Published on
30 Jul, 2021
More than likely, I'm not the only person whose first reaction to the Steam Deck was something along the lines of "didn't Valve already try this?" Valve's hardware products have really run the spectrum from the VR gold standard Valve Index to the less impressive console-like Steam Machine. Sure enough, Valve say that "Steam Deck feels like the culmination of a lot of that earlier work." They say that Proton has been the route to help them solve the "chicken and egg" problem that the Steam Machine fell victim to.
In another interview with IGN, three Steam Deck designers sit down to talk about how the Steam Deck was a puzzle that required solving both hardware and software issues. On the hardware side, they felt that it's only been recently that a handheld device like the Deck could really be expected to play the newest games on their intended settings. Even with handheld-size tech sorted, software has been a sticking point for their hardware plans in the past.