Gabe Newell: Pricing Valve’s switch-type steam bridge was “painful”

© Valve

In case you missed it, Valve’s “Switch-like” handheld device has now been officially revealed as the Steam Deck.

While the US company best known for its digital PC gaming platform has drawn no comparison to Nintendo’s hybrid system itself, it’s hard to ignore some similarities and the fact that the price doesn’t. is only $ 50 more than the recently announced OLED Switch. .

In a conversation with IGN, Valve President Gabe Newell mentioned how crucial it is to strike a balance between performance and price when designing the Steam Deck. While performance was the top priority, unfortunately the trade-off was what Newell calls a “painful” price:

“I want to pick this up and say, oh, it’s all working. It’s all fast. That’s it… and then the price was secondary and painful. But that was pretty clearly a critical aspect.”

In a hands-on video, IGN compared the technology inside the system within the Xbox One and PlayStation 4’s “ballpark” – while showcasing games like Control and Death stranding run over it. Granted, it’s light years ahead of the Switch in terms of the type of games it’ll be able to run, and yet it’s only $ 50 more than an OLED model.

If Valve is successful, Newell believes this new device – which the company has described as a “small PC” and can even support Windows – could potentially sell millions of units:

“So our point of view is that if we do it right, we’re going to sell these millions of units.”

Just yesterday, Bloomberg released a report claiming Switch OLED upgrades were costing Nintendo around $ 10 more per unit.

What do you think of the Steam Deck’s starting price of $ 399 / £ 349 compared to the price of Nintendo Switch? Do you think Nintendo has something to worry about? Leave your thoughts below.