From the did-not-see-that-coming department; I present you: SteamBoy

Handheld consoles have a very strong following throughout the years, despite the meteoric rise of powerful smartphones and the various games you can play on them. But one company believes it can take them to the next level.

Meet the SteamBoy. The handheld console will be running Valve’s SteamOS, and will include a quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, along with both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity. It was previewed in this year’s E3, and it has a lot in common with the Steam controller, design-wise. The SteamBoy Machine (that’s the name of the company) had a spokesperson, who was quoted saying: “SteamBoy won’t be as powerful as other announced Steam Machines, in the same way [that the] Nintendo DS or PS Vita performance is not comparable to a Wii U or PlayStation 4. However, it will be possible to play the majority of current games in Steam.”

Although all we have is renderings for now, this handheld looks indeed promising. We’ll keep an eye out for it and will report for any new developments.