Ages ago, I recall Valve having announced their Steam Deck console. They released some more details about the hand-held device last week during a Steamworks Virtual Conference, and it appears that the hype may well be worth something.

Global supply chain issues have seen the device delayed until at least February of 2022, but fortunately that's only just a little bit longer to wait past the original promised release date, which was December 2021. The specs for the Steam Deck have been out for awhile - Valve and AMD revealed that the custom AMD chip powering the console is called the Aerith SoC - so they continued to highlight this partnership during the conference.

The four-core, eight-thread Zen2 CPU and AMD RDNA 2 GPU contained within the chip were included with the idea of consistency in mind, rather than trying to hit high frequencies. What this means is that the Steam Deck should offer a consistent gaming experience across all of the titles you play on it. If Valve and AMD had tried to hit higher frequencies, the chip might offer better frame rates, but it could also lead to performance issues and a battery that drains much more quickly. Understandably, both companies wanted to avoid this.

November 12th's virtual conference was aimed largely at game developers looking to port their games onto the Steam Deck, so a lot of focus was placed on highlighting developer tools that can ensure games run their very best. There are a lot of things that go into porting games onto other platforms, but it looks like Valve is trying to make it as easy as possible for devs to ensure their games look the best they can when they're on the Steam Deck.

Are you getting a Steam Deck? I'd love to hear what you think!