Steam Deck

Valve's Steam Machine series of gaming computers using Linux-based SteamOS was introduced in 2015, which worked their way into the conception of the Steam Deck. Valve quietly pulled back on it by April 2018, but stated they remained committed to providing some type of open-hardware platform. Steam Deck designer Scott Dalton said "there was always kind of this classic chicken and egg problem with the Steam Machine", as it required the adoption of Linux by both players and game developers to reach a critical interest in the machines to draw manufacturers in making them. The lack of Linux game availability during the lifetime of Steam Machines led Valve to invest development into Proton, a Linux compatibility layer to allow Windows–based games to be run on Linux without modification. Valve revealed the Steam Deck on July 15, 2021. The Deck, existing in three different models based on internal storage options, was shipped starting in February 2022 in North America and Europe, with other regions to follow throughout the year. Valve's CEO, Gabe Newell, said of the Steam Deck's approach, "As a gamer, this is a product I've always wanted. And as a game developer, it's the mobile device I've always wanted for our partners." According to Newell, they wanted to be "very aggressive" on the release and pricing strategy as they considered the mobile market as their primary competitor for the Deck. However, their focus was on the unit's performance; Newell stated, "But the first thing was the performance and the experience, [that] was the biggest and most fundamental constraint that was driving this." Newell recognized that the base pricing was somewhat lower than expected and "painful", but necessary to meet the expectation of gamers who would want the Deck. The openness of the system was also a key feature according to Newell, as that is a defining "superpower" of the personal computer space over typical console systems. Newell did not want to have any limitations on what the end user could do with the hardware, such as installing alternate non-Steam software on it. As early as December 2022, Valve was pursuing improvements on the Steam Deck, including per-game "power profiles", and some other performance improvements, as well as evaluating a second generation Steam Deck. Valve was also considering bringing some of the Steam Deck technology into a new Steam Controller 2. Valve announced two new Deck models to be available for purchase in November 2023, both with OLED screens, extended battery capacity, and improved cooling features, among other hardware modifications to improve connectivity and efficiency; however, no changes were made to the Deck's overall performance. These models replace two of the existing models. Hardware designers for Valve stated that they would have wanted to include OLED screens for the original launch models, but at the time, OLED screens of sufficient size and quality did not yet exist on the market, and they would have had to delay release by 12 to 18 months if they went on that route. Alongside the announcement of the OLED models, Valve stated they are working towards a Steam Deck 2 with overall system improvements including the CPU and GPU chips, but these systems will likely not be ready for two to three years. System designer Lawrence Yang said they wanted to wait for a "generational leap" of CPUs with better computing power without significant power requirement increases before implementing a new version of the Steam Deck; this was reiterated by Valve's software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais in discussing the newly-announced Steam Frame and second iteration of the Steam Machine (computer) and Steam Controller in November 2025, saying "We're not interested in getting to a point where it's 20 or 30 or even 50% more performance at the same battery life. We want something a little bit more demarcated than that. So we've been working back from silicon advancements and architectural improvements, and I think we have a pretty good idea of what the next version of Steam Deck is going to be, but right now there's no offerings in that landscape, in the SoC landscape, that we think would truly be a next-gen performance Steam Deck." ==Hardware==

LCD models The original Steam Deck was launched in February 2022 and included a custom AMD APU based on their Zen 2 and RDNA 2 architectures, named Aerith, after the Final Fantasy VII character Aerith Gainsborough. The CPU runs a four-core/eight-thread unit and the GPU runs on eight compute units with a total estimated performance of 1.6 TFLOPS. Both the CPU and GPU use variable timing frequencies, with the CPU running between 2.4 and 3.5 GHz and the GPU between 1.0 and 1.6 GHz based on current processor needs. The thumbsticks and trackpads use capacitive sensing, and the unit further includes a gyroscope to allow for more specialized controls on the handheld mode. stereo sound out via a digital signal processor, an integrated microphone and a headphone jack, At release, Steam Decks were only manufactured in a black casing to reduce the complexity of production, though Valve stated that they have considered introducing other case colors or themes in the future. Valve partnered with iFixit to provide replacement parts for users. The unit shipped in three models based on internal storage options. The base model includes