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Exclusive: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
Video game and hardware studio Valve has been secretly building a Switch-like portable PC designed to run a large number of games on the Steam PC platform via Linux—and it could launch, supply chain willing, by year's end.
Multiple sources familiar with the matter have confirmed that the hardware has been in development for some time, and this week, Valve itself pointed to the device by slipping new hardware-related code into the latest version of Steam, the company's popular PC gaming storefront and ecosystem.
[...] In recent years, the "Switch-like PC" category has exploded. In early 2020, Alienware revealed its first Switch-like gaming PC, but the "concept" device has not yet turned into a commercial product. If you want to buy a similar device today, you're largely looking at products from Chinese OEMs like GPD, One-Netbook, and Aya, who have slapped ultramobile PC processors and parts into a Switch-like chassis.
Rumors point to an AMD "Van Gogh" APU (Zen 2 quad-core with RDNA 2 graphics and support for LPDDR5 RAM), 7/8-inch screen, at a $400 price point for a Q4 2021 release.
Also at Wccftech.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 26 2021, @06:46PM (3 children)
I wonder how long before Valve fire sales these at $5 each?
Anything that helps gaming on Linux is nice, but I'm not sure how helpful this will actually be. PC games just aren't designed for that form factor. They all expect mouse & keyboard. And on top of that you have the usual Linux compatibility problems (though with Valve qualifying everything in house, at least they'd know). Valve has only whitelisted a small portion of the games that actually work in Proton, and then you have others (Fall Guys coming to mind) where the game itself works fine but the anti-cheat doesn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 26 2021, @06:51PM
VMs can solve all that transparently... If I can do it, I know valve can get it done.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday May 26 2021, @07:32PM
I don't know - a huge number of modern PC games support console (especially Xbox) controllers, and not just the ones designed from the ground up to target multiple platforms games. It's also the platform that practically invented the twin-stick shooter, not to mention using an analog joystick, steering wheel, or various other increasingly specialized controllers for games.
Granted, there's also a lot of games that just won't work well without a keyboard and mouse... but so what? Don't try to play those games on a handheld. It doesn't have to be all things to all people to be really good. The PC is by far the largest gaming platform in the world, even a small fraction of the PCs gaming library dwarfs the library of any other console ever made.
What remains to be seen, is how good it actually is. If it doesn't try to lock things down, and includes a couple USB ports to allow keyboards, etc. to be installed, maybe an HDMI port so it could be hooked up to a TV at will - it might actually be extremely compelling. You could even use it as a real PC. Maybe not quite as convenient as a laptop for that, but if you're mostly a tablet/handheld person anyway, having it double as an on-demand PC could be a substantial bonus, especially when traveling.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday May 26 2021, @08:43PM
You can have a look at how people like the existing ones, like the AYA NEO and GPD Win. Clearly there is interest in the form factor.
Some PC games (I don't know how many) can use an Xbox controller for input, so those games should be able to adapt to Switch-style controls.
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