“We started shipping Steam Deck (opens in new tab) just one month ago, and it’s been a huge thrill seeing it out in the wild in players’ hands,” Valve said (opens in new tab). “One of our favorite things about that is finally getting to hear from you about your experience using Steam Deck. This first month has given us a chance to start collecting your feedback as we continue our work to make Deck better in the months and years to come.

The update comes just a month after Valve confirmed that there were over 1000 “verified” Steam Deck games (opens in new tab) – that is, games that Valve has tested to ensure that they run without issues or bugs on its new handheld system – and now, Valve reports it has over 2000 games “Deck Verified”. 

As for the ongoing issue with making games with anti-cheat technology fully compatible?

“One of our top priorities is to support as many titles on Steam as possible, and this includes titles that employ anti-cheat technology. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of developers, service providers, and Proton contributors we’ve made great progress in bringing these games to the Steam Deck community,” Valve explained.

“The two biggest anti-cheat services, BattlEye and Easy Anti-Cheat, now have a streamlined path for developers that choose to enable support for Proton and Steam Deck. Elden Ring and Apex Legends are two examples of games which are taking advantage of this work, so far.”

The update also detailed changes to the way the Steam Store displays on the Deck, and improvements to the keyboard and battery life. 

ICYMI, Valve boss Gabe Newell has confirmed that there are currently no plans for the company to introduce a game subscription service (opens in new tab), like Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass or EA’s EA Play, and Valve’s latest update touched upon that, saying it has “worked closely […] to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to Steam Deck users through the Microsoft Edge browser, and members of the community contributed to the Edge Flatpak that makes this accessible on Steam Deck.”

Still undecided on Steam Deck? In our Steam Deck review (opens in new tab), we said: “Steam Deck is everything Valve promised, a handheld with all the potential of a PC and a huge library of games ready to go,” giving it 4.5 stars out of 5.

We recently learned that despite the popularity and scarcity of its new handheld system, Valve has no plans to increase the retail price of Steam Deck (opens in new tab).

Looking for something new to get stuck into? Here are the best PC games (opens in new tab) right now.

The post Valve says its still working “to make Steam Deck better in the months and years to come” appeared first on Game News.

Just below, you can check out Valve’s Kaci Aitchison revealing that the stunt was all the Valve president’s idea. Aitchison, who accompanied Newell on his delivery run around the Seattle area – said that the video documenting the journey stemmed from the fact that he had missed interacting with customers over the past couple of years.

The delivery process didn’t go entirely to plan – Aitchison mentions during the video that at least one person didn’t entirely trust Valve’s delivery email ahead of their arrival. Newell also commented that he was worried some people might be upset that he’d decided to sign their cases, but personally I can’t imagine that being a problem.

1- This was Gabe’s idea. I thought he was nuts. 2- But I/we all miss interacting with people/customers so I am so glad we did it!3- We picked random Q1 reservation holders nearby. To make sure they’d be home, I told them they had to be home to “sign for delivery”. #SteamDeck https://t.co/LaQ7dp1CR5March 1, 2022

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Original: Valve boss Gabe Newell appears to be hand-delivering signed Steam Deck consoles to customers.

Over the past weekend, a few Reddit posts began to surface from users claiming to have received the Steam Deck by way of none other than Newell himself. The first post, just below, is expanded upon in the comments section, where the recipient claims that his wife received the Steam Deck from Newell, who was accompanied by an entire camera crew.

The post also reveals that Newell signed the protecting case for the Steam Deck. If the claim about the Valve boss being accompanied by a whole camera crew is true, then it’s highly likely we’ll be seeing footage of Newell delivering said Steam Decks at some point in the coming days or weeks.

A second post, just below, reveals Newell actually gave two people a Steam Deck each even though they didn’t order one. In the comments, the user claims that they saw Newell and a camera crew going into a nearby house, and when they shouted out to greet him, he disappeared into a big van and emerged with two signed consoles for them each.

Newell’s been doing a fair bit of publicity over the last year, but this is perhaps a step up from the time he made an appearance at a Q&A session in a New Zealand college. In fact, Newell just confirmed over the past weekend that the Steam Deck won’t be receiving a price hike just yet. As for future price increases though, the door remains open to that possibility.

Check out our full Steam Deck review to see what we made of Valve’s latest technological ambitions.

The post Gabe Newell hand-delivered signed Steam Decks because he missed people appeared first on Game News.

