this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Steam Deck

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Playtron's Linux-based gaming OS aims to be a cheap, versatile option for handheld gaming PCs (and other systems) - Liliputing (liliputing.com)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

I've got some points about this one.

  • they pitch a "deck that could actually play Fortnite" - game from a company who's CEO actively hates linux for whatever reason (maybe it kicked his dog, I dunno)
  • they talk how games bought on stores other than Steam will be "first-class citizens" which... you can already do on Steam Deck
  • they promote being free of hackers/cheaters because of immutable file system... something Steam Deck also has (though they do mention some additional digital signatures)
  • they want to be not only on handhelds but everywhere (laptops, tablets, phones, TV, cars...) - pretty ambitious for a company that didn't deliver anything yet
  • it'll be running on an ARM processor - we'll see how this works out (has anyone tried making a handheld like this?)
  • already mentioned no desktop mode - why is this mentioned as a positive exactly?
  • they want help from linux power users (feature requests, contribute code) but they don't know how open-source they want to be
  • they stole Witcher 3 video from some dude on YouTube

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...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

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... ╮( ˘ ､ ˘ )╭

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

they pitch a “deck that could actually play Fortnite” - game from a company who’s CEO actively hates linux for whatever reason (maybe it kicked his dog, I dunno)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] lambda 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] lambda 2 points 8 months ago

I agree. But I'll believe it when I see it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Agreed. I guess I'm just happy that the market is big enough that someone that is trying to get into it now.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

PlaytronOS, meanwhile, won’t even have a desktop mode. Speaking to The Verge, Playtron CEO Kirt McMaster says the goal is to offer a more console-like experience that’s easy to use, allowing handhelds to feel more like a Nintendo Switch than a full-fledged PC.

What. Isn't one of the selling points of the Steam Deck that you could run normal software like emulators and Discord on it. What target audience are they after? People that are into PC gaming, don't use Steam and don't want to customise things. But also don't want a switch?

Licenses will be around $10, making PlaytronOS much cheaper to install than Windows (which can cost as much as $80 per device).

Not for OEMs! It costs them about ten dollars, and if you talked to the right person in Microsoft, you might be able to get them cheaper if your hardware can give them an edge against Valve.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

According to other sources, the average windows license for OEMs is about $50. The exact pricing has to do with how "powerful" the PC is, so gaming handhelds probably cost more than $50.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The article explicitly mentions their target audience, which is ordinary/casual gamers who would not want or expect a desktop mode on their console. They're basically targeting the console crowd. It's not the same audience as steam deck.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I get that, but I'm wondering why people looking for that wouldn't just get a Switch? Even the Steam deck can be used as a "console" if you just own Steam games.

They're trying to complete with two companies that have huge amounts of resources whilst also not bringing much new value to the table.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

So there revenue model is to sell the os to OEM and offer support? Good luck with that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If anyone is interested in a similar project check out open-game-pad-ui. It features a plug system for stores. Right now there is only steam and flatpak but eventually there could be other stores. It's really not ready to be daily drive but it is functional.