Enter The Console Market, Valve Launches Steam Deck

JAKARTA - After several months of rumors surrounding Valve's console, the gaming company from the United States has finally launched it. Carrying a shape similar to the Nintendo Switch, the console, named the Steam Deck, is scheduled to begin shipping in December.

Starting July 16, today, fans can place orders for this Valve made console. It is sold in three price options: US$399 or equivalent to Rp. 5.8 million, US$529 (equivalent to Rp. 7.7 million), and US$649 (equivalent to Rp. 9.5 million).

This gaming console relies on an AMD APU which is based on a quad-core Zen 2 CPU with AMD RDNA 2 graphics. In the RAM section, the Steam Deck is equipped with a 16GB LPDDR5 capacity. Meanwhile, for the storage section, the company launched three variants of eMMC. 64GB, 256GB respectively, as well as 512GB high-speed NVME SSD storage.

The Steam Deck console has many control options. There are two thumbsticks that can give players a higher level of precision when playing action, battle-royale, or First-Point Shooter games.

On the front, there are ABXY buttons, D-pad, and a 7-inch screen capable of producing 1280 x 800 pixel quality graphics. This gaming device is also supported by a gyroscope so that movement control will be better.

Like the Switch, this portable gaming console has two shoulder trigger buttons located on either side. There are four buttons located on the back. Lastly, the company also includes a built-in microphone.

For durability, the Steam Deck is equipped with a 40W battery capacity that can be used to play games for several hours. For light use such as 2D games, streaming games, or games in the form of websites, this console can be used for up to 7-8 hours.

“You can play Portal 2 for up to four hours using this (Steam Deck, -ed). If you limit it to 30 FPS, you can play it for 5-6 hours," said Valve quoted from IGN, Friday, July 16.

If users want to pause the game, Steam Deck offers a quick suspend or resume feature built into SteamOS. This feature allows the device to enter Sleep Mode and then resume playing whenever you are ready.