This is clickbait. Valve didn’t use third-party resellers with the Steam Deck for anti-scalping reasons, and it’s unlikely they would for the Steam Deck as well. I’m surprised how many news outlets are leaning into this.

I’m not saying the Steam Machine won’t be that price, though I certainly hope it won’t be. I’m just saying we shouldn’t take a random posting from a random Czech website at face value, considering Valve’s established business model.

The extended trackpads make it more fuckable, tbh.

It’s niche, but has its uses. As the only person who actually liked the original Steam controller, I can attest that Daggerfall is so much more fun with a controller that has a trackpad.

I’m definitely picking it up, but honestly, I don’t see the controller selling very well.

I actually love the touchpads, but it weird that I’m thinking about this more in the context of a media center PC than actually playing games? I definitely wouldn’t use this for all games unless the form factor was really good.

Because, trying to operate Desktop Mode docked on Steam Deck with a controller is…painful, and this controller would be perfect for jumping into a web browser for streaming sites that don’t have Kodi add-ons (Kanopy and Patreon are two that come to mind).

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I didn’t want to get too specific, but by “that sort of thing” I meant not supporting companies who financially contribute to certain political organizations and individuals. That’s a personal decision and I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers on an unrelated thread.

I’ll also say that not everyone wants to build their own PC and would prefer the assurance that everything will just work out of the box, yet still don’t want a locked-down experience that you’d get with consoles. And that’s okay.

Steam Deck was one-of-a-kind for having a console-like pricing model, while having a high ifixit repairability score, and because it’s not a custom build, there’s a tutorial out there for most repairs or other problems you’ll encounter. So that’s pretty reliable in my book.

It’s totally a personal preference thing, but the Deck really deserves the love it’s gotten. The screen and speakers are amazing, which is rare for handhelds. I have high hopes for the AYN Thor as an eventual successor to my 3DS.

I wish it had a more defined upgrade path, I really do. I was actually going to get a Framework 16 until their controversy came to light. For those of us who care for that sort of thing, the only game in town left the building.

So my answer is that this device checks all my boxes except for that. It’s built with Linux in mind, it’s small, it’s not a laptop, it has quality assurance and I don’t have to build it myself, and it can run all my favorite games. And it is still repairable, just not upgradable. But I’m going to get as much life as I can get out of it, and I’m not going to just throw it out or sell it when the next Steam Machine comes around. I’ll make do with what I have until it breaks or becomes unusable.

That sounds like the perfect setup! If the Steam Deck were smaller, that’s exactly what I’d do too.

Curious about this too. I love my Steam Deck, but Desktop Mode is horrible. You can’t install apps from the command line because they just get deleted on every update, including CUPS which made printing a huge hassle. You have to jump through hoops to get it to mount an external hard drive automatically. I could never get Discord voice or video chats to actually work. But if you install a separate distro, you lose out on the performance settings that are locked to Game Mode.

Now that Valve is actually doing a desktop, I’d love to use this as my daily driver so my old ThinkPad can finally rest. I’m hoping Valve will finally fine-tune Desktop Mode so people can actually use it. Or at least not throttle performance if people want to install a different OS. Maybe they could even let us boot directly into Desktop Mode this time?

Companion Cube 😍

The only thing the old Steam Machines were missing a decade ago was good Linux compatibility via Proton, but now we’ve got that! I have literally never been more excited for a new “console.” Goodbye, Steam Deck.