Paris: A new battle for dominance of the lucrative game console market is looming after US company Valve unveiled a device to rival the hugely popular Nintendo Switch.

Valve, which owns the Steam gaming platform, announced Thursday that it will start shipping its Steam Deck console in December with prices starting at $ 399.

The company has boasted that the console, marketed as a handheld, will give users “the most gaming power you’ve ever owned” while allowing them to do everything they could otherwise do on a computer. .

With its large, seven-inch touchscreen display and high-performance processor, the Steam Deck made instant comparisons to the Nintendo Switch, which has sold over 80 million units since 2017.

Valve is the studio behind blockbuster games such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and Dota 2.

It was also a pioneer in terms of offering an online title catalog, with its Steam platform the dominant player in the PC games market.

The Steam Deck marks another attempt by the company to enter the console market after the failure of its Steam Machine, released in 2015.

This time around, by delivering a device capable of playing all games made for Steam and Windows, Valve could present fierce competition to Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X – at a lower price point.

“One of the things we are testing about this is that price performance can be one of the critical factors in the mobile space and so we had to be very price-aggressive on the bridge,” said Valve chief Gabe Newell. IGN gaming news site.

Video game analyst Laurent Michaud called the Steam Deck a “very good surprise”.

“Nintendo has its first direct competitor, with a phenomenal catalog,” he told AFP.

But he noted that not all of the games available were developed with a handheld console in mind.

The Steam Deck will begin shipping to the United States, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom in December, with “more regions to come in 2022,” according to its website.