Valve‘s Steam Deck may be credited with pioneering the handheld PC fever, but it won’t be an agent of gatekeeping. The company has confirmed plans to bring SteamOS support to its rivals a little more than two years after releasing its handy device, starting with the ASUS ROG Ally.
Speaking to The Verge, designer Lawrence Yang announced that Valve intends to let competitors run its Linux-based operating system. “The note about ROG Ally keys is related to third-party device support for SteamOS. The team is continuing to work on adding support for additional handhelds on SteamOS,” he said.
There’s no visibility on a timeline, however, as the software “isn’t ready to run out of the box yet” despite making “steady progress”. Yang also shared an update on the promise to turn Steam Decks into dual-booting Windows machines, allowing users to switch between the two operating systems on the fly. Essentially, this means easier access to games in digital storefronts like Epic Games Store, Microsoft’s PC Game Pass, and more.
“As for Windows, we’re preparing to make the remaining Windows drivers for Steam Deck OLED available (you might have seen that we are prepping firmware for the Bluetooth driver),” he shared. “There’s no update on the timing for dual boot support — it’s still a priority, but we haven’t been able to get to it just yet.”
When SteamOS support finally arrives to non-Steam Deck handheld PCs, it’ll mark the first times players are able to access it on a different portable device. The ROG Ally is widely considered to be Valve’s biggest competitor in the space, with the ROG Ally X — acting more like a mid-cycle refresh than a full-fledged successor — offering better battery life, increased RAM storage, and other hardware improvements.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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