#SteamDeck

Valve began in 1996 as a game developer. Valve’s notable game franchises include Half-Life, Portal, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, and Dota 2. In 2003, Valve created the first version of Steam, which is now the most popular PC gaming platform worldwide. Steam now serves over 200 regions with a catalog including over 30,000 titles. Valve’s first hardware product, the Steam Controller, was shipped in 2015. Other Valve hardware has included virtual reality headsets, a game controller, and streaming devices for use with a television, gaming PCs, and now, Steam Deck.

The games Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Portal, and Dota are all successful game franchises which began as community PC-based projects. Features of Steam often come straight from our game developer partners, or customers who have ideas for how to make PC gaming better. There is a whole Workshop on Steam devoted to game features and content that is created by and for the community.

SteamOS, which powers the Steam Deck, is a full general-purpose operating system, allowing all users to run whatever software they want— productivity apps, game development programs, or literally anything else that can run on a PC. We are excited that Steam Decks will get used for all kinds of things that are impossible to do on other consumer gaming hardware. Valve, as a company, is itself designed and organized based on the same principles of openness and access that define the open PC community . A good idea for a game, a Steam feature, or a hardware product can come from anywhere—an employee, a partner, or a member of the community. Steam Deck reflects this core Valve philosophy. Its hardware is meant to be upgraded and modified. Its system software is open and accessible to users. And the games that run on it are modifiable, and are available from many different storefronts. All of these attributes are intentional choices, and are themselves a source of innovation and value for Steam users. Because the creativity of the community can be applied to any of these areas, and the community’s creativity is unencumbered by any part of the platform. Steam Deck is:
A game console that can also make games.
Hardware meant to be hacked.
An open OS with capabilities that will be expanded by the community.
When you’re done playing games, what will you MAKE with your Steam Deck?

In 2002, there wasn’t a reliable way to get important software updates distributed to gamers worldwide. This was not great, especially for our multiplayer games which required all players to use the same version of each game to connect and have a good experience. The answer was Steam, which we shipped in 2003 to give our customers a quick and automatic way to get game updates. The app quickly expanded into a place to purchase and download entire games. So we added features to Steam and worked with other games studios, and soon you could purchase, download, and update games from other developers as well. Over the last 20 years, Steam has become the most popular PC gaming destination, growing into a global platform available in hundreds of regions. Up to 27 million people are playing games on Steam at any given time, and there are over 130 million active players every month. There are now over 30,000 titles on Steam. Whether it’s AAA games like Monster Hunter Rise and Elden Ring, or indie games like Hollow Knight and Stardew Valley, there are games for everyone from just about any genre imaginable. The Steam store actively helps you discover great games. You can follow curators, read player reviews, and see what your friends recommend. We’ve even built tools that let you tinker with the discovery process, like the Interactive Recommender, which uses machine learning to predict which games you will love based on what you’ve played in the past.

In addition, all your save games, inventory, personalization, and other data will be accessible from any PC, as well. Steam can be installed on Windows, MacOS, and Linux PCs. Steam libraries are even accessible remotely via phones, tablets, and TVs through the Steam Link app. You can log in to any PC, and all your games will be there. We don’t believe in software that locks itself to being used only on one device (and we don’t believe in trying to enforce platform exclusives) because those aren’t things that customers ask us for. There are 130 million monthly players using Steam, and the community is thriving. Steam makes it easy for you to connect with friends and other players, whether by playing together, chatting, sharing tips on forums, and more. Steam prominently displays your friends’ current status, and what games they are playing. You can chat, watch friends’ broadcasts, and invite friends to play multiplayer games together. Your purchases stay with your Steam account. So even if you buy a new computer, all your games will be fully accessible on the new machine. You can customize your experience with avatars, profiles, badges, and digital items designed by game developers. You can even grant other players awards if you love the way they customized their profile, or if they made a really great post on a forum. And you can post and share screenshots, artwork, guides, and mods from all the games that you love.

One example is controls—we think you should be able to use whatever controller you want to, whether it’s for comfort, accessibility, or just personal preference. The Steam Input system lets you play any game with basically any controller, whether it’s a Switch Pro controller, an XBox Adaptive Controller, a keyboard and mouse, a racing wheel, or even a dance pad. . The community is also incredible at tinkering and modifying their gaming experience to create new experiences—sometimes even new games, out of an existing one. Most of Valve’s own games like CounterStrike and Dota 2 started this way (and some of our employees at Valve were discovered through the mods they created!). The Steam Workshop now makes it easier for the community to contribute and upload anything from adding new graphical features, crafting new items, creating new missions or stories, or even entirely new game modes.

We’ve built robust tools for creating Store pages where developers can describe their game for players, tools for tracking the visibility and performance of their game with customers, and clear and detailed financial reports for sales and activations. Over 80 payment methods and smart regional pricing in over 35 currencies make it easy for developers to make their games available to players around the world. We also want to make sure developers don’t have to re-invent the wheel at every turn, so we build in features like Steam Input, Steam Workshop, cloud saves, matchmaking, achievements, leaderboards, inventory service... the list goes on and on. We’ve added the ability for game developers to get feedback and build a community around their games before they are complete. They can ship free demos of their games, and they are a great way for future players to get a taste. Early Access is a way for developers to sell their game while it’s still being developed—they can gather valuable feedback, build a following, and make sure they have a solid game in place by launch day. Finally, the Steam Playtest feature allows developers an easy way to run beta tests of their games with a closed set of participants.

