When the Steam Deck launches this December, it’s going to have three different SKUs, and while they’re going to differ from each other in terms of their internal storage (and even the screen, as the case may be), as far as cosmetic differences are concerned, there won’t be much to speak of. However, that’s something that might change in the future.
Speaking with PC Gamer, Steam Deck designers Tucker Spofford and Greg Coomer said that Valve has had (and continues to have) a lot of discussions about different colours the handheld device could come in. “There was a lot of debate,” Spofford said.
Coomer added: “And also genuinely fun exploration around that stuff. And even discussions like ‘well, can we have lots of colours?’ We had all those discussions. We are continuing to have those now.”
Coomer went on to say that launching the device with just one colour was mostly a logistical decision, but if the Steam Deck should prove to be successful – which Valve certainly has big ambitious for – they might consider releasing more colour varieties of the device.
“It’s essentially like a logistics thing,” he said. “Having a lot of SKUs in the market is just a lot more complicated. There isn’t really a better reason than that for right now.
“We might do a lot more with that in the future. If this gets off the ground the way we hope it does, there’s just tons of opportunity to do that later.”
Valve has previously also said that though the Steam Deck is quite future-proof, they might even make more iterations of the device going forward, so it definitely seems like they’re taking a long-term view with this thing. Considering that, it’s easy to see how they might make different-looking versions of the device in the future if it does indeed take off the way they’re hoping it will.