a 64 GB eMMC internal storage unit, running over PCI Express 2.0 x1. A mid-tier model includes 256 GB of storage through an NVMe SSD device, while the high-end unit includes a 512 GB NVMe SSD storage unit, with the latter two both shipping with drives that run PCI Express 3.0 x4. All 3 SKUs use the same M.2 2230 interface for internal storage. Additional storage space is available through a microSD card slot, which also supports microSDXC and microSDHC formats. The developers considered the Steam Deck to be future-proof. While the specifications are modest compared to high-end gaming computers, they felt that the performance was at a good place that would be acceptable for many years, while still looking at newer software improvements, such as the addition of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). Though they do not have any current designs for a successor, Valve stated that there would likely be future iterations of the hardware in years to come, but the company expects the timing of releases to depend on the current state of processor technology and handheld device limitations rather than a regular upgrade cycle. the 64 GB LCD and 512 GB LCD models were discontinued. The two discontinued models received price cuts and would be sold until the beginning of December 2024, when they received a further price cut and stock ran out. Around December 20, 2025, the remaining 256 GB LCD model was quietly discontinued, with a similar note that production had ended and that it would continue to be available until stock ran out. Around February 17, 2026, stock ran out for the 256 GB LCD model (as well as both OLED models). OLED models Two new models were released on November 16, 2023, the 512 GB OLED and the 1 TB OLED. The 64 GB LCD and 512 GB LCD original units were discontinued, with the 256 GB LCD version becoming the new base model. The new base and flagship models (256 GB LCD and 1 TB OLED) were priced the same as the old base and flagship models (64 GB LCD and 512 GB LCD). The OLED deck includes a revised APU based on 6 nm processor production named Sephiroth, named for the Final Fantasy VII character. In addition, a limited edition of the 1 TB model was released in North America exclusively, which has translucent plastic casing and selected orange-colored components. Since early 2026, availability of the newer Steam Deck models was low or out of stock in several regions, attributed to the global memory supply shortage. Dock unit A dock unit was released on October 6, 2022. The dock unit can be connected to an external power source to power the Deck, and to an external monitor via either HDMI or DisplayPort protocols to route output from the Deck to that monitor. With SteamOS update 3.5.5, the dock unit was also made to support variable refresh rate monitors. The dock also supports Ethernet network connectivity and support for USB connections for controllers or other input devices. although testing via the M2 slot has demonstrated that eGPUs are capable of running when connected to the Deck. ==Software==

Operating system showing Steam Deck specification Steam Deck runs SteamOS version 3, based on the Arch Linux operating system. While SteamOS had been previously developed for Steam Machines using Debian Linux, Valve stated that they wanted to use a rolling upgrade approach for the Deck's system software, a function Debian was not designed for, but which is a characteristic of Arch Linux. An application programming interface (API) specific for the Steam Deck is available to game developers, allowing a game to specify certain settings if it is being run on a Steam Deck compared to a normal computer. Within the Steam storefront, developers can populate a special file depot for their game with lower-resolution textures and other reduced elements to allow their game to perform better on the Steam Deck; Steam automatically detects and downloads the appropriate files for the system (whether on a computer or Steam Deck) when the user installs the game. The version of Steam on the Deck otherwise supports all other functions of Steam, including user profiles and friends lists, access to game communities, cloud saving, Steam Workshop support, and the Remote Play feature. Remote Play allows the Steam Deck to be used as a controller for a game running on a computer, providing additional control options beyond traditional keyboard and mouse or common controller systems. Otherwise, games that do not take advantage of the Steam Deck API have the handheld's controller input automatically converted for them. For example, the touch-sensitive controllers on the Deck translate input appropriately for games that typically rely on keyboard and mouse controls. Games The Deck displays compatible games from the Steam storefront. Games developed for Linux run natively, however, the SteamOS software also includes support for Proton, a compatibility layer that allows games developed for Windows to be played on the Linux-based SteamOS. According to ProtonDB, a community-run database that compiles information on game compatibility of Steam games within Linux using Proton, several of Steam's more popular game releases were not yet compatible with Proton primarily due to anti-circumvention and anti-cheat controls or digital rights management (DRM). Valve stated they were working with vendors of these middleware solutions to