Not gonna lie. That is hella hype. Although it does make it harder to target hardware as a game dev. It does however make the whole ecosystem way better.
Hope they introduce some minimum hardware requirements that a hand-held has to have for it to be steamos compatible. That way devs can target that hardware and it will run on any steamos verified device
Minimum hardware requirements are likely to be performance (at relevant minimum resolution) and battery life at least on the same level as the current Steam Deck.
I don't think that's feasible. The current set of handhelds have the OG Deck at the bottom end of the performance tier anyway, that'll only become relevant if and when a Deck 2 releases, and at that point it will be the same problem to solve with or without third party hardware.
You are assuming that all non steam deck handhelds are going to be better than the steamdeck performance wise. While this may be the case with the ROG Ally I don't think it holds true with all handhelds so there is possibility for a hand-held with less performance than the steamdeck to be verified
It's 100% true of all Windows handhelds released after the OG Steam Deck, yes. This is not because the Deck is bad, it's because they all are running the same two or three APUs, all built on the same AMD architecture. If it came after the Deck, it's a 6800U with a 780M or slightly better than that, and no new handhelds going forward will launch with anything significantly worse than that.
So beyond retroactive support for first-gen AyaNeo or GPD handhelds that are older than the Deck, I don't think this is a major concern. And if you're on one of those, which were incredibly expensive at launch compared to the Deck, I think you should be pretty well used to underwhelming performance by the time SteamOS verifies them, if ever.
It's really not a realistic scenario. Our floor for performance is well established and this is coming so far down the line that we shouldn't expect to return to it at this point.
What about someone targeting a handheld spec that actually fits in your pocket? Surely that would be weaker.
Would it?
The GPD Win 4 is roughly the size of a thick PSVita and that ran on a 6800U as well and they released newer ones all the way up to 8800U without increasing the size. Ditto for the Ayaneo Flip, which is still chunky but it's clamshell, so I guess you could cargo pants it.
Ayaneo also makes the Air, which is supposed to be exactly that, and I think there is a model that targets a smaller APU and is super thin, but the next in line already jumps to the 7840U and is comparable to the Deck. I have to imagine that even small PC handhelds will match that performance going forward.
There are pocketable handhelds out there, but they're generally Android-based, which makes a lot more sense. I think for PC we'll see people trying to hit this level of performance in a compact form factor, but I'd be shocked if people tried to go back to sub-6800 performance on PC on new devices.
Again, the point of the Deck is standardized performance, and it quickly became exactly that. Things will get messier once the Deck is replaced by a higher spec, but in the meantime, if it's certified for baseline Deck you're either probably fine or in such a tiny niche (you own 5840u version of the AyaNeo Air? Who are you) that you probably know what you can do with it.
Hi. I'm the guy that wants a low-spec model that fits in my pocket. I exist. Just gimme something that can run my favorite 2D indie games and I'm happy.
I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus last year and ended up loving it far more than my Deck, which is actually just gathering dust still. And now I dream of seeing SteamOS in that size.
But nothing you're describing will fit in that kind of form factor. So if you want to enforce minimum specs, you're really telling me I can't have my dream handheld.
I would not be shocked to find that people are willing to go back to sub 6800 performance in exchange for something the size of those Android devices. There are tons of 2D and low spec 3D games that are very popular that they would run, and pocket sized handheld x64 machines are a niche to fill to stand out from the Steam Deck.
You won't be shocked, though, because like I just told you there is already a couple of those and they didn't do well, only to be replaced by 7800U variants in the same form factor (plus a tad of battery chonk, perhaps). This is not a hypothetical.
Seriously, man, just read what people are telling you. If somebody is threatening to tase you unless you're immediately contrarian irrespective of the information being presented to you blink twice and we'll send someone.
This is cool, more options are better.
It does, however, make me REALLY want Valve to add official third party library support. I have thousands of games on GOG and hundreds on Epic. I don't need them to officially support all of them, but at least I need a better approach to integrating them than fiddling with Heroic or Lutris in desktop mode.
Playnite integrates all launchers into one with a controller friendly UI but it's only available on Windows.
Yeah, there are a bunch of alternatives. I don't even think it's as much of a problem on Desktop Linux, where having Steam and Heroic/Lutris going at the same time isn't a big deal.
But all the hoops to integrate other launchers inside Steam Game Mode and the friction in trying to use them reliably in that environment are just not mainstream viable or functional. As long as that works the way it currently does I'll default my handleds to autobooting into Windows Big Picture instead.
Which, by the way, is totally a thing you can do. People always act like there's a much bigger gap than there actually is between those two options. You mostly only lose the well integrated display and power controls, which may be a bigger or smaller deal depending on what your Windows handheld uses instead.
