- At this point,
you've already seen the Nintendo Switch OLED.
But what I really want to talk about
is the Valve Steam Deck, which really is the Stream Deck.
No Steam not Stream. The Steam Deck,
which really is the Nintendo Switch Pro
we were all waiting for.
And actually even more in a way.
Now that we're past the initial rush of the announcement,
I think it is incredibly interesting that Valve has chosen
now of all times to jump into the mini console PC space.
Now this is not exactly brand new territory, right?
Companies like GPD have been making these systems
for quite a while now, In fact,
we've actually done videos on them
several times in the past.
Most of these mini PCs have been running
Intel processors thus far.
Although there are a couple of them that are starting to
switch over to AMD, such as the Aya Neo,
which is one of these huge Kickstarters,
which has raised a ton of money,
but it is using straight off the shelf hardware.
In that case,
I believe it's a six core Ryzen APU meant for laptops.
Now there have been other attempts at this kind of almost
getting into the console space. Think back to what was it?
2012, 2013, when Nvidia brought out the original shield.
This thing was rad though right?
Now it did run Android as opposed to Windows or Steam OS
or something like that.
But it got some real games that they had actually ported
on the Valve side, funnily enough.
So it's clearly an idea
that's been sort of racked around for a while,
but the way that Valve have approached this and the way that
they're really kind of taking on the Nintendo Switch is very
different than what we've seen in the past.
- So I think my takeaway from this video ended up being that
Steam did not make the Switch Pro that everyone needed.
I think that Valve accidentally made the Xbox portable,
that everyone's dreamed of.
- Okay. You know you're really not far off on that.
So if you actually look at what is inside the Steam Deck,
it is actually a very interesting set of specs.
So it is using a custom AMD APU.
This is not something that you can get off the shelf
that was meant for a laptop or something.
Essentially you've got really,
it's a cut down version of what you have on the
Xbox Series X, the PS5, and really the Xbox Series S.
So it uses the same Zen 2 cores.
You have four instead of eight on the consoles,
that's still plenty of performance for what this thing is
really targeted at. And importantly, unlike a lot of the
laptop chips, which are using the much older Vega graphics,
this does have the full RDNA 2.0 on board,
which gives you a lot of additional features
which we'll talk about in a second, but importantly,
it also gives you a lot more performance.
Something else that Valve did, which I think is very smart,
is outfitting it with 16 gigs of LPDDR5 memory.
Now, this is far more than the Switch,
which only has four gigs of Ram.
This is a smart move because these APU's really do benefit
from not only a lot of memory, but importantly,
a lot of fast memory,
which does help to bump this up to really a portable Xbox or
PlayStation in terms of performance.
But I think what this really goes to show is that this is a
cut above these previous mini PCs
that we've seen in the past.
And really this is more powerful than even what could
have expected if Nintendo really did bring out a Switch Pro.
Now we can talk about the Switch OLED and of course
there's a lot to sort of discuss there,
but the gist of it is really this, the Switch OLED
is a brand new much nicer screen. Honestly,
it's probably a better screen than the Steam Deck,
Steam Deck, but the downside to it is that it has the exact same
performance as the launch Nintendo Switch,
which was a chip from like 2015.
If you remember the old days of like the DS versus the PSP
and in terms of performance and how much better games looked
on the PSP,
I don't think it's a completely crazy analogy because while
the Nintendo Switch is reasonably powerful,
it is nowhere near as powerful
as something like the Steam Deck.
And especially when it comes to trying to play modern AAA
games like Cyberpunk, that makes all the difference.
Now I don't want to sound like I'm overly negative toward the
Switch OLED, right?
I mean, it is a better version of the Switch
and there are some nice quality of life improvements.
Specifically, I think that screen
is going to look phenomenal, the kickstand also as well.
But I think where the big advantage comes from the
Steam Deck is not only in the performance, but also in how much,
more performance you can get
when you do plug it into a dock.
You have a couple of options.
So of course the Switch has the advantage that it comes with
a dock in the box. When it comes to the Steam Deck,
you have to buy that separately.
But importantly, unlike the Switch,
it will very easily take a USB-C hub, right?
So if you have a laptop that has USB-C or anything like
that, you should just be able to plug it straight in.
And when you plug it in, you get some real performance.
Now, while the Switch OLED has the exact same 1080p,
60 sort of limitation as all the previous Switches in the
past. Not counting the Switch Lite
which can't do any kind of USB-C out at all.
With the Steam Deck, hold onto your butts.
You can do not only 4k resolution,
but you can do 4k at 120 frames per second.
If that's not enough,
it also supports 8K at 60 frames per second,
over your handheld Steam Deck.
