Saturday, July 30th 2022
Valve Confirms Steam Deck Customers to Receive Their Devices Within 2022
Valve's Steam Deck has been a resounding success by any metric, providing an impressive mobile gaming experience at Valve's first try. However, not all has been rosy: particularly for those customers that still haven't been able to receive their Steam Deck order. It's not just a demand problem; for a long while, Valve's hands were tied in the number of Steam Decks they could actually put together, due to continuing electronics component shortages that followed the COVID-19 tech race - paired with logistics nightmares fueled by constant lockdowns and limited transport operations around the globe.
But customers still awaiting their Steam Deck can now take a slight more hopeful outlook, as the company has confirmed via Twitter that all outstanding Steam Deck orders will be fulfilled before year's end. Through improvements to both logistics and manufacturing capacity, many of the reservations previously scheduled for 2Q2022 or later have been moved towards 3Q (July-September). All orders that weren't moved to 3Q are now solidly in Q4, according to the company. Valve has also confirmed that new orders will also be scheduled for 4Q. Do count on a hard limit to how many Steam Decks Valve can fit within it, though, so if you really, really want a Steam Deck before year's end, you better move fast.
Sources:
Valve @ Twitter, via Tom's Hardware
But customers still awaiting their Steam Deck can now take a slight more hopeful outlook, as the company has confirmed via Twitter that all outstanding Steam Deck orders will be fulfilled before year's end. Through improvements to both logistics and manufacturing capacity, many of the reservations previously scheduled for 2Q2022 or later have been moved towards 3Q (July-September). All orders that weren't moved to 3Q are now solidly in Q4, according to the company. Valve has also confirmed that new orders will also be scheduled for 4Q. Do count on a hard limit to how many Steam Decks Valve can fit within it, though, so if you really, really want a Steam Deck before year's end, you better move fast.
58 Comments on Valve Confirms Steam Deck Customers to Receive Their Devices Within 2022
First metric it failed at: For those of us who oppose DRM, it is and always was a non-starter.
Second metric it failed at: For the MANY existing Steam users who expect the same level of compatibility as they would get on their PC, it's a serious failure.
Granted, my Steam library is not very big, but the kicker is that no less than half of my titles are not compatible with the Steam deck and my experience is FAR from isolated. The only reasons this device has been a success is two, the first is novelty and the second is the very dedicated fan base. Once the reality of this device sets in and people begin to realize it's rather severe limitations, both hardware and software, it will loose it's luster.Neither can the Steam Deck. A great many titles are either incompatible with the OS or just can't run on the weak-sauce hardware.
There are better, more flexible and more compatible options out there.
No other console can even hope to be as open and homebrew-friendly as the Steam Deck.
Nintendo can take their proprietary and anti-consumer bullshit and shove it. I'll gladly play Switch and Wii U games on my Steam Deck.
I'll accept it is what you see in it to a degree, there are better ,but for the price it's in a nice middle ground IMHO.
You're argument is classic strawman stuff..Most are in the ballpark price-wise and NONE have to deal with an external drive to boot Windows. You're points don't really make a good case for the Steam deck.
The reality of the Steam Deck is that it is woefully limited and just can't do what all other competing offerings can. The Steam Deck, when given an objective look, is just not an attractive device.
All of the games I have on it are either from GOG, emulated, or "patched" games I own on Steam. It takes some tinkering, but after getting it set up, I can just leave the Deck in offline mode, and all of the games I have on it still work.
Client and OS updates still work in offline mode. Also, any apps that have internet functionality do still work.
I don't actually have any games that I installed through the Steam Store on it (other than Aperture Desk Job). Everything has been "sideloaded".
That being said, I still long for a SteamOS alternative (not Windows) that has all of the useful features without the Steam integration.
AYA Neo Air Starts at $550 and goes up from there depending on the specs you want. The one that is comparable to the top Steam deck is the same price, $650. Your statement of "extremely high cost by comparison" has no merit. That said, the top end model(the specs of which kick the ever-living crap out of the top-end Steam Deck specs) is very pricy at $1400. But apples to apples, AYA NEO Air has the Steam Deck beat and it runs a more suitable OS.
liliputing.com/aya-neo-air-handheld-gaming-pc-with-an-oled-display-hits-indiegogo-for-499-and-up-crowdfunding/
Then there is the AYN Loki that starts at $250 and is comparable in specs to the base model Steam Deck. The top model is $775 and has specs much better than the Steam Deck.
liliputing.com/ayn-loki-zero-is-an-entry-level-handheld-gaming-pc-pre-order-pricing-starts-at-199/
AYN Loki kicks the Steam Deck right in the nadds and is a better option! This is the one I'm ordering.
The budget Loki Zero that's $250's specifications are downright terrible compared to the base Deck (reminder that the hardware is the same throughout all Deck models, what differs is the storage), making do on a 6W budget with two Zen 1 architecture cores and 3 CU Vega graphics, the Aerith/Van Gogh SoC used on the Deck is 4 Zen 2 cores + 8 CU (4 WGP) RDNA 2, I guess that speaks for itself. That's also accounting for the fact that only the devices with 16 GB or more RAM even qualify to compete with the Deck anyway.
Only the top end 6800U is comparable in performance, and I know how much they cost, as do you clearly 1400£.
As for the AYN Loki, that one uses Intel on the lowest end (sub-$500) at $300 and the next system up is the one starting with AMD. Personally, I'd drop the extra $100 to avoid Intel graphics. The next Loki system up from the Intel-based one costs $500, which is $100 more than the lowest Steam Deck and both will otherwise have the same storage. Plus, as usual, Loki suffers the same fate as every other SD competitor: the GPU is either inferior (6600U-based systems) or at the very highest end the cost is prohibitive (6800U in the $800 variant).
Why anyone would bend over backward to buy other systems besides the Steam Deck when Valve has done nothing but make the SD easily modded in any way imaginable in both hardware and software is beyond me. Pay the $400 for the better system and change it however you like. Hell, toss in a $70 NVME while you're at it.
Or you can waste money because DRM (that can be avoided if you change your use-case).
The interesting thing about space-constrained low-power APU's is how much performance is gained by reducing CPU's to their bare minimum core limits. On APU's with more cores/threads, more power gets taken from the GPU to help the CPU run faster, which can cost you real performance. Looking at the higher end CPU's (6800U), I can't help but imagine their poor GPU's being starved for power. Refer to The Phawx on Youtube for more on that.
TLDR; Steam Deck is great value. If you love Valve and Steam and have the games, it's a no brainer. If you only care about performance per dollar and have the games, it's a no brainer. If you hate Valve because DRM and want them to lose money on hardware they're heavily subsidizing because you're not using said system in their ecosystem, it's a no brainer. The only people it's NOT a no brainer for is anyone not invested in PC gaming OR anyone not interested in portable gaming. Even then, if you want to start, it's a great entry point for relatively low cost for what you get.
But I get it. Steam is DRM and some people despise DRM so completely they can't see anything else, even the chance to make Valve lose money. ;)
It's really just a standard UEFI PC.