- 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
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And of course, huge thank you to SetApp for
sponsoring this video. 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.
