text: The Stream Deck And The Steam Deck Are Two Different Things
  By Jessica Reyes/July 19, 2021 5:20 pm EST
  The Steam Deck exploded on social media as gamers discoursed over the pros and cons it brought to the handheld gaming market. However, as an amusing byproduct of the hype, some people were confused by a seemingly innocent marketing faux paus.
  Elgato announced the newest model of its Stream Deck on the same day as the Steam Deck. These similarly named devices caused some confusion — or at least mixed search results for many netizens. Some have also started joking about the similarities between the names.
  It's Steam Deck versus Stream Deck. That's "Steam" like the name of Valve's digital games storefront and "stream" like the action of streaming a video game online for viewers to watch. The difference between both devices is easy to remember if you know what both of them are.
  Elgato might not be a big name to casual gaming audiences, but it's likely a known electronics brand for tech enthusiasts. The Elgato Stream Deck helps streamers organize all their on-stream interactions and apps from one convenient dashboard. It's like a touchscreen command center that's only slightly larger than the average smartphone. Thus, the name "Stream Deck"— because it helps streamers.
  Wait, what's the Steam Deck again?
  The Steam Deck is one of the most promising recent attempts at a handheld PC gaming device, especially with Valve backing its development. It might even mean a future where popular titles that would normally only be playable on the computer now have relevance on a console-like PC. People have long wondered what it would be like to play these games on a console. Maybe now they won't have to.
  However, the Steam Deck might not be the end-all solution to the lack of support for PC games on handhelds. Gaming fans are already divided over the Steam Deck because of its relatively small memory storage compared to PCs. Also, it's unclear if the Steam Deck can even support certain games that specifically run on Windows and not the Linux-based Steam Deck. The pre-order chaos that started on July 16 hasn't exactly smoothed things over, either.
  Despite recent Steam Deck reservations, the first wave of on-the-go PCs isn't expected to ship until sometime in late 2021. It looks like a lucky few have shared their success with reservations. And, as usual, scalpers are having a heyday with the Steam Deck AND Nintendo Switch OLED up for pre-order.