Begun, the handheld wars have. It seems like every company now wants a piece of the pie doesn't it? Even MSI appear to be jumping into the fold now with an announcement due at CES 2024.
SteamOS is definitely at a point where I could see it being used on other handhelds now. Valve wants to eventually open it up to be installed on any device, so it might be a smart move for MSI to talk with Valve to support SteamOS on their new handheld.
Windows has its strengths, but my god, handheld devices aren't one of them. I've not seen a single one of these windows handhelds that don't have weird janky software problems with the overlays and quick settings menus they have, suspend/resume, etc.
Linux is just the natural pairing for devices like these, and I'm pretty sure Valve would be very open to allowing SteamOS or a fork of it on MSI's devices.
The entire reason Valve tried Steam Machines and is now doing the Deck is to try to get out from MS's grasp. The more devices running Linux the better from Valve's perspective.
I'm pretty sure Valve would be very open to allowing SteamOS
Well, not really, otherwise they would prioritize making it easy to install for 3rd parties. IIRC, there's close to no documentation. Of course MSI (and everyone else) can fork it, but I don't assume many companies would want to sell a device with an OS without official support from the creators.
And unlike Android, that has had everything stripped from the native userland experience - the SteamDeck is a real OS. It's an "actual" Linux device that is popular. Which shows that Windows isn't the end-all-be-all to Gaming.
Steam deck os is good, but it's important to remember that it's highly designed around the specific steam deck hardware. Using it with other kinds of hardware doesn't work so well right now. The standby mode in particular.
Luckily there are better options than SteamOS for other hardware, such as ChimeraOS and Bazzite - you get pretty much the same features as SteamOS + optimizations got non-deck hw + extra goodies.
Arch is a fucking terrible OS, and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. You spend days configuring shit just for it all to break when you update because “haha I can update whenever I want and get cool stuff before any of you newbs!”
Yeah, go ahead and downvote me if you want, because SteamOS is based on Arch. I bet you’re not willing to each the things that look like alien maggots that chocolates’s based on.
No doubt it will be another handheld running Windows though instead of Linux
I will game on a Windows based PC, but Linux is a must have on hand held - Windows is too resource intensive, developers are not going to be able to get the same OS optimization out of Windows that they can with Linux
Better support plus it drives Linux as a gaming OS which I'm a fan of. The more consumers choose to game on Linux the more adoption it will get. Look at windows 11. What horse shit. 12 isn't shaping up to be much better.
Yeah, you buy the Deck for the piece of mind with Valve and their support. I wouldn't buy any others just because it's like they are cash grabs on a current trend the Deck set off and none of the companies making them have the best track record for product and customer support.
Perhaps MSI's handheld will be different if they have been developing it for a while, but MSI's quality has always been cheap, so I imagine it will end up being an Ally kind of device.
I do trust Valve more, when it comes to this, but my main reason is that a lot of things MSI make are piss poor quality, and so is their customer support. From the few experiences I've had with them, I would not recommend any of their products, and unfortunately that opinion also aligns with my friends
Good, let them. Let every company take a swing, and let 2-3 actually get a serious foothold that survives as a real option, and becomes a reliable machine.
Theres only been 3 consoles for too long. I love that valve has made the steam deck into a computer console, and want to see more options and variations.