edge graphically, across the entire spectrum of AAA to indie. One of the under-sung uses of the Deck is it is basically a portable omni-indie game player.
Yeah, indie/emulation is a major use-case, but it certainly isn’t what interests me. That isn’t what makes it cool. YouTube videos showing Elden Ring running on the Steam Deck day one, that was impressive stuff. Sure it looked like shit but it ran, and the framerate was playable. Same with Spider-man today. That’s awesome.
Steam Deck gen 2 could easily double graphical performance and support VRR to boot and launch in early 2024. That would be truly interesting. Second generation proves a product line is viable and the market wants it.
You own a PC. PCs require upgrades to keep up. News at eleven!
I’m curious, why do you say it could double graphical performance? I personally would gladly put down double the price of a Deck for a gen 2 with that kind of firepower, but naively based on gen 1, I’d be worried it would sound like a jet engine and be just as hot.
Yep. The fact that it maybe can’t play a handful of AAA titles isn’t the point… and honestly, I’m skeptical about this until we get a new console generation since games need to hit those fixed hardware targets and Steam Deck can already play them. Plus it can play tens of thousands of other PC games without even touching console emulation.
You can play them on Steam Deck - in many cases with better resolution and frame rate than the Switch. Open that up to all PCs and you can be playing those shiny exclusives at 4k60 given proper PC hardware. Though I suppose you’re right in that you do need to buy a Switch to legally dump cartridges.
Ha, right? We’re talking about a PC that’s nearly as old as the PS4/Xbone at this point. And most Steam machines weren’t particularly high end on specs. If you’re upset that your PC can’t play the games you want then you upgrade. I don’t need my Deck to play Call of Duty Ghosts 4 or whatever they’ll be on when the PS6 launches. If I did, I’d buy a Deck 2 or whatever handheld PC is out then.
Current-gen 6800U has a GPU roughly 40% faster than the Steam Deck, next-gen will assumedly improve on that.
Steam Deck isn’t a PC? Coulda fooled me.