Redditor and modder PhyFawkes recently showed their latest project called the SteamBoy. And honestly, it’s left this writer with a level of pain, cringe, and horror over what they’re looking at, simply because they own a Steam Deck, and this is painful to look at, to say the least.
If the name wasn’t a dead giveaway at this point, the SteamBoy is basically a modder project that draws inspiration from the Nintendo Game Boy. In this case, PhyFawkes took a full-functioning Steam Deck, literally put it under the knife, and shrunk it more or less to the size of a Game Boy.
We say more or less, because the length of the SteamBoy is actually the length of the Steam Deck’s battery. On a sidebar, the Steam Deck PhyFawkes used in their project was the LCD model, not the OLED model.
Because of the size reduction, PhyFawkes only took a handful of buttons and joysticks. Namely, the D-Pad, one analogue stick, the face buttons, a trackpad, and the menu and quick access button. For cooling, they stuck a small 30 x 7mm fan and heatsink at the rear, which they got from AliExpress. The chassis of the SteamBoy is entirely 3D printed.
PhyFawkes says that the SteamBoy is still a work in progress and in their short demo, it’s clear to see that the onboard display wasn’t functional. That display, by the way, is a 1,200 x 800, 90Hz AMOLED panel which was originally intended for VR. They say that they will require a custom adapter PCB between the Steam Deck ribbon and it, plus a modified BIOS in order to get it running.
Again, as interesting as this project is to some, this writer still feels that the shrinkage was absolutely unnecessary. We get it: it’s a sense of nostalgia and perhaps a homage to the most iconic handheld of the 20th century. But to gut a perfectly good Steam Deck to do this, and at a time when Valve recently raised its price? Good grief.
