this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Steam Deck
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I've got some points about this one.
I'd like to think these are just screw ups/growing pains but nothing I've seen so far gives me any good vibes about it. We definitely need more choice and competition - this however does not look like an honest attempt at that. Let's hope I'm wrong.
Edit: Ah, how could I forget! Kirt McMaster, CEO of Playtron and the man responsible for killing CyanogenMod. Sounds great...
SteamOS isn't immutable, per se, but since each update is basically a new image and you have to enable sudoing capabilities intentionally, it is basically immutable.
Also, Bazzite exists and is actually immutable, and you don't lose access to any of the core features of SteamOS (like desktop mode). Dunno who their target audience will be, but it's certainly not power users.
Ah, thanks for correcting me. I've seen Steam OS being described as immutable but never dug into it to confirm. Lesson learned.
It kind of feels like they're just throwing out various buzzwords to catch everyone - "it'll be like the Nintendo approach but they really want input from power users", "it'll work on anything and everything" etc. Maybe I'm just being a bit too cynical... ╮( ˘ ､ ˘ )╭
Nah you see, they just don't have enough programmers. Poor, poor small, 4000+ employee Epic :(((
"Why is Fortnite still not playable on Steam Deck?
If we only had a few more programmers. It’s the Linux problem. I love the Steam Deck hardware. Valve has done an amazing job there; I wish they would get to tens of millions of users, at which point it would actually make sense to support it."
-Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic.
Which is funny because he's fully aware Linux players would be happy without any support beyond "enable EAC to work for us" but he'd rather try to spin it as a difficult decision he really doesn't want to make. Just enable it Tim, I'm sure Valve devs would put in the work to make Fortnite work well on the Deck.
As far as the arm processor goes, there are a ton of Android handhelds on the market. Obviously an android gaming handheld though is limited compared to something like the steam deck, but ARM processors are a lot more power efficient than x86 processors which is great for handhelds.
There are projects like box86 that are trying to get traditional PC games running on Linux ARM hardware, I'm guessing they'll be the core of what Playtron is working around.
If Playtron contributes to that project, it could actually be really good for the future of Linux. That said I'm worried that nothing will actually come from this project, or that they won't upstream their improvements. I suspect the future of PC's will be ARM or RISC, so any projects that improve ARM backwards compatibility with x86 will be good for the future.
I was mostly thinking about ones that can play PC games as Android ones are kind of their own thing. Box86 seems like an interesting project but I'm wondering how feasible it is for a project like this - do you have any experience with it and if so, is there any noticeable performance hit when playing?
I'm certainly interested in the possible power efficiency improvements coming from such project so I hope my initial response turns out to be just an unreasonable wariness when this thing comes out. All we can do is wait for now, I guess.
Since when are non-Steam games first class citizens on steam os? You have to enter desktop mode to launch them.
Most of your complaints seem very nitpicky tbh. Valve needs competition badly and I'm glad to see another company entering the Linux gaming space.
You don't have to enter desktop mode to launch them. You have to enter desktop mode to install them and add them as a non-steam game to your steam library so that they'll show up in handheld mode.
So a bit easier but still not first class citizens citizens, by definition. It is called steam os after all, so I don't necessarily expect anything different, but this company wants to offer something new. Seems like this os is less dependent on steam integration, which I would view as a plus.
I agree. But I'll believe it when I see it.
As another user already mentioned, you only need desktop mode to install/add them as non-steam game.
Other that that yeah, it IS nitpicky and I agree Valve needs competition. It's just... if your pitch starts with misrepresenting said competition ("Steam Deck is locked to Valveverse"), promising improbable ("Fortnite on linux" when we know the Tim Sweeney hates it and already said supporting linux would be too much work), stealing content to show a proof of concept (Witcher 3 video) and have someone like McCaster as one of the members just doesn't instill confidence in me.
I really hope I'm being too cautious and cynical about this but it's on them to ease those worries, not on me to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Fair enough. There's really no reason to not be cautious with any company, especially startups, so I can see where you're coming from. I guess I'm just glad to see someone else seeing market value in gaming on Linux.
I can see how my initial reply could be read as a random rant by a Valve fanboy since, well, these people exist. I do hope I'm wrong and this turns into another major player pushing Linux to the forefront as well. Time will tell.
Competition is good. But I'll be glad only when that competition is viable and pro-consumer. So far I've seen a bunch of gimmicks and misrepresentations of facts from Playtron. So I am not glad yet. We'll see when they actually release something.
Agreed. I guess I'm just happy that the market is big enough that someone that is trying to get into it now.