improve Proton support while also encouraging Linux-specific versions to be developed. Epic Games' Easy Anti-Cheat, one of the more popular anti-cheat options for developers, was made available for macOS and Linux systems in September 2021, which Epic stated that developers could easily transition for the Proton layer. Valve worked with Epic over the end of 2021 to make the transition of Easy Anti-Cheat to Proton simple for developers. Another popular anti-cheat solution, BattlEye, also affirmed their software was ready to work with the Proton layer and only required developers to opt-in to enable it. Valve stated that in testing games otherwise currently available on Linux or compatible with the Proton layer, they had yet to find a game that failed to meet a minimum 30 frames-per-second performance on the handheld, a performance metric comparable to the consoles of the eighth generation. The Proton layer includes support for AMD's upscaling technology FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR); while Proton also supports Nvidia's DLSS upscaling solution, it is not compatible with the Deck. Due to potential confusion on game compatibility, Valve introduced a process in October 2021 by which they brought in additional staff to review games on Steam to make sure a game is fully playable on the Steam Deck. Games that are confirmed to be compatible with the Steam Deck, including those with Proton and any middleware DRM solutions, that by default meet minimum performance specifications, are marked as "". Games that may require some user tinkering with settings, such as having to use a system control to bring up the on-screen keyboard, are tagged as "Playable". Another category, "Unsupported", are games that Valve has tested to not be fully compatible with the Steam Deck, such as VR games, or games using Windows-specific codecs that have not yet been made compatible with Proton or software apps. These ratings are to change over time as both the Steam Deck software improves as well as updates made by developers to games to improve compatibility with the Steam Deck software. By 2025, several other portable gaming computers had been released, with Valve preparing SteamOS to be used as the operating system for these devices. As part of a May 2025 update, Valve included a subset of the Steam Deck compatibility system to aid users on these alternate devices to help with identifying compatible games. Users download games onto the Steam Deck to store on either the internal storage or SD card, each storage device treated as a separate Steam Library for games. This allows SD cards with different Steam Libraries to be swapped in and out. Valve is exploring the ability to pre-load games on an SD card outside of the Deck, such as through a personal computer. The ability to download games onto the Steam Deck from a local network Steam installation was added in February 2023. While the Deck was designed for playing games on the Steam storefront, desktop mode allows for installation of third-party storefronts like Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, or Origin. It is possible to replace SteamOS with a different operating system entirely or set up multi-booting. Newell stated that Valve would support Microsoft in bringing Xbox Game Pass to Steam and Steam Deck if they want that route. With the system's open nature, users have also been able to add emulators to run games that users own from other consoles or computer systems. Desktop interface and third-party utilities The Deck's operating system can also be launched into desktop mode, which uses the KDE Plasma desktop environment with an immutable file system. A range of third-party software tools have been developed to bring additional utility to the device, typically installed through the desktop mode on the deck. Examples include SteamOS plugin loader Decky, emulation manager EmuDeck and the batocera.linux distribution. The Steam Deck was used as a remote control for animatronics at Walt Disney World. It was also used for remote-operated gun turrets by Ukrainian forces defending positions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ==Release==

Pre-orders for the Steam Deck were opened a day after its announcement. For the planned release in Asian regions, Valve worked with KOMODO to help with local production, localization, and distribution support. The Steam Deck was released on February 25, 2022, in North America and the European regions. In Europe, it retailed from €419 onwards, between in the United Kingdom, from 4,300 kr in Denmark and between 3,987–4,219 zł in Poland. As part of the Steam Deck's launch, Valve released Aperture Desk Job, a spinoff game in the Portal series, for free on March 1, 2022, available to all Windows and Linux/SteamOS users. The game is a de facto technology demonstration designed to show off the features of the Steam Deck, though it is still playable with an external controller. To assist in developing and testing software for the Steam Deck, Valve released SteamOS Devkit Client and Server under open-source licenses. Drivers for Windows are provided by Valve and AMD, but Valve does not provide support for them. During the first few days of release, Newell himself directly delivered some of the first Steam Deck units to residents in the Seattle area. Due to its popularity, some pre-order purchasers were