Now I don't think you should ever try to play it at 8K cause
that's going to be terrible,
but the fact that they've gone through that much
future-proofing and that single USB-C port that you have,
you can easily go out to the dock and give you DisplayPort
and HDMI and can give you that kind of resolution,
is a really nice feature. I mean, honestly,
just the fact that you can do 4k, I think is enough for me,
but I'm not gonna complain about 8K.
One advantage of the Switch is certainly
in the battery life.
So the Switch will give you between four and a half and nine
hours based on what game you're playing,
which is a pretty decent step up from the Steam Deck,
which gives you between two and eight hours. Now,
I think both of those numbers are pretty wide sort of
estimates. My thought is if you're ever cranking
Cyberpunk at like max settings,
this thing could pull up to like 15 Watts of power or so.
At least from the SoC.
So it makes sense that the Steam Deck doesn't have
quite so great battery life,
but I wouldn't be surprised that you get three,
maybe four hours based on what game you're playing.
So it's in the ballpark and it actually does sound a little bit
better than a lot of these sort of handheld devices,
which oftentimes have even less
than two hours of battery life.
Where I think Valve made the absolute right call when it
comes to the Steam Deck,
especially when you put it head to head with the Switch is
when it comes to price.
So with the Nintendo Switch,
you have the Switch Lite at $200
and you have the standard Switch at 300.
But if you want the Switch OLED model,
that comes in at $350. However, for only $50 more,
you can get the base model of the Steam Deck.
And they both come with the same 64 gigs of storage and they
both do have microSD expansion. Now yes, with the Switch,
you do get a dock, whereas on the Steam Deck,
you just get like a carrying case.
So you do get a little bit more on the accessory side on the
Switch, but that's a whole lot more power.
And ultimately a ton of games that you're getting on the
Steam side, because keep in mind with the Switch,
If you buy it, you have to
buy all the new games for the first time and whatnot,
or your 17th copy of like Mario for NES or something.
Whereas with the Steam Deck,
you probably already have dozens,
if not hundreds of games that will run on the system,
either in the Linux mode, which a fair few games do,
or if you throw a copy of Windows on there,
pretty much your entire Steam library will be playable from
day one. That is a huge advantage.
And quite frankly,
I don't think there is any chance that Valve is making money
on that base model. Right?
I think they're absolutely taking the console approach of
selling it at break even,
or maybe even not maybe a loss to get more of these things
in people's hands.
GPD and Aya have to make money selling hardware,
which means that they've got to build the margin in which
pushes to these things far above that $400 price point,
but Steam doesn't really necessarily need to make money on
the hardware. All they need to do
is get you to buy a couple more Steam games.
And I'm sure they're all going to be happy, right?
Spend more time buying and playing Steam stuff.
And the fact that they've made it open to allow you to
install other app stores is just the icing on the cake.
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I personally think,
that the Steam Deck
is one of my most hyped pieces of tech for this year.
I really do. I am way more excited about this thing
than I thought it would be. The more I think about it,
the more it just makes sense.
- The Steam Deck, I'm roughly excited for,
but I'm still pairing my expectations because I think
there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered in
regards to things like compatibility with games.
The idea that it has a custom AMD APU is both a blessing,
could be a little bit of a curse compatibility with stuff,
especially with whatever you know,
custom layer that they have for, you know,
Windows compatibility over Linux is one thing that I'm
definitely curious about, but on the upside though,
this thing can be hella optimized for Steam OS.
And if I'm to believe that this thing is, you know,
incredibly hyped for and sought after,
if enough people get this,
there is something to be said about the fact that people
might want to optimize for this thing.
Let's look at the Nintendo Switch.
Now I'm not saying that this thing is going to sell like
the Nintendo Switch. No, definitely not.
But when you see how much the Switch has pulled in numbers,
it's no surprise that, you know, things like,
like companies like Bethesda would want to release Skyrim on
it for like the third generation in a row.
But like there's an incentive for them to do that.
Cause they know people will buy or at least there's a
consumer base there that would be willing to, you know,
get that software in there.
- So my question to you,
I think really the big question for the video.
Say you are someone who does not have a Switch,
does not have anything you want to get into some kind of
portable gaming system.
Does it make sense to purchase the Switch OLED or the
Steam Deck, knowing what you know right now.
- Knowing what I know right now, I mean,
a lot of it really comes down to the games.
I think that I'm buying each of those consoles for two
different reasons.
If I'm going to buy a Switch because I want to play in it,
I want to play Nintendo games.
I'm going to buy a Steam Deck because I want to play F1
2021. And I want to play it on the go.
- The thing with the Switch is that up until this point,
you pretty much had two camps of people
who want to play the Switch.
