The Steam Deck Celebrates Its First Birthday: A Year of Awesome Experiences

It's been an amazing first year since the Steam Deck started shipping, and I'm excited to share my thoughts on this incredible handheld device. As someone who's had a lot of fun with the Steam Deck since its release, I can confidently say that it's been a pretty awesome experience.

One of the main things I enjoy doing with the Steam Deck is playing my favorite PC games. And I'm not alone – there are over 5,000 Steam Deck-verified and playable games out there! Valve has done an incredible job of saying "yes" to these games, making it easy for us to play our favorite titles on the go. Of course, there's more to the Steam Deck than just PC gaming – emulation is absolutely amazing on this handheld device. You can use something like EmuDeck to get everything set up or do it manually; either way, you'll be able to enjoy games from NES all the way up to Xbox emulation.

Now, I know what you're thinking: how does the Steam Deck hold up when it comes to CPU and GPU performance? To be honest, we're basically right there on the edge of what this hardware can really do. The next thing that really needs to happen is more optimizations from developers – specifically, those geared towards this chipset. All Steam Deck units use the same hardware, so they all run the same operating system (unless you want to install Windows, which I have around for just in case there's a game that isn't Steam Deck-compatible).

In terms of CPU and GPU performance, we're basically right on the edge of what this hardware can do. The next thing that really needs to happen is more optimizations from developers – specifically, those geared towards this chipset. All Steam Deck units use the same hardware, so they all run the same operating system (unless you want to install Windows, which I have around for just in case there's a game that isn't Steam Deck-compatible).

One of the things that really excites me about the Steam Deck is its community support. One of my favorite tools to use with the Steam Deck is Decki, and I've actually done a video on it before! Decki allows you to customize your Steam Deck experience in so many ways – from changing the layout of your home screen to creating custom shortcuts.

Another thing that really stands out about the Steam Deck is its community. Game developers and community creators are still working with the original Steam Deck, and there's more to come with this unit. Definitely keep an eye out!

The Future of the Steam Deck: What to Expect Next

Now that we've talked about the Steam Deck for a bit, let's talk about what's next. There's been some speculation in the community about what the future holds for the Steam Deck – specifically, what kind of hardware upgrades we can expect.

Personally, I think we're going to see a custom Zen 3+ based APu with four cores and eight threads, and maybe even a little bit higher clock speed (around 3.8 or even 4 GHz in some cases). The GPU would also get an upgrade, moving from RDNA 3 to RDNA 3i – this would be nice for smoother gameplay at high frame rates. Sticking with 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM but faster – maybe around 6400 MHz instead of the current 5500 MHz – is also a possibility.

Of course, one thing we can't predict for sure is whether the Steam Deck will get an OLED or AMOLED display. While that would be amazing, it's likely to drive up the price too much. However, I do think we'll see a higher resolution on the Steam Deck, possibly around 1200p.

Keep in Mind: This Is Just Speculation

One thing to keep in mind is that this is just speculation – we don't know for sure what Valve has planned for the future of the Steam Deck! There are some rumors out there about possible upgrades or changes to the hardware, but nothing has been officially confirmed yet. I think it's likely that we'll see a nice little bump in performance, allowing us to take our games up to 60 FPS at around 800p with the AAA titles.

The Price: A Balancing Act

Of course, one of the biggest questions on everyone's mind is what kind of price hike Valve will make when they release their next Steam Deck. The thing is, there's a risk that if they were to up the price by too much (say, 150-200% or more), it would lead to a backlash from customers and game developers alike.