Gamers are used to fiddling, so that shouldn't be a big deal for now
"Gamers are used to fiddling"?
No. Gamers are largely playing on Switch. And PS5, sometimes.
The residual amount of people playing on PC are annoyed by fiddling, with very rare exceptions.
Hell, I fiddle. I've been known to fiddle in my day. And I'm here complaining about the fiddling. I'm a representative of extreme tolerance to fiddling and I'm annoyed.
I like fiddling. Sometimes i fiddle and then never actually use what I was fiddling with once it's working. But even I would gladly welcome not needing to fiddle at all.
PC represents more than half of the market at this point, which we've seen in investor reports from the likes of Ubisoft and Capcom, even if many PC players are annoyed by fiddling.
Not true. Or very incomplete, at least. By the newest reports the market is 49% mobile, 28% console and 23% PC, but that's by revenue, not player counts.
See, if you wanted to torture stats to shoo me away, you should have gone by the market share of GOG, which is quite small. Technically by the numbers they'd be smarter to prioritize getting Roblox and Fortnite working first.
I definitely don't consider mobile to be the same market, for what you must find to be obvious reasons. I'm not sure where GOG comes into this discussion at all.
I want SteamOS on desktop 😅
Check out Bazzite. It even has a GNOME variant.
I second Bazzite. It's been a phenomenal experience on my laptop.
Interestingly, I was messing with BoxBuddy a week or two ago, and looking at what distroboxes were available to install, and there's a SteamOS container on there. Not sure if it's official or what, but I was able to run games on it (though absolutely unnecessary).
What are you hoping to get from SteamOS that you aren't able to get from any other Linux distro?
I just think it'd be neat to have a gaming Linux distro, made by a company that distributes games. Maybe it will be a standard distro for game developers to test their games.
No system management. A set once and forget it system, ala console style, but with the potential of off the shelf high power components for PC games on the living room is a quality proposition.
Bazzite as HTPC and you can do that already, if you want to test your dream.
Sure, but the support, both technical and reputational that a steam OS compatible machine brings would steer the market for more accessible and purpose made components. Bazzite is awesome and my daily driver, but it doesn't have the fancy endorsement of Valve, the owner of the largest game store in the world today.
I use my Deck docked regularly. In desktop use I see no benefit over Fedora and alike.
I'm hoping to build my first Desktop soon and i'm praying that Valve gets an Official SteamOS release out by then. I'd kill to have it.
I’d kill to have it
US army: Heyyy
I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus last year, just an impulse buy because it was on sale dirt cheap. Ended up liking it so much I wish I'd bought a more expensive model with analog sticks.
Meanwhile, my Deck gathers dust because it's just too bulky too fill the void left behind by the GBC/GBA/DS I grew up on.
First manufacturer to get SteamOS running on a form factor that fits in my pocket gets my entire bank account. Doesn't have to be beefy, just needs to run all my favorite 2D indie games.
I bet there will be phones or tablets that will get this through the community.
Let's see what MS has to say about that. Although they won't say anything officially, of course. But they'll certainly try to prevent this sort of thing from catching on from behind the scenes.
Back in Balmers days there would have been a mysterous briefcase men suggesting adjusted prices for all future MS involvement.
I'm currently running Bazzite but have been thinking about picking up an ROG Ally X for my husband. I think it having steam OS would be better for him in general. Hope this is available soon.
Get him an OLED Steam Deck instead. I don't know why anyone would get a ROG, especially if you're just going to put SteamOS on it.
Ngl, even though I am happy about this, ill prob just stick to bazzite, and just move anything else thats "powered by steamOS" to it as well. And Windows. I am simply too much a sucker for the quality of life stuff on it, like ROM data taken from the file
What makes Bazzite so much better to use on a Deck versus SteamOS? It doesn't seem any different than just using Remote Play/Moonlight/whatever and streaming from your main gaming rig?
Have you visited their website? It explains what it is and it is definitely a lot more than just a way to stream games from your PC. How did you come up with that conclusion?
That's the first description on the website. It says it's a cloud native Linux image that comes pre-installed with all the apps for gaming, e.g. Steam, Lutris, etc. I was asking a question as to why it's better than SteamOS, as when I see cloud native I just assume it's something designed for and around streaming. I may be misunderstanding its purpose, but that's the impression I get from the site.
The main advantages of Bazzite versus SteamOS is receiving system packages in updates at a much faster rate, choice of an alternative desktop environment, Waydroid support, layering system-level packages at your own risk without messing with the filesystem, and printing support.
From their FAQ page https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/FAQ/
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