The Steam Deck Turns 4 Years Old Today!

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When I look back at the moments in my life that stand out to me, not many of them are as prominent as when the Steam Deck was released. It may sound ridiculous on the surface, but it's true. Not only did it change the way I play video games completely, but it also changed my entire career path, going from managing movie theatres and pharmacies to running a video game press website. Today officially marks 4 years since the LCD Steam Deck officially launched and shipped out, and it has been a journey.

While the handheld PC market has been around for a while, it never hit the mainstream until the Steam Deck. Valve made this affordable, powerful handheld using their own Linux operating system (SteamOS) and the Proton compatibility layer to make Windows games run on the device. Is it a perfect system? No. There are still some games that even today have issues or don't run due to anti-cheat. But it works well, Valve consistently updates it, and since then, it has become one of the top platforms developers want to release their games for.

Since then, the Steam Deck and Linux as a gaming platform have grown in popularity. On Steam, we now have over 25,000 games that are rated either Steam Deck Verified or Playable, and we even have some games that were made specifically for the Deck. As for Linux, we have had a plethora of updates to the Proton compatibility layer, as well as a constant slew of improvements from SteamOS and Steam Deck client updates.

Over the past year, we got a ton of new features, like display-off downloads, and the next big stable update of Proton, Proton 10, dropped. Valve hasn't slowed down either, with consistent updates to both the client and Proton each month. I don't know many PC products that still receive this kind of support after 4 years, and it makes me overwhelmingly happy.

Now, the Steam Deck isn't actually in stock in most regions right now, thanks to the AI industry creating this RAM and SSD crisis, but hopefully, this will be fixed soon. It may also impact Valve's other hardware that they announced: the Steam Machine and Steam Frame.

Still, it's hard to deny just how impactful the Steam Deck has been. It started a new movement for more powerful handheld devices, brought the handheld PC market to the mainstream, evolved gaming on the Linux OS to almost match gaming on Windows, and rejuvenated Valve's hardware division. As someone who has always loved handheld gaming and games on PC primarily, the Deck was the perfect handheld for someone like me, and it has been wonderful seeing how it has been adopted by the industry and gamers.

The future is looking bright, though, and I can't wait to see what Valve will be doing for the next generation of the device. Valve has mentioned that they are waiting for a true generational jump before making a Steam Deck 2, and I am convinced that FSR 4 is that big jump. I believe Valve will be bringing back a custom APU that utilizes RDNA 4 cores to allow FSR 4 upscaling, which will bring a massive jump in performance and image quality. It's very possible it will be delayed because of the AI crisis, but I can still hope it will be soon.

Either way, here's to the Steam Deck's 4th birthday, and I can't wait to see what will happen leading to year #5.

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