If you’ve managed to nab one straight off the assembly line or are thinking of taking the plunge into the world of portable PC gaming, Valve has a host of information and advice to share. In a blog post (opens in new tab), the company offers some helpful tips on getting started with Steam Deck, from what to do with it straight out of the box to using the Steam Desktop Mode.

It’s advised that you plug in your Steam Deck before powering it up to get the machine out of ship mode. There’ll also be some system updates to do straight off the bat, including an update to the Steam Deck’s BIOS, which is only be required if you’re an early adopter and won’t be needed if you get one from a later batch.

Cramming a whole PC into a handheld device may not come without its issues, so Value has also shared links on where to go if you need support, want to report a bug or have an idea for a feature that you’d like to request.

If you’ve just added a game to your Steam library and want to know if it will play just as well on the go, there’s Steam Deck Verified. This compatibility program allows you to check whether games work great on Steam Deck, require some extra effort to play, or are just plain unsuitable for the platform. And good news for those who have just ventured into the Lands Between, Elden Ring has been given ‘verified’ status. This means it’s passed all compatibility checks and provides a smooth gaming experience; from a technical standpoint anyway, adventuring in From Software games rarely goes smoothly.

There are also instructions on using your Steam Deck in desktop mode. From the Steam menu, simply select ‘Power’ then choose ‘Switch to Desktop”. This lets you use the system more like a regular PC running Linux.

For more information on Steam Deck, check out our guide on price, specs and everything else you need to know.

The post Valve explains what you should do the moment you unpack your Steam Deck appeared first on Game News.

Valve recently shared a big list of new, developer-centric Steam Deck FAQs (opens in new tab), discussing topics such as dev kits, specific hardware concerns, and input for Steam Deck games. The latter topic is a big one, since the device includes joysticks, face buttons, trigger buttons, trackpads, a touch screen, and gyro controls, and Valve doesn’t expect there to be a one-size-fits-all solution for every game. However, it does think gyro controls, “when combined with the joystick or the trackpad, are ideal for a large class of games and something many players will want to use.

“They offer finer precision for people that are used to gamepad inputs, but also take the mouse paradigm from the desktop into a portable form factor.  We recommend trying out this style of input for anyone shipping a game that has player control of a camera or a cursor and seeing if it makes sense for your game.”

Gyro aiming has become more common in console games in recent years, allowing players to do bigger camera movements with their joysticks and then tilt their controller for finer aim. It still isn’t nearly as common as the vanilla twin-stick input approach, but this push from Valve to take full advantage of Steam Deck’s input options may help raise its profile. Now we just have to wait until February for the first Steam Deck systems to start rolling out.

The latest rumors say Valve is working on a new RTS/FPS hybrid set in the Half-Life universe which will serve as a flagship game for Steam Deck, though Valve has no plans for Steam Deck exclusive titles.

The post Steam Deck gyro controls recommended to developers by Valve appeared first on Game News.

Around the time Steam Deck was revealed, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais explained that the company wants “the entire Steam library” to be playable. He added that Valve hasn’t “found something we could throw at this device that it couldn’t handle.”

In a new interview with Linux gaming blog Boiling Steam (opens in new tab) (as spotted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun (opens in new tab)), CodeWeavers president James Ramey took care to separate those two ideas: specifically, the fact that Griffais was only talking about Steam Deck’s hardware being able to handle games, not necessarily its software. CodeWeavers works on the Proton software that lets the Linux-based Steam Deck run games made for Windows, which gives Ramey some uncommon insight into the situation.

“People have kind of taken that and they have said, ‘well, that means it can support the entire Steam library.’ I don’t necessarily think that is true because not every game runs in Proton as of today,” Ramey explained.

“Now I do think that because Proton is a living, breathing project, it’s not something that is static in any way, shape, or form; that there is a lot of effort being poured into Proton to support a broader range of games even that is available then currently today. So you’re going to see that when the Steam Deck is released and Proton is put on the Steam Deck that there is going to be a greater number of titles that are supported.”

Ramey added that a number of groups are working on improving Proton with Valve at the forefront, but he doesn’t specifically have insider knowledge with Valve. His perspective reflects the overall state of the project, though he did tease that Steam Deck will likely be “more robust than people are anticipating” when it arrives in December.

