Steam Deck Will Apparently 'Struggle' Playing Games On Your TV
Valve's Steam Deck has been making waves for the last couple of weeks. Ever since the announcement that the company was bringing out its own handheld console, the gaming community has been very vocal about what we can hope to expect.
And so has Valve itself, giving out little bits of information, teasing us about what's to come. Most of it has been overwhelmingly positive, however the latest bit of news isn't exactly great.
As you probably already know, the Steam Deck is very much a portable device. However, it can also be docked. But which way of playing is better?
How Will The Steam Deck Perform Through Your TV?
Well, it turns out that Valve considers the portable way of playing to be superior. Speaking to PC Gamer, Greg Coomer, a product designer at Valve, was asked about whether or not the company considered a higher power mode when docked. Coomer said: "Yes, but we didn't choose to make it a really high priority design target... we felt that it was actually better all things considered to not modify based on docked status or mobile status."
He added: "We really wanted to prioritise for using it in what we thought would be the highest use case, which is actually mobile. And so since we were focusing on that, and we chose like a threshold where the machine will run well, and with a good frame rate with AAA games in that scenario. We didn't really feel like we should target also going after the dock scenario at higher resolutions. We wanted a simpler design target and to prioritise that."
When Can You Buy The Steam Deck Dock?
PC Gamer added that we know that the Steam Deck will be hitting at least 30 fps for most games, but they make the very valid point that this is for when the console is in portable mode. When it comes to the dock connecting to a TV, it will need more power. So the likelihood that the console will struggle when it comes to bigger games is higher.
In some official materials from Valve, the dock's description is: "The official dock props up your Steam Deck while connecting to external displays, wired nerworking, USB peripherals, and power. You can also use a powered USB-C hub, if you've got one lying around."
When it comes to when it's actually coming out, we don't know much. Valve adds: "The official dock will be sold separately. More information coming soon."