To ensure great download speeds and a reliable, consistent connection for any games using our services, we run our own huge network of servers and partner with ISPs to deliver content across the globe. In 2021 alone, we delivered nearly 33 exabytes of content to customers. This is as if each of the 330 million people in the USA downloaded a 100GB game. And as always, there are no fees for game developers for install size, bandwidth usage, or game updates. Steam Deck takes advantage of all of the features listed above, because Steam is built right in . The Steam Deck was made to make your Steam library even more valuable, by making it more mobile and available in more places. Since shipping the first version of Steam, our core goal hasn’t changed: we’re always working to make our players happy. The team is constantly listening to feedback from players and game developers, and making updates to Steam features, game developer tools, new technologies, hardware, and more.

The idea of a Steam Deck began around 10 years ago, when we were working on the Steam Controller. Back then there wasn’t any hardware that would let us run AAA PC games within a handheld battery power budget. But we knew that eventually the right hardware would be within reach, so we began to build prototypes By the time we formed our partnership with AMD to work together on a custom APU (combo CPU and GPU), we were ready with a functional design. Many iterations on ergonomics and control placement then happened during the Covid-19 pandemic, requiring the team to ship prototypes to each other for testing. Throughout the product’s development, the core premise has stayed the same—providing a way for customers to take their Steam Library with them on the go, with a powerful handheld all-in-one gaming PC. And just as a reminder, if you purchased a game on Steam, you don’t need to purchase a new version to play on Steam Deck. While the hardware may change and evolve over time, your Steam Library can only grow larger.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/353370/ The Steam Controller required the Steam Input system, which allows players to play any game with almost any controller. This functionality helped make thousands of PC games in the Steam Catalog work with controllers, which in turn made them compatible with Steam Deck http://store.steampowered.com/app/353380/ The Steam Link device helped us create the necessary streaming and networking technologies which later were used in the Remote Play, Remote Play together, and the Steam Link app. These features allow any machine to stream Steam gameplay over the internet, with all the compute happening on the remote computer. This is another core system feature that Steam Deck takes advantage of, allowing for more accessible games and better battery life. http://store.steampowered.com/sale/playwsteammachines/ The standalone computers called Steam Machines helped us learn important lessons about providing OS support for games, as well as what work was required to bring Windows games to Linux. This led us to create Proton, a translation layer that allows Windows games to be played on Linux devices. It’s the bridge that allowed us to massively expand the library of playable games on Linux, making Steam Deck + SteamOS achievable http://store.steampowered.com/app/1059530/ The Valve Index gave us valuable experience about designing, manufacturing, and shipping premium products. We learned more about designing complex devices within very tight size constraints, controller ergonomics that suit hands of all sizes, integrating display technologies, and enabling toptier audio experiences

The Steam Deck is a complete, self contained gaming PC. But instead of a PC tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers and accessories, the Steam Deck is self-contained with hardware, controls, and a screen all built within an easy-to-use handheld form factor.Not only that, but it contains the most powerful graphics hardware of any handheld in the world. The heart of the Steam Deck is its APU. It was collaboratively designed by Valve and AMD, and is built to play the most demanding AAA games on battery power. With 16 GB of RAM, storage options ranging from 64GB to 512GB, and the option of adding up to 2 TB of additional storage with a microSD card, the Steam Deck is built to handle games of all sizes. The onboard controls are optimized for quality and experience, so Steam Deck’s thumbsticks are full-size, just like what’s in your standard gaming controller. In addition, to support traditional PC games that might expect different kinds of input like mouse and keyboard—the Steam Deck has two trackpads, four customizable back buttons, and a built in gyroscope. Steam Deck’s speakers make use of some of the high-quality audio technology developed for our VR headsets. The USB-C port allows nearly infinite expansion with any number of peripherals. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth allow for universal connectivity. And we put the biggest battery we could fit into the Steam Deck, allowing for play sessions of 2-8 hours, depending on what kind of game is being played.

Steam Deck is a PC, but it doesn’t come with Windows. Instead it runs SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system developed by Valve. We made this decision in order to optimize the Steam Deck experience in many ways specifically for gaming. For example, the Sleep / Wake functionality built into Steam Deck is tailored specifically for gaming. It allows you to instantaneously pause a running game and put the Steam Deck to sleep, then come back hours later with the game reliably in the exact same spot. This required custom work on the hardware, firmware, OS, and software. STEP 1: SLEEP STEP 2: WAKE UP RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT OFF We’ll soon be shipping a general installer for SteamOS, enabling any PC to take advantage of all of its features. In addition, we’ll soon be making SteamOS available for other manufacturers who wish to make a gaming device of their own.

