Speculation: PlayStation "Steam" Deck

Do you think Sony will eventually launch their own "Steam" Deck?

  • Yes & I would buy the Base Model at $499

    Votes: 17 9.7%

  • Yes & I would buy the Pro Model at $699

    Votes: 29 16.6%

  • Yes & I am not interested

    Votes: 7 4.0%

  • No - it's not technically possible

    Votes: 8 4.6%

  • No - Sony is never doing another handheld

    Votes: 114 65.1%
  • Total voters
    175
Baki

Baki

Member
The Steam Deck has sold over 1M units at an average price of $499. The Steam Deck success comes from being a companion device that can play an existing library. What is the likelihood of Sony launching a PlayStation "Steam" Deck that plays PS4 games, select Xbox Series S cross-platform ports, some downscaled PS5 games running in 720P and other legacy PS games (PSP, Vita, PS1-3)? I think a platform like this would be a success for Sony even if it only sells 1 million units a year (the VITA sold much more).

Here is why I think Sony might consider doing a PS4 Steam Deck.
  • They can sell it to enthusiasts, price at a healthy profit and make money from the hardware. (At a $100 profit per unit, Sony would make $100 million from 1M sales and $1B from 10M sales)
  • It would increase the sales of back catalog PSP, PS Vita, PS3 and even PS4 titles
  • It would increase the sales of PS+ Premium
  • It would not require additional dev resources and would therefore avoid the problem of needing a large install base for software support
  • I think Sony devs love the Steam Deck, just look at how many of them made their games Steam Deck compatible
I think not needing to be a mass market success to be a good profit driver is what changes the game here. Vita at 17M units was a failure. PS deck at 17M units would be a wild financial success. At $100-200 profit per unit, they'd be making $1.7-$3.4B profit. To put that into context, that would be equivalent to 1-1.5 years profit for the entire PlayStation division.

Here is what the finances would look like based on a projection of 5M HW units a year and 20M SW units a year:
  • $3.55B revenue for HW+SW (13% increase in revenue for PlayStation division)
  • $750M Profit from HW (28% increase in yearly profit for PlayStation division)
  • $600M Profit from SW (22% increase in profits for PlayStation division)
As a reminder, here are the PS4 specs:
  • Jaguar CPU (8 cores, 1.6Ghz, 102 GFlops)
  • GCN GPU (18 CU, 1.8TF)
  • 8GB GDDR5 (176GB/s)
Here is what I think the specs for a portable that could emulate PS4 and then some:
  • Zen3/4 CPU (4 cores / 8 threads) [448 GFlops & would be 4x more powerful than PS4 CPU]
  • RDNA2 GPU (8 CUs, 1.6TF) [Would be equal to 2.64TF for PS4 GCN architecture]
  • 10GB LPDDR5X (180GB/s)
  • 256GB SSD (3GB/s)
  • MicroSD memory support
  • LCD screen (720P, 120HZ)
  • Support for: PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, PSP, PS Vita and select downscaled PS5 games
These specs are pretty similar to the Steam Deck and as you can see, quite a bit more powerful than a PS4, which should make emulation very straightforward to achieve.

Potential SKU/Price Point:
  • $499 Base Model (256GB SSD, LCD)
  • $699 Pro Model (512GB SSD, OLED)
  • Optional Dock with built-in cooling: $99
 
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Only legacy games? DOA.

edit: BTW OP you are missing the "No - it doesnt make sense" option.
 
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Would pay up to 1000$ for it not even joking

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Baki said:
The Steam Deck has sold over 1M units at an average price of $499. The Steam Deck success comes from being a companion device that can play an existing library. What is the likelihood of Sony launching a PlayStation "Steam" Deck that plays PS4 games and other legacy PS games (PSP, Vita, PS1-3)?

