Valve shows off more prototype Steam Decks

Ahead of the Steam Deck’s launch in Asia, Valve has revealed several Steam Deck prototypes for the first time, dating all the way back to 2019.

As part of the Asia launch press event, we made the design lab into a showroom of development history. My favorite are the playable prototypes: bootable Deck family tree from mid-2019 to now, from a couple of hand-built units onto gradual mass production. pic.twitter.com/TpU5I8D50p

— Pierre-Loup Griffais (@Plagman2) September 12, 2022

Valve has never shied away from showing off the Steam Deck in its prototype forms, showing off the console’s iterations in their original press packs.

The handheld PC has gone from an ugly, 3D printed concept to the hugely successful device it launched as.

Comparing these to the original image of every prototype, it seems as though they’ve brought what really could have been. All previous iterations on show are apparently bootable, with some fans lamenting the loss of the rounded touchpads.

Valve

This isn’t the first time that prototype consoles have been demonstrated, with the Sony PlayStation 3 famously being first shown with the boomerang controller. Nintendo has also dabbled, demonstrating how they came to the conclusion of the Wii U’s controller, by physically bolting two Wii remotes onto a screen.

Nintendo

There was also the E3 where the DS was announced, which sported a much different look as it emerged from Reggie Fils Aime’s pocket.

Nintendo also had their original collaboration ideas with Sony leaked into the public eye, which the SNES CD, colloquially named Nintendo PlayStation, sold at auction in 2020 for $300,000.

Valve’s Steam Deck has been a massive success, with the company recently getting through its glut of preorders faster than anticipated. People who ordered relatively recently have reported that they’ve been bumped up from a 2023 delivery date to a September or October slot.

In our review, we said that the Steam Deck was an incredible piece of hardware, but has some massive caveats in terms of being user-friendly. While we were impressed with its huge support for games, it might still trip some people up.

There have also been some rumors of a Steam Deck 2 being worked on, which Valve has said they intend to iterate on concept going forward.