Gabe Newell Sees Steam Deck as Having an Impact Like the iPhone on PC Gaming

The Steam Deck is officially released today, and as the portable gaming PC begins shipping out to some buyers, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell sees the new handheld having an impact on the PC space akin to how Apple's iPhone impacted the mobile phone industry. Relatedly, he says demand has been "a lot higher than we expected."

Speaking to IGN in an interview about the Steam Deck's launch and the future, Newell was asked how long the Steam Deck had been in the works and whether the concept predated the Nintendo Switch. Newell's response was interesting, noting how the idea of playing your favorite PC games on the go has been something the space has wanted for decades, long before Nintendo launched its hybrid gaming system.

"I think every gamer has wanted this for a really long time. Right? I mean, anytime you start playing PC games, about a month after you do it, you say, 'Where's my mobile version of this?' Right? I mean, projects that try and do this go back all the way to the 1990s, so what's really different this time is we finally reached the point where you have the [performance] per watt that really lets you do this."

Newell continued to note that the PC space craved the idea, yet the technology was never there, even using an example of what the mobile phone industry went through nearly 15 years ago when Apple released the first generation of the iPhone.

"There's software and input challenges you have to go solve, but it's like one of those things. There was before and after the iPhone. Right? Up until then, you'd use a Blackberry for these very application-specific things, but in terms of a general mobile computing device, that was the transition point," Newell said. "Right now, we've reached the point where you have a mobile gaming device that can pretty much do anything, and it only gets better from here on out for PC gamers."

As Newell notes, these ideas were always something these spaces wanted, and when the technology was right, it made sense to finally come up with an efficient solution. The comparison is more interesting when you think about how revolutionary the iPhone was, despite other companies creating similar devices that predate the iconic smartphone, such as the Blackberry 850 or the Handspring Treo. In the case of the Steam Deck, the same thing can be said for other portable gaming PCs, such as the GPD Win or the AYA NEO NEXT.

The Steam Deck might not be the first portable gaming PC, but Valve is seemingly playing the long game here. Newell even told us that "demand's a lot higher than [Valve] expected." With demand for the Steam Deck shocking even the creators themselves, it is no wonder that Valve is thinking about new Steam Deck models.

Newell continued to explain to us that he believes the Steam Deck will impact the PC space and that the ideas and concepts it introduces will be applied generally or be influenced by other companies in the market. "Obviously, we're shipping our hardware, but I think some of the key problems that we're solving are going to apply generally to lots of hardware manufacturers in the PC space [...] So, I think that this is a permanent extension of the PC gaming marketplace into these kinds of solutions."

While the Steam Deck is not the first handheld gaming PC, the concept that Valve has created, despite its flaws, is a step in the right direction on an idea that we have already seen once before in the console gaming space.

For more Steam Deck, check out our first impressions on Valve's portable gaming PC.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.