Here is why I think Sony might consider doing a PS4 Steam Deck.
  • They can sell it to enthusiasts, price at a healthy profit and make money from the hardware. (At a $100 profit per unit, Sony would make $100 million from 1M sales and $1B from 10M sales)
  • It would increase the sales of back catalog PSP, PS Vita, PS3 and even PS4 titles
  • It would increase the sales of PS+ Premium
  • It would not require additional dev resources and would therefore avoid the problem of needing a large install base for software support
  • I think Sony devs love the Steam Deck, just look at how many of them made their games Steam Deck compatible
As a reminder, here are the PS4 specs:
  • Jaguar CPU (8 cores, 1.6Ghz, 102 GFlops)
  • GCN GPU (18 CU, 1.8TF)
  • 8GB GDDR5 (176GB/s)
Here is what I think the specs for a portable that could emulate PS4 and then some:
  • Zen3/4 CPU (4 cores / 8 threads) [448 GFlops & would be 4x more powerful than PS4 CPU]
  • RDNA2 GPU (8 CUs, 1.6TF) [Would be equal to 2.64TF for PS4 GCN architecture]
  • 10GB LPDDR5X (180GB/s)
  • 256GB SSD (3GB/s)
  • MicroSD memory support
  • LCD screen (720P, 120HZ)
  • Support for: PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, PSP, PS Vita and select downscaled PS5 games
These specs are pretty similar to the Steam Deck and as you can see, quite a bit more powerful than a PS4, which should make emulation very straightforward to achieve.

Potential SKU/Price Point:
  • $499 Base Model (256GB SSD, LCD)
  • $699 Pro Model (512GB SSD, OLED)
  • Optional Dock with built-in cooling: $99
Click to expand...

This needs to happen and yes it would be much more powerful than a PS4. The full Sony library would be a huge draw, as would a full console interface and the docking mode. It's basically a series S but a portable.
Very little would need to be invested to port existing titles and like you say the back catalog. In addition new games could easily have a version considering the similar architechture.
And then finally the switch would have a proper competitor.
 
JLB said:
Only legacy games? DOA.

edit: BTW OP you are missing the "No - it doesnt make sense" option.
Click to expand...

Steam Deck plays legacy games and it's doing great as a niche product. Not to mention there are still many cross-gen games being released. Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see cross platform games launching on the platform as the specs aren't too far from a Series S.
 
No, this is a terrible idea I am sorry. Sony is in the business of selling PS5 games. They're not going to bring out an expensive handheld to sell years-old games and confuse current customers with "select" PS5 titles. LIke what if I buy this thing and want ot play Hogwarts on the go but it's not a select game? that's a disaster.
 
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diffusionx said:
No, this is a terrible idea I am sorry. Sony is in the business of selling PS5 games. They're not going to bring out an expensive handheld to sell years-old games and confuse current customers with "select" PS5 titles. LIke what if I buy this thing and want ot play Hogwarts on the go but it's not a select game? that's a disaster.
Click to expand...
Hogwarts is a PS4 games. It would be supported. This is basically a PS4 portable. Just add a PS Deck icon for compatible games on the store.
 
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THE DUCK said:
This needs to happen and yes it would be much more powerful than a PS4. The full Sony library would be a huge draw, as would a full console interface and the docking mode. It's basically a series S but a portable.
Very little would need to be invested to port existing titles and like you say the back catalog. In addition new games could easily have a version considering the similar architechture.
And then finally the switch would have a proper competitor.
Click to expand...
Arrested Development Tobias GIF
 
Baki said:
Hogwarts is a PS4 games. It would be supported. This is basically a PS4 portable.
Click to expand...
Way to miss the point. Pick any high profile PS5 game, it doesn't matter, if it isn't supported on this peole will get pissed and what is Sony going to say "yah it's meant to play old shit you don't care about anymore"
 
diffusionx said:
Way to miss the point. Pick any high profile PS5 game, it doesn't matter, if it isn't supported on this peole will get pissed and what is Sony going to say "yah it's meant to play old shit you don't care about anymore"
Click to expand...
This is going to be a niche enthusiast device. Not for the mainstream. It's meant to be a nice revenue generator and to increase incremental software sales of back catalog titles. The goal isn't to sell 100M units but to sell 10M units. Even 20M units is doable in my opinion.
 