Going back to the official word from Valve, a Steamworks developer video from July specifically says the company’s “goal is for every game to work by the time we ship Steam Deck.” That said, having a goal of every Steam game working on the handheld system is very different from saying that they definitely will.

In less technical but equally important news, Valve is also considering making multiple colors for Steam Deck in the future. 

The post Steam Deck likely wont support every game at launch but its library will grow fast appeared first on Game News.

The announcement came courtesy of Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who teased that earlier this week, he’d spent time with the team at Valve, experimenting with Steam Deck (opens in new tab) and confirming that “Halo” and “Age” (presumably Age of Empires) “feels good” on Valve’s new handheld system.

While it stops short of confirming how, exactly, the streaming service will work on Steam Deck, it’s the first time we’ve had confirmation that Microsoft’s streaming service is compatible with Steam Deck.

“Was @valvesoftware this week talking [with Valve staff] Scott, Erik, Gabe about Steam Deck,” Xbox’a Spencer casually mentioned on Twitter earlier today (thanks, NME (opens in new tab)). “After having mine most of the week I can say it’s a really nice device. Games with me on the go, screen size, controls all great. Playing Halo and Age feels good, xCloud works well. Congrats [the Steam Deck] team.”

Did you catch Rachel’s recent hands-on preview with the Steam Deck (opens in new tab) in which she said the highest compliment she could pay to Valve’s Steam Deck is: would Valve really press charges if she slipped one into her bag as she left?

“We’ve been looking at and working towards the Steam Deck idea for a long time now,” Valve designer Scott Dalton told GamesRadar+ (opens in new tab) in a recent interview. “We only within the last six months passed over a threshold where we felt like we could actually deliver AAA current titles at good frame rates. All the things you would want out of playing your library.

“Being able to hold it in your hands, the battery – there are a bunch of things that have to reach this performance per watt measurement and we’ve only very recently gotten there.”

Missed the big announcement of Valve’s all-new Steam Deck? Compared by many to be the PC equivalent of the Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck is a handheld PC that enables you to carry your Steam library with you wherever you go, and has been balanced to perform equally well regardless of whether it’s docked or on the move (opens in new tab).

Check out how the Steam Deck specs compare to the Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X (opens in new tab) in our breakdown.

The post Microsofts xCloud streaming service “works well” on Steam Deck appeared first on Game News.

Earlier this week, Valve told us that the company was targeting 30 FPS (opens in new tab) gameplay at a native resolution of 800p for Steam Deck (opens in new tab), its AMD-based handheld gaming PC. Concerned fans, however, weren’t sure if that meant 30 FPS was all the handheld machine could manage, which prompted Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais to clarify their statement.

Griffais further added that players could choose between framerate and performance in order to preserve battery life when out and about, and explained that all the games released this year that have been tested on Steam Deck to date have been “running without issues”.

“The ’30 FPS target’ refers to the floor of what we consider playable in our performance testing; games we’ve tested and shown have consistently met and exceeded that bar so far,” Griffais explained on Twitter (thanks, Gamerant). “There will also be an optional built-in FPS limiter to fine-tune [performance] vs. battery life.”

Almost as soon as Steam’s reservation page for the device (opens in new tab) went live at 10 am PDT / 1 pm EDT / 6 pm BST on July 16, the connection to the service became spotty. Several members of GR (including myself!) who were trying to get their personal pre-orders in found the process hung at the payment step, assuming they were even able to get that far. Some of us were even put on time out by Steam for attempting too many orders.

There are three units to choose from, ranging in price from $399 / £349 to $649 / £569 with improved specs to match. The handheld console uses a custom AMD Zen 2 APU to run it, with a quad-core Zen 2 CPU, and 16GB of Ram – which Valve says can comfortably “run the latest AAA games”. It also has a battery life of two to eight hours depending on how demanding your gameplay session is and features a USB-C dock to connect it to external displays with up to 4K or 8K output. 

Valve may have made attempts to prevent scalpers from buying up all the Steam Deck pre-orders for its upcoming handheld system, but it didn’t stop opportunists from auctioning off their pre-orders (opens in new tab).

ICYMI, there’s a Steam Deck website Easter egg (opens in new tab) that pokes fun at the “SteamPal” leak.

Find your next favorite PC game with our guide to the best PC games (opens in new tab).

The post Steam Decks 30 FPS “target” “refers to the floor of what we consider playable in our testing” appeared first on Game News.