Valve was working on the Steam Deck for a long time, pouring its successes and failures from the Steam Machines, Steam Controller, and Steam Link into one portable device. We know this because Valve showed off a bunch of prototypes leading up to the final Steam Deck—and it looks like one of those prototypes somehow managed to slip the surly bonds of Bellevue and make its way to eBay.
According to Reddit and Steam Deck HQ, a listing on the US eBay site sold the “Early Valve Engineering 34 Prototype” for $2,000 earlier this week. There’s no way to verify its authenticity, but the look and layout does match one of the latter prototypes Valve showed off in its Steam Deck “making of” booklet (PDF), particularly one with two distinctive blue face buttons. In the eBay photos, the rear of the device has a seal that reads, “Engineering Sample 34 – not for resale.”
Assuming this is a legitimate Valve engineering prototype, I bet someone at the company—possibly in the legal department—would be very interested in whoever sold it and how they came about it. These kinds of devices are often vigorously guarded, sometimes even destroyed after the final retail product is ready, to protect any trade secrets or intellectual property that could be gleaned from them. Prototypes often fetch high prices on the secondary market, but usually a decade or more after the full release, long after they’ve become of interest only to chroniclers and tech YouTubers.
It sure looks like the prototype that Valve showed off. You can see relatively huge touchpads—circular like the original Steam Controller instead of the smaller square pads on the final Steam Deck—and what might be a broken right thumbstick. The left touchpad comes loose and might be damaged, and the whole thing has a rough quality with uneven plastic panels and tool marks. But for whatever it’s worth, I don’t see any obvious signs of an amateur 3D-printing project, which is what would be my first guess if someone was making a fake.
The listing sold from Kirkland, Washington state according to the eBay listing. So if this unit wandered off Valve’s primary headquarters in the Seattle area, it only got a couple of miles away before being sold. I hope whoever bought it somehow finds a way to give us a better look at the device… possibly before a team of attack lawyers buries them in cease-and-desist paperwork.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.