It's likely that Valve will aim to keep the price down while still providing enough performance to justify the upgrade. If we're lucky, they might even surprise us with some amazing new specs! One thing's for sure – whatever happens next, I'll be keeping an eye on it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again the steam deck just celebrated its first birthday since it started shipping so you know in all actuality the steam deck just turned one and I'd say for a first year here on this device it's been pretty awesome for the steam deck itself and even Val so I've had a lot of fun with the steam deck since it was released and the main thing that I usually do here is just play my favorite PC games as long as their steam DAC verified and in fact there's over 5 000 steam deck verified slash playable games that valve has kind of gone over and said yeah it will work on the steam deck which is really awesome but the steam deck does have a lot more to offer than just PC games because uh emulation is absolutely amazing on this handheld you can use something like emu deck to get everything set up or you could do it manually it's really up to you but this will do anything from NES up to Xbox emulation really well now in between there there might be a few games that struggle given the CPU power here but overall I think it's been a very solid device when it comes to PC gaming and emulation but you know in terms of CPU and GPU performance we're basically right there on the edge of what this Hardware can really do the next thing that really needs to happen from developers is just more optimizations uh you know geared towards this chipset here and that's really the great thing about the steam dag all of them use the same Hardware we're all running the same operating system unless you wanted to install Windows which I do have one laying around with Windows on it just in case there's a game that's just not steam deck compatible overall I'd say yeah that this is a handheld console and just like consoles even back to let's say the Xbox 360 we saw some awesome games running on that Hardware that probably should never run that well and it really came down to optimizations from the developer or the game creators themselves and there's no doubt that some developers have really done a great job kind of optimizing settings for the steam deck some of these new games that are hitting the market do have a steam deck preset right there ready to go that way we kind of get the best experience out of this with the the best visual Fidelity that we can out of this 800p display and this is also true when it comes to emulation for instance the dolphin developers have done a really great job trying to get as many games as they can to run at full speed on the steam Deck with their latest updates to the Dolphin Emulator so everybody's making strides to get as much running on the steam deck as possible and this is absolutely amazing that kind of brings me to my next point on why the steam deck is so awesome after a year and that's the deck Community itself one of my favorite things to use with the steam deck is known as decki I've done a video on it and basically this allows us to install and run plug-ins so they've got their own little plug-in store that you can access directly from deki CSS loader is a plugin that allows us to download and change the theme there's a built-in radio so you can actually listen to music online while you're playing your favorite game vibrant deck is a plugin that allows you to change the saturation of the SteamVac screen and personally I think it needs it I go up to 140 with the setting think it looks really good like that you can tune the fan we've also got power tools that allow us to kind of disable the threads or even up the TDP in certain areas if we need it so we've got some really awesome community support for the steam deck also and uh don't forget we've got a built-in desktop here so you could use the steam deck as a full-fledged desktop PC obviously you're going to be running Linux unless you want to install Windows it's really up to you you can if you want to and yeah I really do think that the steam deck has had an awesome first year but there are people out there who want a little more power including myself I think we're a little ways off from the official announcement they have stated that they are working on a second steam deck we have no clue what the specs are going to be on that a lot of people have been speculating including myself and I kind of wanted to go over what I'd love to see from the steam DAC too as we know the steam deck we have right now has as a custom AMD Zen 2 based Apu 4 cores 8 threads up to 3.5 gigahertz an rdma2 based igpu with eight compute units up to 1600 megahertz we also have 16 gigabytes of LP ddr5 Ram running at 5500 megahertz and a 7-inch 800p IPS display now of course everybody wants to see a high-end steam DAC 2 with an OLED display a super fast processor way more GPU power but I really don't think that's what we're gonna get if they want to keep the price right around what we have right now or maybe just a bit more personally I think what we're going to be seeing is a custom Zen 3 plus based Apu with four cores and eight threads a little bit of a higher clock up to around 3.8 maybe even 4 gigahertz in some cases an rdna 3 based igp with either 8 or 12 compute units moving that clock up on the GPU would help out so going up about 300 megahertz without hurting battery life too much given the new architecture we could do about 1800mah Hertz sticking with 16 gigabytes of LP ddr5 Ram but faster Ram 6400 megahertz instead of 5500 and I think they're still going to use an IPS display because going OLED or AMOLED just gonna drive the price way up but I do think we'll see a higher resolution around 1200p with the steam deck too now this is just speculation we don't have any clue what they're going to be doing who knows I mean we could see some really awesome specs but I really think to keep that price down we're going to get a nice little bump in performance being able to take our games up to 60 FPS at about 800p with the AAA stuff right now and that rdna 3i GPU it'd be nice to see him use Zen 4 cores but again it's going to come down to that price they really can't up it much more than the steam deck right now because there will be a big backlash if they were to up the price by 150 to 200 uh yeah I mean it really wouldn't do as well as the original steam deck did but either way you look at it game developers and Community plug-in creators are still working with the original steam deck and there's more to come with this unit here so definitely keep an eye out and there's no denying it's been a great first year for the steam dag but that's gonna wrap it up for this video really appreciate you watching I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments below what do you want to see in the steam deck too would you rather have a nicer screen with the same battery life same screen with better battery life more CPU power more GPU power let us know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching\n"