We have an interesting follow up to yesterday’s rumors about Valve introducing a console.
Brad Lynch of EOZ has chimed in. As a reminder, Bradley does not leak information about video games, or work as a games press editor, for a living. His company EOZ that makes XR/VR accessories, and he also happens to be a content creator, too.
Lynch reviewed the data found by Redditor Coolbho3k and shared his insights. We’ll provide our own summary below.
Brad cites another dataminer, who uses the handle FoxletFox on Twitter. FoxletFox revealed on his Discord that Fremont has its own dedicated firmware that gets updated. On top of that, Valve’s manufacturing partner for the Steam Deck, Quanta Computing, is providing feedback on the Fremont.
Yesterday, referred to AMD Lilac. Brad believes the Lilac was the original PCB Valve was prototyping on. But while the Lilac was a developer board, the Fremont is a completely different, fully finished board.
We’ll quote Brad directly for this next information:
“All references to Fremont ensure checks for a full-size HDMI Type-A port you’d see on TV-focused consoles and other desktop computers that don’t have a dedicated GPU with its own HDMI ports.”
So Brad is saying, based on his technical knowledge, that if a device has a dedicated GPU, where the HDMI connects to, it would provide specific data that would indicate it. The Fremont doesn’t have that kind of a GPU, but it could still be a device with a GPU of sorts, either an APU, or simply a GPU that’s made part of the board, like a laptop GPU.
Brad did elaborate on this further in a follow up tweet:
“Valve Fremont cannot be a dock
The information that @FoxletFox found for us specifically notes that the full-size HDMI port is hardwired to the hosts’s card0 (GPU) directly, not connected through USB-C
And again, the GPU in this case would be built into the AMD APU, of course
So very likely not a handheld that can be Docked to a TV
But a fully dedicated device with HDMI-Out as a primary focus.”
Brad also explains the ChromeOS EC (Embedded Controller) reference does not mean the Fremont runs on ChromeOS. Other devices, such as Framework Laptops, use ChromeOS EC.
Lastly, Brad speculates that Valve could announce this and their other rumored hardware products (Deckard VR, Roy controller, Steam Controller 2) on the ten year anniversary of Steam Machines. He doesn’t cite evidence here, but just notes the convenient timing of the anniversary next year.
Now, what we would caution here is just because the device is real doesn’t mean it’s coming out. There’s no guarantee that they will come to market, with a hundred things possibly coming in the way. Whether it turns out to not be feasible, or Valve decides on new business things, we shouldn’t bet on this one unless Valve announces it.
But it does seem to be a completely different idea to Steam Machines, and it will be interesting if Valve eventually shows us what the idea behind Fremont is.
