Valve confirms Steam Deck won't have any exclusive games

Valve has confirmed that its upcoming Steam Deck portable handheld gaming device will not have any exclusive games; meaning there will be no Steam Deck exclusives that aren't available on the PC or other platforms.

3

Unlike every other platform which has exclusives like Microsoft with Halo, Sony with The Last of Us or Uncharted, Nintendo with Mario and Zelda, and so on -- Valve will instead not have any Steam Deck exclusives -- and there's a very good reason (from Valve themselves) on why.

Valve explains in its updated FAQ, with a question "Would Valve be interested in having any Steam Deck exclusive titles?" to which the developer answers: "No, that doesn't make much sense to us. It's a PC and it should just play games like a PC".

3

Inside, Valve is using LPDDR5 memory with 16GB of unified memory and 1GB of VRAM used, offering 88GB/sec of memory bandwidth. This means the Steam Deck is "future-proof" with a decent 16GB of VRAM, more than NVIDIA's first flagship Ampere GPU in the GeForce RTX 3080 which has 10GB of VRAM -- but the 88GB/sec of memory bandwidth pales in comparison to a mid-range let alone flagship GPU.

The 16GB of RAM is joined by 64GB of eMMC memory which is much slower than the NVMe-based 512GB and 1TB SSD models. Valve included some nifty benchmarks, showing that game load times are 12.5% slower on the 64GB eMMC and 18% slower from the SD card. Valve says that the Steam Deck boost up 25% slower on the 64GB eMMC, too.

3

Connectivity and I/O wise, Valve says the Steam Deck supports up to 2 x 4K 60Hz displays with an integrated USB 3.0 Gen 2 and DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC connector. The cable itself is capable of 45W of charging power, where it can both charge the console at full speed and have the CPU and GPU clocks cranking. You can also add on some peripherals, where webcams with up to 7.5W of power can be inside of the 45W power connector.

Valve will be shipping the first Steam Deck handheld consoles to gamers in February 2022.