What seems to be a really early Steam Deck pattern has apparently been snapped on eBay for 2 grand, and it appears fairly completely different from the gaming handheld we all know and love at present. For a begin, there’s a flash of shade, with some blue on just a few of the buttons, somewhat than the all-black last model. The touchpads are additionally round, somewhat than sq., very similar to those on the unique Steam controller for desktop PCs.
The tip results of Valve’s R&D efforts, the acclaimed Steam Deck, has gone on to turn into the very best gaming handheld you should buy proper now. Valve put a load of labor into making the system straightforward to make use of, although, and can have made a number of prototypes. In keeping with a badge on the bottom of the unit, we’re engineering pattern quantity 34. The badge additionally clearly says “not for resale,” and we will already see how that labored out.
The itemizing itself has now disappeared, however there’s a screenshot of it on SteamDeckHQ, which reveals the unique asking value was $2,999.99. In the meantime, over on the Reddit r/SteamDeck channel, a person referred to as Gary_the_mememachine additionally shared a number of the photographs of it. You may nonetheless discover a abstract of the itemizing by looking on public sale web site aggregators, reminiscent of 130Point (as proven on the backside of the picture under), which reveals that the system has now bought for $2,000.
One of many photographs reveals the BIOS of the system, which reveals it having 8GB of DDR4 reminiscence, in comparison with 16GB of LPDDR5 within the last model, and the itemizing additionally says it has 256GB of storage. The system within the photographs appears similar to the one shared in a submit on X (previously Twitter) by Valve Steam Deck coder Pierre-Loup Griffais, which he mentioned contained a Picasso APU, with “about half of the GPU energy of the ultimate Deck.”
Picasso was primarily based on AMD’s Vega GPU structure, which had 192-704 stream processors, relying on the configuration, and got here out earlier than AMD’s first RDNA chips, with no ray tracing capabilities.
Whereas the essential format remains to be recognizable as a Steam Deck, there are some basic variations between this alleged prototype and the ultimate Steam Deck. The buttons on the again of the prototype are flat, for instance, in comparison with those that curve across the grips on the completed Steam Deck. The prototype additionally curves outwards on the sides in massive bulges, whereas the facet edges of the top Steam Deck are straight.
The air vents are additionally on the high of the bottom on this engineering pattern, in comparison with the underside of the bottom on the completed design. The joysticks on the entrance additionally look like smaller on this alleged prototype, though the button format is in any other case similar to the completed design, however with just a few different-shaped buttons.
It may very well be a pretend, after all, however this appears reliable to me. Valve has beforehand issued footage of its prototype Steam Decks, as seen in its Steam Deck booklet, and this alleged prototype has equally formed and coloured buttons to the one circled within the picture from the booklet under.
Apparently there isn’t even an OS put in on this prototype, however the same machine shared in Pierre-Loup Griffais’s X submit is proven to have the ability to boot into SteamOS and run Half-Life 2, so it’s attainable this machine’s new proprietor might even be capable to play some video games on it, in addition to proudly owning a bit of piece of gaming historical past.
When you personal a normal, non-prototype Steam Deck, take a look at our information to the very best Steam Deck video games to seek out some new titles to play, in addition to our information to the very best Steam Deck dock should you’re seeking to hook up your deck to different gadgets.
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