James, Jae, and Noah recording this episode.

Steam Life on Deck

Jae and James are joined by Noah Kupetsky, the founder of Steam Deck HQ, to talk about Valve’s amazing portable, Linux powered, gaming device and how it’s shaken up PC gaming in a way not seen for quite some time. As a bonus, James recorded this episode entirely on his Steam Deck.
RSSApple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsOvercastGoodpodsPocketCastsSpotifyPandoraAmazon MusiciHeartRadio

Show Notes

For those of us who grew up with Game Boys and Game Gears, maybe even an Atari Lynx, the concept of full desktop gaming in a portable form factor has been on our wishlist for a very long time. So, the question we discuss with Noah from Steam Deck HQ can be summed up as “Has Valve’s Steam Deck made that dream come true?”.

We talk about the hardware itself, the impressive software stack built upon SteamOS, how many games perform, as well as looking at where it holds up against things like the Nintendo Switch, and the powerful emulation made possible in such a portable platform.

it’s also worth mentioning that James’ side of recoring was done entirely on the Steam Deck, and that’s in no small part due to how awesome SquadCast is.

Have you got your hands on Steam Deck, or is there something holding you. back? We’d love to hear from you, why not send a note over to [email protected], leave a comment on the post, or join the discussion over on our Discord server

If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.

Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in December 2022, before the current investigation into allegations of domestic violence made against Justin Rolland. We won’t comment on this further, but we wanted to be transparent that the episode does mention his studio’s game, ‘High on Life’. For those who, for whatever reason, want to skip any mention of the game, we talk about this between 00:29:00 and 00:31:21; we’ve marked this as a chapter in the episode.

Episode Links

Chapter Times

  1. 00:00:04: Introductions
  2. 00:06:14: Missing OLED and Game Gear Homage?
  3. 00:09:17: Hardware and Verified Games
  4. 00:14:57: Proton
  5. 00:18:44: Price Points & Storage Options
  6. 00:25:16: Controllers
  7. 00:29:00: High On Life
  8. 00:31:21: Software & Performance Tweaks
  9. 00:37:38: Challenges with Certain Games and Launchers
  10. 00:43:32: Sony Games on Steam Deck
  11. 00:44:41: Nintendo, the Switch, and Emulation
  12. 00:50:11: What Could Valve Have Done Better?
  13. 00:55:52: Wrapping Up

Credits

Intro and outro theme: Ace of Clubs by RoccoW

We'd love to hear your thoughts...

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

LinkedIn
Pinterest
Email
Reddit
Pocket

check out some more episodes

A photo of Stu Ashby, James, and Phil Ashby recording this episode.

Playing with Wires

James is joined by Phil and Stu Ashby, twin retired hacker types who were instrumental in the creation of a truly interesting online gaming service from the ’90s that worked through dial-up modems whilst keeping latency relatively low, even by today’s standards.

View Episode
An image showing the Crossed Wires podcast logo, with a sound wave design at the bottom.

Why Not Blind Accessibility?

Accessibility is something we’re very passionate about here, after all both James and Jae have their own challenges. So, it was an absolute pleasure to chat with Brandon Cole (aka SuperBlindMan) to chat all about how video games can be accessible to those with a wide range of vision issues.

View Episode
A photo showing Jay, James and Jae recording this episode on SquadCast

OnLive: A Cloud to the Past

Cloud Gaming is something many of us have probably heard about or toyed with. But, have you ever heard about OnLive? Jae and James talk with Jay and Omega of Thoughtable Network about a storm in the history of Cloud Gaming and how that might portend the future of this innovative gaming delivery method.

View Episode