The rounded grips make it comfortable to hold for long gaming sessions. The team tested the grip ergonomics and control placement with many different hand sizes, keeping in mind the lessons we’ve learned from the Steam Controller and Index Controller. Steam Deck’s hardware was also designed to be repaired, replaced, or upgraded. The PC community is full of people who love to tinker and upgrade their machines, so we’ve made it easy to open the back cover with standard tools. Parts are clearly marked, and it’s possible (for an experienced customer) to replace many of the main components. We’ve already seen the Steam Deck community successfully replacing the hard drive, attaching an external GPU, 3D printing stands, cases, and attachments, even attaching a PC grade heat sink to the back of the device, for fun (we definitely don’t recommend this one). We’ve also collaborated with iFixit to provide replacement parts for Steam Deck, along with detailed guides for replacing SSDs, fans, displays, and more.

Some features like cloud saves and the controller configurator become much more important on a device like the Steam Deck than a normal PC. For example, Steam Cloud saves allow you to start a gaming session on your PC, and move to your Steam Deck to finish it on the couch. With the controller configurator you can rebind any actions you want, or use a popular community profile in any game. The advances and improvements that we make to Steam on Deck also benefit Steam everywhere. The Desktop version of Steam has already improved in many ways due to the work we’ve done on Steam Deck. Soon, the Steam Deck user interface will be available on PCs that are connected to a TV, and in VR.

The biggest thing that comes with Steam on Steam Deck is the Steam Catalog. While many games run great on Deck out of the box, the shift to a portable form factor means there are some games that, while they may be great on a desktop PC, aren’t a great experience on Steam Deck. So, to make it easy for you to find great gaming experiences on Steam Deck, Valve is testing every game in the catalog to make sure they run well. The ones that work great are marked as Verified. Some work but may have a few manual steps—we mark those as Playable and we show you notes about issues that may warrant their attention. For games that still require more work from Valve or the developer to run well on Steam Deck, we mark those as Unsupported, and treat all of these issues as bugs to fix. We are constantly shipping fixes and updating categorizations for these titles. As of this writing, there are over 4,500 titles categorized as “Verified” or “Playable” on Steam Deck, with more being tested every week. This includes many of the titles you know and love, such as Elden Ring, Tales of Arise, Apex Legends, Resident Evil Village, Scarlet Nexus, and more.

We’ve already talked about how the Steam Deck is built to be repairable and upgradeable. In addition, the USB-C port and Bluetooth enable connectivity to many devices and peripherals. A keyboard and mouse, TVs and monitors, speakers and headphones—these are all expected. But we’ve seen people connect Deck to a VHS player, and even a GBA camera.

We don’t lock Steam Deck to the default Steam experience. It’s easy for you to get to the Linux desktop, where they can install any applications they want, including other game stores. There’s even a built-in app store on the desktop, with web browsers, media players, games, and all sorts of productivity apps, all available for free. SteamOS isn’t the only option for Steam Deck either. Just as with any PC, if you want to install Windows on Steam Deck instead, that’s up to you.

Komodo is an independent game development, publishing, and logistics company whose team once comprised the former game division at Degica, a payments company that provides many payment methods in Asia for Steam and Steam Deck. Komodo publishes over 500 apps and DLC on Steam, provides game cards at retail for popular titles on Steam, and helps distribute our hardware such as the Valve Index in Asia. We are thrilled to be able to rely on Komodo because of their deep regional expertise in retail, marketing, logistics, and customer communication. Komodo is known locally by customers as a trusted provider of entertainment and gaming products, so we are confident that customers in each of these regions agree that Komodo is a natural fit to collaborate with Valve on Steam Deck. Komodo will work closely with Valve to bring Steam Deck to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. They will market and import Steam Decks, providing storage, fulfillment, and returns processing. They will also provide native-language customer support for Asian customers. Following launch, shortly after initial orders have been served, Komodo will bring Steam Deck to various brick-andmortar retailers, providing a way for customers to buy or try a Steam Deck in person.

Steam Deck represents the first in a new category of Steam handheld gaming PCs. In the future, Valve will follow up on this product with improvements and iterations to hardware and software, bringing new versions of Steam Deck to market. Like the original, and like all PCs, these future products will continue to provide access to the same Steam game catalog that gamers already know and love. SteamOS will continue to evolve, including new features and improvements to game compatibility through “Proton”. As of the time of this writing, hundreds of changes have already been made to Steam Deck’s operating system since the device was first shipped. That will continue throughout Steam Deck’s life, well into the future versions of the product. Also, the work that has gone into Steam Deck’s user interface will soon be available through the desktop client, as a new version of “Big Picture”, the version of Steam that’s meant to be used with a game controller and on a television screen. And the compatibility work for Steam Deck will be inherited by other platforms, like ChromeOS, which will soon provide support for Steam gaming for all Chromebook users Anyway, this is a multi-generational product line. Valve will support Steam Deck and SteamOS well into the foreseeable future. We will learn from the Steam community about new uses for our hardware that we haven’t thought of yet, and we will build new versions to be even more open and capable than the first version of Steam Deck has been