If you’ve ever wondered what happens when rare gaming gadgets go up for sale, you’re in for a treat with the tale of a Steam Deck prototype that just turned heads on eBay. This particular piece caught the eye of the community thanks to a sharp-eyed user over at the r/SteamDeck subreddit.
Recently, an engineering sample of the Steam Deck, which looked strikingly similar to images Valve had previously teased, was snatched up for a cool $2,000, down from its initial listing of $3,000 on the auction site. This prototype integrates an AMD APU with Picasso silicon, dated back to 2019, setting it apart from any standard Steam Deck available on the market.
Internally referred to as “Engineering Sample 34,” this prototype distinguishes itself with unique features like blue accents, a more pronounced curved design, circular trackpads, and what appears to be a specialized sensor on the right joystick.
An intriguing detail is the back cover’s sticker, loudly professing “Not for resale,” which evidently didn’t deter the seller from making the deal.
Valve has a habit of crafting numerous engineering samples during the design process, mainly to hone in on mechanical functionalities before locking in retail specs. This specific model is likely from around 2019 or 2020. Oddly enough, it lacks the SteamOS, indicating it’s more of a pre-production tester unit.
Though the hardware that Notebookcheck unearthed in their photos showed a prototype running on an old AMD Picasso chip with up to four Zen+ cores and a GCN 5.0-based integrated GPU, the current retail versions of the Steam Deck offer substantially different performance.
Today’s Steam Decks are equipped with 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB SSD, easily outclassing the older prototype’s 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD. The difference is so vast that AMD’s more recent Aerith and Sephiroth APUs would simply outpace this early design by miles.
As of now, the identity of the buyer remains a mystery. If it’s a seasoned reviewer or hardware analyst, we might soon be treated to a comprehensive breakdown of the Steam Deck’s evolution, focusing on that custom Picasso chip. Alternatively, if it landed in the hands of a collector, it might just be tucked away silently in a private collection.
Valve, meanwhile, has hinted that eager gamers shouldn’t hold their breath for a Steam Deck successor just yet. They’ll need to wait until industry advancements bring about the next big leap in processor technology.
