Start-up Steamboy is working on a curious handheld console designed to take on industry heavyweights and carve out an entirely new niche.

It is a relatively hefty handheld console compared to mainstream products from the likes of Sony and Nintendo, but it is also the only SteamOS handheld so far. Sadly, Steamboy is not saying much about the actual spec, it merely has some demos on its website. 

The spec so far goes something like this: 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and a 5-inch 16:9 screen. There is no word on the resolution or the most important part of the package – the CPU/GPU combo.

We are clearly looking at a SoC and chances are it’s a quad-core ULV part, although we don’t know whether it’s an Intel or AMD chip. The latter seems a bit more likely at this point, as the company says the device can run Skyrim at default medium settings. Still, we can only speculate. 

In any case the device is expected to ship next year. By that time both Intel and AMD should have a new generation of mobile chips ready to go and chances are some of them will be capable of running Skyrim at playable framerates at 720p.