The announcement of the Steam Deck caused quite a stir. The portable mini-PC apparently not only offers the opportunity to play Steam games, but can do more, much to the delight of Xbox boss Phil Spencer.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer apparently had the opportunity to play around diligently with the Steam Deck over the past week and apparently he really enjoyed Valve’s portable gaming PC.
On Twitter, Spencer said he was extremely pleased with the display and controls, and he apparently had no problems playing Halo and Age of Empires. Microsoft’s own cloud gaming service xCloud doesn’t seem to cause any problems either.
Was @valvesoftware this week talking w/ Scott, Erik, Gabe about Steam Deck. 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 SD team. pic.twitter.com/q4hWBvkk85
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) August 13, 2021
The fact that Windows can be installed on the Steam Deck instead of the pre-installed Linux system seems to be paying off. This gives you the opportunity to use the Xbox Game Pass for PC, among other things, which gives you access to xCloud. So you are not limited to your Steam library when playing.
The announcement of the Steam Deck hit like a bomb and the pre-orders apparently went very well. It is currently expected that the handheld PC will be delivered in batches to pre-orderers from December 2021. So it will be interesting to see whether Steam Deck will be a success or another flop from the Valve hardware department like the Steam controller.
Valve has very surprisingly announced a handheld for PC gaming with the Steam Deck. We talk in detail about the new device, our first impressions and the chances of success on the market.
