Valve seems to be going all-in on the console market with the Steam Deck. One of Valve’s designers confirmed the company is planning to develop next-gen iterations of the handheld PC, with streaming in mind.
As reported by VGC, several Valve developers spoke in an interview with Famitsu Weekly about players in Asia finally getting the ability to reserve a Steam Deck of their own. When asked about where the Steam Deck will go next, designer Greg Coomer gave a response confirming that Valve is interested in iterating on its system.
“Unless something major changes, there will be a next generation of Steam Deck products in the future,” he said. “The theme, size, and shape will change, and it might even become a streaming machine. Development of the Steam Deck will continue.”
Coomer gave a few reasons to explain Valve’s commitment to the system, including the handheld device being an extension of Steam, and being like another PC in a different form. He noted that people can play Steam games on devices other than the Steam Deck, so streaming games on the handheld may not be outside the realm of possibility.
One of the improvements that will be made to future Steam Deck consoles is battery life. According to developer Pierre-Loup Griffais, the team is already optimizing the operating system on the current iteration of the system so that the battery lasts longer when it’s running games that don’t strain it as much as others, going so far as to allow players to play refresh rates at 40Hz.
Valve previously made its plans to develop next-gen Steam Deck systems known when it published a Steam Deck booklet last week. In February, it teased the Steam Deck 2, which it says will be more powerful than the current one and may offer VR capabilities.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.