Only the screen isn’t quite working yet.
With the Switch and the Steam Deck, Nintendo and Valve have not only sparked the current handheld craze but have also, in a sense, set the standard for modern handhelds.
A modder is now showing that the Steam Deck could also function as a Game Boy.
Curtain up for the SteamBoy
A two-part controller with a large screen in between. The vast majority of modern handhelds look very similar. Deviations from this are found primarily in replicas of retro hardware, mostly from Nintendo.
Nintendo is likely the manufacturer that has experimented the most in the history of handhelds. From portrait orientation to vertical and foldable designs, all the way to dual screens and 3D gimmicks, the Super Mario company has tried quite a few things.
The design of the very first Game Boy, in particular, remains very popular with many fans to this day. And that’s exactly what Reddit user “PhyFawkes” used as a model for a new project.
In a post, he writes that he noticed the Steam Deck’s motherboard is quite small. He wondered if this might make it possible to build a Steam Deck the size of a Game Boy.
Reddit)
In addition to the original motherboard, he used a battery, speakers, a custom-designed case, face buttons, and a small 30 × 7 mm fan. The biggest problem, however, is the display.
He opted for an AMOLED display with 1200x1080p resolution and a 90 Hz refresh rate, but still needs to design an adapter to connect it. So far, the “SteamBoy” therefore only works with an external monitor:
The comments are full of enthusiasm. Several users say they would buy such a device immediately or back it on Kickstarter.
Of course, it remains to be seen just how good the handheld’s performance will actually be in the end.
However, the user writes that temperatures have been acceptable in his tests so far. Games that are particularly computationally intensive, though, are likely to place significantly higher demands on the system and could then lead to uncomfortable heat.