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I'm the first to confess that I don't quite understand and has never really been able to accurat predict the popularity of handheld.

People really seem to like to play videogames on .... the train? Where do people play handhelds? I have never seen one live?

I think that not making a vita 2 was a misstake.
 
Baki said:
This is going to be a niche enthusiast device. Not for the mainstream. It's meant to be a nice revenue generator and to increase incremental software sales of back catalog titles. The goal isn't to sell 100M units but to sell 10M units. Even 20M units is doable in my opinion.
Click to expand...
I think Sony would tell you to buy their back catalog on Steam and play it on the Deck.
 
Bookman said:
I'm the first to confess that I don't quite understand and has never really been able to accurat predict the popularity of handheld.

People really seem to like to play videogames on .... the train? Where do people play handhelds? I have never seen one live?

I think that not making a vita 2 was a misstake.
Click to expand...
A lot of people play in their bedroom.
 
Just give a PlayStation 5 Legacy edition with full hardware based backwardscompatibility for PS1 PS2 and PS3.
Let me use my discs dammit !!
 
Sony is launching the PSVR 2 this month. They will have to make that work before thinking about a portable console. Then they would either make a PS5 pro (and/or deal with microsoft doing a series x pro) . You find yourself looking a the PS6 in what? 3 to 5 years ? By then the PS4 would be closer to retro than current gen for the games that are not already on steam or remade for next games consoles.
They could partner with epic games maybe?
Outside of that a psvita 2 is hard to see coming unless Nintendo fail the transition to the switch 2 in my opinion.
 
Not gonna happen. With Sony releasing their big 1P titles on PC now, no reason for them to take an L on hardware sales/support. Software is the name of the game.
 
It would be better if they could recompile the PS4 games instead of emulating them, I think a lot of small/indie games would work on the device with PSNow picking up the slack with more advanced titles. They would need to bundle a 5G plan for this to work, and I don't think they had much success with the 3G Vita.
However,if Sony was to do another Portable PlayStation, it would be designed to go after the switch instead of the Steam Deck.
 
Steamdeck plays Gamepass games (If you load windows) Sony would need a way to play my Steam collection for me to even consider it.
It would be better if Sony just release their games on Steam and let others do the hardware.
 
Baki said:
Steam takes a 30% cut and Sony makes 0 on 3rd party titles like Persona, COD etc...
Click to expand...
And on the other hand, they dont need to spend tons of money to design, build, market, and support an entirely new platform and give devs another platform to target. At a certain point these companies don't even want to sell old games, see how they are trying to jettison all their old stores. On Steam they just pay Valve their fee (and it's not 30%, it's closer to 20%) and let Valve do all that work. Sony seems quite fine with this arrangement. Like I said, Sony is in the business of selling PS5 games now, not old games very few people care about.
 
I don't know if they will, but yeah, if they did make one all they'd have to do is make a portable PS4. Suddenly the new platform has a library of thousands of games at launch.
 
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phant0m said:
Not gonna happen. With Sony releasing their big 1P titles on PC now, no reason for them to take an L on hardware sales/support. Software is the name of the game.
Click to expand...

Your right it probably wont happen. But Switch makes plenty of profit and their big games sell more copies than PC games sell with there big games.

It would just mean more software sales because portable is always a thing and is going to get more and more popular than ever now that it can play PC/Console games like Steamdeck and Switch does.
 
diffusionx said:
No, this is a terrible idea I am sorry. Sony is in the business of selling PS5 games. They're not going to bring out an expensive handheld to sell years-old games and confuse current customers with "select" PS5 titles. LIke what if I buy this thing and want ot play Hogwarts on the go but it's not a select game? that's a disaster.
Click to expand...