informed that later shipments of the 64 GB model and 256 GB NVMe models would be in Q2 2022 and the 512 GB NVMe model by Q3 2022. Valve informed pre-purchasers in November 2021 that due to the ongoing global chip shortage, the device would fail to ship by December and instead would ship in February 2022, retaining the same order for delivery based on pre-order placement. and by August 2022, Valve's production was outpacing expectations, allowing them to send out Steam Decks to consumers that were originally anticipated to ship in the final quarter of the year. Valve was able to fulfil all reservations by October 2022, opening the Steam Deck to purchase without reservation, though Valve tentatively will return to a reservation system should demand be too high. In December 2022, the Steam Deck was officially released for sale in Asia. In October 2024, Valve announced that after 2 years since its release the Steam Deck will be made officially available to the Australian market from November. It was released on November 19 retailing for between . ==Reception==

Critical reception The initial reaction to the announcement of the Steam Deck was positive. Epic Games' Tim Sweeney and Xbox Game Studios' Phil Spencer complimented Valve on the Steam Deck, with Sweeney calling it an "amazing move by Valve!" Spencer congratulated Valve "on getting so many of us excited to be able to take our games with us wherever we decide to play". Many outlets compared the unit to that of the Nintendo Switch, generally recognized as the first true hybrid video game console. Valve stated that they did not really consider the Switch in designing the Deck, as they "tried to make all the decisions really in Steam Deck that targeted that audience and that served the customers that were already having a good time interacting with the games that are on that platform, on our platform", and that by happenstance, came out with a device that was similar in function to the Switch. The Verge stated that the Steam Deck was generally a more powerful machine compared to the Switch but that power came with a tradeoff in battery life which was greater with the Switch. Furthermore, The Verge recognized that the specifications of the Deck were more comparable to the power of the consoles of the eighth generation like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, though using more recent compute/micro- and graphics architectures than that which powered those older systems. Digital Foundry noted that while the Deck's hardware may be more powerful, game developers only developing games for the Windows operating system are not necessarily able to get low-level access to the CPU/GPU as developers working on the Switch due to the Proton compatibility layer. One of the main criticisms of the Steam Deck highlighted by multiple reviewers has been its battery life. Matt Hanson writing for TechRadar stated, "the battery life of the Steam Deck is pretty poor, with it just about managing one and a half hours while playing God of War ... That's going to upset a lot of people who may have been planning on using the Steam Deck for long flights, for example" and that "it certainly makes this portable gaming system feel less ... well, portable." Matt Miller of Game Informer called the device's battery life "punishingly low". Steve Hogarty wrote in The Independent that "The battery life is by far the Steam deck's biggest weakness. The handheld PC chugs through juice like it's going out of fashion, with some graphically demanding games draining a full charge in as little as two hours of playtime." Seth G. Macy wrote for IGN in very similar terms, saying, "Beyond that limitation, the biggest, most deflating issue I've had has been battery life. It's all over the place and probably the biggest reality check when it comes to realizing the dream of truly untethered PC gaming." Richard Leadbetter of Eurogamer said he "can't help [but] feel that elements like fan noise and battery life can only be resolved with a revised processor on a more efficient process node." Sales The research firm Omdia reported that the Steam Deck sold 1.62 million units in 2022. Their report estimated that the Steam Deck would pass 3 million units sold since its launch sometime during 2023. Market research firm International Data Corporation estimated that between 3.7 and 4 million Steam Decks had been sold by the third anniversary of the device in February 2025. ==Legacy==

The Steam Deck is credited with triggering a wave of similar handheld gaming computers. This includes the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go, which both launched in 2023, and the MSI Claw A1M which launched in 2024. The ROG Xbox Ally, a collaboration between Asus and Microsoft based on Windows with support for Xbox Game Pass and storefronts like Steam, was announced in June 2025, drawing similar comparisons to the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck has also influenced game development for personal computers. As to assure their games are marked as Steam Deck Verified, developers have optimized their game to work at the CPU and GPU processing power that the Deck provides as to support 60 fps at 1080p with support for frame generation, rather than aiming for higher resolutions and framerates, and generally allowing the game to work across a wider range of personal computers. == See also ==