After months of build-up, theSteam Deckwas released today, with systems beginning to ship to customers that reserved an order. As a result, many gamers will soon be getting their first chance to go hands-on with the portable gaming PC. Recently, the co-founder of Valve, Gabe Newell, talked about thelaunch of the Steam Deck.
In an interview with IGN, Newell discussed the demand for theSteam Deckas well as the future for the system. According to the developer, he revealed that the demand for the product at launch had exceeded the expectations of the company. In addition, the co-founder said that the future for the Steam Deck and portable gaming was looking bright. “We have reached the point where you have a mobile gaming device that can pretty much do anything, and it only gets better from here on out for PC gamers," he said.
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He continued to discuss the demand for the system, noting that he believed its popularity would impact the rest of the industry moving forward. According to Newell, other developers will look to apply some of the ideas from the Steam Deck when working with their own technologies. “I think some of the key problems that we’re solving are going to apply generally to lots of hardware manufacturers in the PC space,” he said.
In addition to talking about demand for the Steam Deck, he touched on the formulation of the system. Based on comments from Newell, he said that the idea of having a portable gaming PC had been a hot topic for years. Interestingly, herelated the discussion to the Nintendo Switch, commenting that the gaming community had desired a way to play PC games on portable devices long before Nintendo’s hybrid system had existed. However, the big hang-up was that technology had not advanced far enough to make the dream a reality. “I think every gamer has wanted this for a really long time,” he said during the interview.
In addition to this recent interview with the co-founder of Valve, there has been a lot more news regarding the release of the Steam Deck. For example, it was recently announced thatElden Ringwas verifiedfor the platform. This is big news for those that purchased a Steam Deck as this game developed by FromSoftware is a next-gen title. As a result of this verification, it seems that this graphically intensive game is capable of running on the hardware of the portable gaming PC.
It will be interesting to seewhat the future holds for Valvemoving forward. With Steam Deck units now being shipped, gamers will have the opportunity to begin formulating their own opinions on the system as they play games on the platform. It seems only time will tell how the system is received by the community in the months ahead.