You either have people who wanted to play the latest,
you know, Mario Golf or Super Smash
or whatever you want to play, right?
Or you had people who were playing Doom and some of these
games that were AAA titles that did land on like the PS4 and
the Xbox One and whatnot. And they were, you know,
sort of crammed in to the Switch. The problem is,
is that now that the Switch is hitting, you know,
five years old or whatever, we've got the Switch OLED,
no Switch Pro in sight.
I don't think that those ports that we've been seeing of
games like Doom are going to continue for much longer.
Now that the development side
has really switched over to these new consoles.
The Switch simply does not have
the performance to handle it.
- I don't know about that.
Here's the thing like,
they will always play to the lowest common denominator
and I think the generation will suffer because of it,
But I think it will suffer before it gets better.
- My thing though, is that while yes,
I do think you have a point there, to me,
it seems like it's going to hit, very very quickly,
we're going to hit a point where games simply just cannot be
ported to the Switch.
You would have to strip them so far down. I mean,
even you look at a lot of games that were for PS4, Xbox One,
you look at these games that are running like 480p,
like 20 FPS, like, I mean,
they're ringing every bit of performance out of the Switch
to hit it. Whereas you look at the Steam Deck,
you actually have the flexibility to either have them
optimized for Steam OS
and running natively on the Steam Deck,
or you load a copy of Windows on the Steam Deck and boom,
suddenly you've got yourself a gaming PC.
You can load up whatever settings you want.
To play devil's advocate here.
Battery life is also something that is a bit concerning.
Now they give a very wide range of two to eight hours.
I would assume that you're probably gonna fall somewhere in
the middle of that. To me,
like most games are probably gonna be in that kind of three,
four hour range, but two hours.
I think if you're seeing a lot of games hit two hours,
that's something I'd be a little concerned about.
- Look, guys,
are you really going to take this big console outside for
more than three hours to really tax that battery life? I,
I'm not convinced that this thing is that small,
where you're going to want to take this around everywhere.
Now our, our colleague,
Matt Ansini wants to actually use this on his couch.
He wants to, you know, grind his MMOs.
I can understand that,
but I don't think it's as portable as taking it on the bus
or taking it on your commute. Maybe like on a plane,
I could see people wanting to do that.
I have a lot of friends that actually take their GPD Wins
on the plane.
So there's this product called the Hori Split Pad Pro.
- Oh yeah. Much more comfortable to play in my opinion.
- Much more comfortable to play, which is,
I think kind of what the Steam Deck is going for.
That Split Pad Pro does not leave the house. It's huge.
- It's huge. Huge.
- Can I put a tinfoil hat theory on?
- Tinfoil hat, why yes. Ken.
- So this is more an obvious point,
but I'm sure it's something that many people probably aren't
thinking about because they're so excited about this God
(oof) thing that, you know,
beyond just wanting it probably
hasn't crossed people's minds.
I think that they put the pre-order pages up because they
want to gauge how many people would be interested in this
thing. Cause they, there was probably a scenario
where they considered that
people wouldn't want it or at least as much as they do now.
- And this is far enough in advance, you know,
six months plus where they're absolutely going
to put an order in for however many pre-orders they got,
you know, it's almost kind of like a Kickstarter in a way,
you know, people are pre-ordering things.
It's almost like the Tesla mentality, right?
- It's like the Cyber Truck,
this is the Cyber Truck of gaming consoles.
- You're like, ah,
I'll order the truck, whatever.
I actually think you're right.
I think they're probably directly using the pre-orders
to determine how many consoles and
systems they order for the first wave and the second wave,
et cetera, et cetera,
which is why you can still pre-order it now,
it's just that you may get it in a year at this point.
- Yeah. I mean, none of us were able to get our
pre-orders in so...yeah.
- I just realized that means I'm gonna have to buy one for
like a thousand dollars on eBay when it comes out.
Aren't I?
- Or if we have some friends over at Valve
that secretly watch the channel.
- Yeah. Don't email Ken though.
He'll just steal it for Mystery Tech, email me.
So very curious,
What do you think about the Steam Deck and would you choose
it over the Nintendo Switch OLED,
let us know in the comments below,
make sure to subscribe and ring-a-ling that ding-a-ling bell
for lots of future Steam, Nintendo news updates.
Are we gonna do more Steam Nintendo news updates?
- Depends. Is Nintendo going to give us a Switch Pro?
- No, that's never happening.
Come on. Let's be honest here.
That's not happening anymore.
- I just want to play Super Mario Tennis Aces
in 4K Ultra HDR.
- Yeah, you can probably emulate that on the Steam Deck.