Valve's Steam Deck handheld console has been voted the Best Gaming Hardware at this year's Golden Joystick Awards.
2022 has been another incredibly strong year in gaming hardware and tech with new waves of peripherals, storage, brand-new, belting processors, and a new graphics card generation to boot. However, PC gaming going portable in the shape of the Steam Deck has won out. Check out the full list of nominees below:
- Playdate
- Steam Deck (winner)
- Analogue Pocket
- Backbone One: PlayStation Edition
- Roccat Kone XP
- WD_Black SN850 NVMe SSD for PS5
Ever since its announcement, clamor, intrigue, and sheer demand for Valve's handheld PC gaming console have been intense. It was instantly recognized as the solution to perhaps the biggest, maybe only, PC gaming impasse: portability. With the Steam Deck, you could carry on gaming on the bus, train, or just continue your save on the sofa.
While there were initial demand and supply woes - a well-worn concept in the world of gaming hardware - it's been a relief to see all that ease, and it's now as easy to buy a Deck as anything else on the virtual shelves now. There's even a thriving accessories world for the Steam Deck with dedicated lists of Steam Deck docks, and Steam Deck headsets cropping up all over the internet, demonstrating the impact the Deck is having on folks' approach to it and their PC gaming setup.
The Steam Deck is a worthy winner of the Best Gaming Hardware award at this year's Golden Joystick Awards and we're excited to see what the future holds for the handheld console.
Discover the best games of 2022 at the best prices by checking out the Golden Joystick Awards Steam sale page
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Rob is the Deputy Editor of sister site, TechRadar Gaming, and has been in the games and tech industry for years. Prior to a recent stint as Gaming Editor at WePC, Rob was the Commissioning Editor for Hardware at GamesRadar+, and was on the hardware team for more than four years, since its inception in late 2018. He is also a writer on games and has had work published over the last six years or so at the likes of Eurogamer, RPS, PCGN, and more. He is also a qualified landscape and garden designer, so does that in his spare time, while he is also an expert on the virtual landscapes and environments of games and loves to write about them too, including in an upcoming book on the topic!