Actually Sony is in the business of selling games, period. They sell a crap ton of PS4 stuff every day. Nothing confusing about it, make it a mandatory profile and every game comes out on Playstation portable and PS5. I know I know, that ruins next gen, etc, etc.......
Yes we are seeing PC versions anyhow of most games.......so what's the difference?
 
diffusionx said:
And on the other hand, they dont need to spend tons of money to design, build, market, and support an entirely new platform and give devs another platform to target. At a certain point these companies don't even want to sell old games, see how they are trying to jettison all their old stores. On Steam they just pay Valve their fee (and it's not 30%, it's closer to 20%) and let Valve do all that work. Sony seems quite fine with this arrangement. Like I said, Sony is in the business of selling PS5 games now, not old games very few people care about.
Click to expand...
Missed the point of the OP. This is not a distinct platform, so devs don't need to "target it". The R&D cost would also be pretty straightforward as they'll likely use the PS4 emulator they built for PS5 on this system. The architectures would be identical.
 
Kokoloko85 said:
Your right it probably wont happen. But Switch makes plenty of profit and their big games sell more copies than PC games sell with there big games.

It would just mean more software sales because portable is always a thing and is going to get more and more popular than ever now that it can play PC/Console games like Steamdeck and Switch does.
Click to expand...

Same reason you have a PS5, you control the sandbox and make more money on your own platform from your own games and a cut of 3rd party titles, something you don't get on PC.
 
Jimmyisback said:
Nah it would fail so badly like the psp and vita. Sony doesn't know how to do a handheld well.
Click to expand...
PS vita is probably the best ever made handheld.

What they fail at is actually supporting the system properly.

I really liked my ps vita.
 
They already do, It's called the steam deck. they're not going to tarnish their relationship with steam, just a spite them.
 
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I don't see Sony going back to handhelds. I think more synergy between big games and VR (GT7) is far more likely their next step.
 
THE DUCK said:
Same reason you have a PS5, you control the sandbox and make more money on your own platform from your own games and a cut of 3rd party titles, something you don't get on PC.
Click to expand...
This is definitely an idea Sony is considering internally, especially after the success of the Steam Deck. I think the key is that it's a companion device, not a seperate platform, and will be a vehicle for PS+ Premium subscriptions and legacy games.
 
Baki said:
Missed the point of the OP. This is not a distinct platform, so devs don't need to "target it". The R&D cost would also be pretty straightforward as they'll likely use the PS4 emulator they built for PS5 on this system. The architectures would be identical.
Click to expand...

I dont think you should bother explaining. People get weird when it comes to talking about PS doing portables again. Suddenly they think Its like its impossible but forget we have portable devices like Steamdeck and Switch that play Console/PC games on the go.
With games like Returnal and TLOU1 coming to Steamdeck soon, theres no reason why Playstation cant in the future release a portable that can play all its PS4/PS5 on a PSP3.

Vita, battery life and being expensive are just excuses

Vita had issues. A PSP3 wouldnt have the same issues.
-No longer issues with 1st party and 3rd party games. It just plays PS4/PS5 library. Like Nintendo. So no splitting studios making games for 2 different platforms.
-MicroSD cards so memory card issues
-L2/R2Shoulder buttons

Pretty sure games FF16, Spiderman 2, TLOUFactions 2, GTA 6 on the go will be a good sell worldwide
 
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Kokoloko85 said:
I dont think you should bother. People get weird when it comes to talking about PS doing portables again. Suddenly they think Its like its impossible but forget we have portable devices like Steamdeck and Switch that play Console/PC games on the go.
With games like Returnal and TLOU1 coming to Steamdeck soon, theres no reason why Playstation cant in the future release a portable that can play all its PS4/PS5 on a PSP3.

Vita, battery life and being expensive are just excuses
Click to expand...

Most people have a poor understanding of game industry economics. I think this is a no brainer. Only thing stopping Sony would be TSMC 5/7nm wafer availability. They need to prioritise chips for the PS5 before considering new platforms. If the chips situation is resolved, I can see Sony launching this. It's basically another premium accessory/device they can sell to enthusiasts.
 
Baki said:
Steam Deck plays legacy games and it's doing great as a niche product. Not to mention there are still many cross-gen games being released. Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see cross platform games launching on the platform as the specs aren't too far from a Series S.
Click to expand...
Steam deck plays Dead Space remake and the ps4 doesn't.
 
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