There are often multiple different prototypes that will exist before you even know that a product is being developed and sent to store shelves. Often these prototypes will vary wildly from the final product, but seemingly not the Steam Deck.
The full line up of the Steam Deck has been revealed on by Steam Deck developer Pierre-Loup Griffais.
“As part of the Asia launch press event, we made the design lab into a showroom of development history,” Griffais said. “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.”
We can see in these photos the gradual changes that came to the Steam Deck from mid-2019 up until the launch of the handheld powerhouse in February of this year. Many would often to point to the Xbox prototype from the year 2000, which was just a giant X prior to the shift the iconic black box we got in 2001.
Griffais added, “The best part is that they (mostly) all still boot, serving as an exciting reminder of how far things have come since. This one has a Picasso APU, at about half of the GPU power of the final Deck. The flatter ergo was an interesting experiment and taught us a ton about comfort.”
The Steam Deck has been very well received and is continuously selling out as more players get their hands on one. Our guido boss-in-chief, Brandon Orselli has been gushing nonstop about the Steam Deck since he first got his hands on one. Many nights has been spent with him playing V Rising in Steam Deck late into the night.
Valve’s Steam Deck is now available, and in three flavors: $399 (64GB), $529 (256GB), and $649 (512GB), over on the Steam store.
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