What could have been
TheSteam Deckis finally releasing across Asia this month, and ahead of its appearance at theTokyo Game Show(complete withunnervingly large replicaof the handheld), Valve held their own launch event with adisplay of several prototype designs.
Unlike the mere low-res images ofabandoned Steam Deck designs weve already seen, however, these were mostly functional PC gaming machines.
Thats according to Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais, whoshared a videoof an early, more rounded-looking Deck booting to SteamOS and loading upHalf-Life 2.
This particular model is still quite close to the final Steam Deck, save for its circular trackpads, blue face buttons and two-tone hand grip design, but the SteamOS version its running looks much less like the eventual UI.
Its still familiar, though, sharing the pixelly startup animation and carousel layout of Steams Big Picture Mode on regular desktop PCs.
Griffais sneak peek doesnt actually show Half-Life 2 running, beyond a few seconds of intense G-Man glaring in the intro, but it might not have looked all that impressive; the prototype is packing an older APU, named Picasso, with about half the GPU power of the finished articles Aerith APU.
The best part is that they (mostly) all still boot, serving as an exciting reminder of how far things have come since.This one has a Picasso APU, at about half of the GPU power of the final Deck.
The flatter ergo was an interesting experiment and taught us a ton about comfort.pic.twitter.com/yLwTtDDYlo
While the Steam Deck has added all manner ofnew featuresandinterface tweakssince it became available across the US, UK, and Europe, is software remains unchanged in broader terms, so its pretty nifty to see what we might have had if Valve decided against a more bespoke SteamOS.
Likewise with the hardware as far as I know this is the first time weve been able to see prototype Decks in the flesh.
Griffais post also calls the prototypes flatter design an interesting experiment and taught us a ton about comfort those teachings can be seen in the protruding (but ergonomically pleasant) grips on the final Steam Deck.
Sadly, it does not appear that the gigantic Steam Deck set for the Tokyo Game Show will be playable as well, perhaps due to the health and safety issues of needing to balance on a stool to reach the buttons.
Still, if you have your own, normal-sized model, you could always try out the30 best Steam Deck games.
