The success or failure will be determined by non-technical factors, I believe. The hardware is a no-brainer. A lot of fun could be had with it.

But most of the world's population won't be able to immediately or easily access the product i.e. as a Valve customer, you basically Don't Exist if you live outside the vaunted panaceas of "USA, Canada, the EU, or the UK".

And the final market product will have Today's specs in 2022's world. Presumably at 2022 prices (I don't put a lot of faith in pre-announced prices 6-12 months out).

Valve do cool stuff and I'd love to have one of these products. Just as I would love to have had an Index and experienced Half Life:Alyx, for example - but cannot, without taking expensive risks. On the other hand, mere months after the fact it warrants barely a murmur in the world.

And indeed, the gaming handheld which arrives to market in 2022 will have some pretty stiff competition, because the gaming world is moving quickly and we're entering refresh phase.

mothergoose729 wrote on Yesterday, 14:53:

It will be steam OS which is based on linux, but I feel reasonably confident that valve will leave the boot menu accessible some […]
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cyclone3d wrote on Yesterday, 06:09:

It actually looks like a really cool portable, especially for platformers which it will most likely excel at. […]
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It actually looks like a really cool portable, especially for platformers which it will most likely excel at.

The newer AMD APUs are pretty powerful. Pretty sure it won't really run higher end 3D titles at acceptable speeds though.

This actually looks like something I would be interested in.

Looking at the various pages, it can be use for streaming video, etc. Sounds like it will have some version of Windows on it... hmmmm.

It will be steam OS which is based on linux, but I feel reasonably confident that valve will leave the boot menu accessible some how if you want to install windows.

Since it uses a custom APU driver support might be an issue.

I think it's a neat PC at a very aggressive price point. No way they are making money off the sale of the hardware. If I had one given to me I would play with it, but I am not interested in buying one myself. I prefer my handhelds to be smaller and I think battery life will probably be in the 2-4 hours range. My go-to gaming/emulation device is still the GPD X D just because it lasts 8 hours and it fits in my jeans.

They claim you can install PC applications on it. Does Steam OS have some sort of Windows compatibility layer such as Wine?

cyclone3d wrote on Yesterday, 23:28:

They claim you can install PC applications on it. Does Steam OS have some sort of Windows compatibility layer such as Wine?

Yep, their own version/fork called Proton. I'm guessing you could just install Windows on it too.

cyclone3d wrote on Yesterday, 23:28:

mothergoose729 wrote on Yesterday, 14:53:

It will be steam OS which is based on linux, but I feel reasonably confident that valve will leave the boot menu accessible some […]
Show full quote

cyclone3d wrote on Yesterday, 06:09:

It actually looks like a really cool portable, especially for platformers which it will most likely excel at. […]
Show full quote

It actually looks like a really cool portable, especially for platformers which it will most likely excel at.

The newer AMD APUs are pretty powerful. Pretty sure it won't really run higher end 3D titles at acceptable speeds though.

This actually looks like something I would be interested in.

Looking at the various pages, it can be use for streaming video, etc. Sounds like it will have some version of Windows on it... hmmmm.

It will be steam OS which is based on linux, but I feel reasonably confident that valve will leave the boot menu accessible some how if you want to install windows.

Since it uses a custom APU driver support might be an issue.

I think it's a neat PC at a very aggressive price point. No way they are making money off the sale of the hardware. If I had one given to me I would play with it, but I am not interested in buying one myself. I prefer my handhelds to be smaller and I think battery life will probably be in the 2-4 hours range. My go-to gaming/emulation device is still the GPD X D just because it lasts 8 hours and it fits in my jeans.

They claim you can install PC applications on it. Does Steam OS have some sort of Windows compatibility layer such as Wine?

Valve maintains a library called proton which is a capability layer for games similar to WINE. I have read that they will use WINE or other libraries to increase capability (for games). I don't have any experience with steam OS . It's just a distro, you can download it and run it on whatever you want.

https://store.steampowered.com/steamos/

Who knows what they will include in the build for the handheld.

Zup wrote on Yesterday, 18:30:

BTW... will this thing work automatically when not connected? Although Steam has offline mode, it never work well enough so I consider Steam games online games. Will I be able to play on places where I don't have access or I don't want to connect to a WiFi?

I too want it to work fully in offline mode. I never use public wifi (when in a library or wherever) because of the risk of hacking or infection, so I don't want to have to rely on Steam, or any other game launcher that potentially has any always online requirements. It's my property (when I buy one, I mean), so I'd prefer to have full control over it.

I have never had trouble with steam when I wasn't online.