The Steam Deck is software-freedom friendly

It truly is, and it's the culmination of a long history of development to get to this point. Back in, I want to say 2016 or so, we had Steam Machines, which were a series of hardware partnerships with various vendors for a console-style form factor of essentially PC hardware running on the first version of Steam OS.

It was an incredible idea, but at the time rather frustratingly, I think some people came down with what I like to call The Verge Syndrome, which is to judge things on whether or not they're an overnight success, and otherwise deemed failures. So, according to some people, the fact that there were fewer Steam Machines than PlayStations in the world meant that the project as a whole was a failure.

And so the Steam Machine was not successful (by that metric at least), but it got the ball rolling on increasing sophistication in developing the Linux ecosystem and the understanding of hardware that culminated in the Steam Deck, which is a triumphant rebalancing of the PC gaming universe, away from dependence on Windows. But try telling that to someone in 2016.

I'm happy to sing the praises of Valve, but I think a particular distinguishing virtue they're holding on to is being willing to play the long game and not giving up in the absence of overnight success.

The Deck is so transformative that if Microsoft were serious about XBOX at all, the next XBOX would be a handheld.

>So, according to some people, the fact that there were fewer Steam Machines than PlayStations in the world meant that the project as a whole was a failure.

I mean, there's no metric short nor long term where we call the steam machines a success. It was an experiment and some neat tech (hardware and software) came out of it. Valve is still a business at the end of the day.

But yes, a business that can salvage the good and iterate is apparently 1000x better than what we get nowadays in this late stage capitalism, where something sells millions and the company still cuts back and lays off staff, while milking it to the ground.

>a particular distinguishing virtue they're holding on to is being willing to play the long game and not giving up in the absence of overnight success.

Gabe learned it straight from old school Microsoft. I don't know what happened to Microsoft in that time.

There are rumors about an Xbox handheld https://www.pcworld.com/article/2656008/leak-more-evidence-o...

Breaking the seal and demonstrating the capabilities, and getting it into the hands of consumers set the conditions for the Steam Deck's success. The Steam Deck exists because the Steam Machine existed, and it's in this context that the Steam Machine succeeded. You don't need overnight instant success for the program itself to succeed.

Dark souls exists because Demons Soul existed. But if you ask Sony or even FromSoft, they'd never say Demons Soul was a success. It just didn't bomb so dosasteroisly as to prematurely cancel an entire sub-genre.

You can have disappointments and even failures while Also admitting they lead to successes by not giving up. That was all I was saying.

I don't agree that Fromsoft and Valve were operating from the same definition of success in those respective cases.

I also don't think it makes sense to suggest that the Fromsoft timeline starts at Dark Souls. My understanding is their first game was Kings Field, which had modest commercial aspirations compared to the Dark Souls franchise.

> The Deck is so transformative that if Microsoft were serious about XBOX at all, the next XBOX would be a handheld.

Or they’d realize that the Deck is successful because it’s open and bring Steam to the Xbox.

Valve should acquire Framework and have them do Steam Machine 2.0.

Please no, all due props to Valve but they really can't count to 3.

I think they're too hung up on GAME PASS [1] to do so, on the other hand, GAME PASS might be more fun if you could use it on a portable.

[1] Personally I remember how bundling ruined the brands of Cable TV which makes GAME PASS seem like a disaster to me, but objectively, the Cable TV ecosystem resisted change for 30 years and only really broke when Tubi came along, so maybe they'd be happy to be the new cable.

I'd much rather a partnership than an acquisition. Valve is great, but open, repairable hardware is not their core mission. I think Framework needs to stay independent to maintain that.

But also, Valve is doing a decent job of it on their own already, with the steamdeck being quite repairable and upgradeable, especially in comparison to the competition. I'd rather there be a greater number of companies all independently demonstrating that repairable hardware can be a commercial success rather than the market takeaway being "oh that's just that weird Framework thing, it won't work for us".

The next Xbox is a handheld.

I use GamePass on a portable all the time. There are many portables that support GamePass today. I mostly play GamePass games on a Lenovo Legion Go. Sometimes even cloud streaming.

Far more likely they'll fully support GamePass/Xbox on SteamOS

It seems you’re conflating financial success with all types of success. There can be engineering successes and artistic successes in this context.

This is a semantic debate about what "success" is. You're both making different points at each other.

You already can play xbox remote (that is part of game pass) on steam deck. Microsoft even published tutorial how to do it on their site: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/xbox-cloud-gaming-...

There are also apps that let you do it.

Tends to be a lot of Holy Grail fans at Valve one would surmise.

Indeed. I can name quite a few of both kinds of success and the end result was unfortunately a shattering of a studio who did get a chance to iterate on the potential.

As a business, it's clear what kind of success valve prioritizes.

And kill Steam Deck just like they did with Netbooks, why get Proton translation of the real XBox experience.

Gamers that reach out to handelds in Nintendo Switch numbers don't care about what OS their consoles use, and won't be buying Steack Decks "because Linux!".

The Framework Desktop is what you would want for a Steam Machine 2.0. But the price is around $1,186 and I think that price is too high for a game console. As a PlayStation 5 Pro is $700. Maybe they could reach that price with a second-gen chip? Or when they introduce a new chip and this machine gets discounted.

I do think Linux-based experience for a TV based game console is still lacklustre. There are rumours that Valve integrating either Google TV/Chrome OS. And it would be nice for a game console to also be used as a media center for Netflix and others.

They might not care which OS their consoles use but they probably care about whether their games cost $10 (Steam/PC on very frequent sales) or $80 (Switch 2), and whether they need to buy all of their games again with every generation.

Nowadays gamers buy 100 euros games to have first day play, and yes they proudly have shelves with games for every console generation.

As someone that was part of game development community (Flipcode, Gamedev portals, IGDA), demoscene, before FOSS became mainstream, my point of view is that both communities don't really overlap on point of views towards software and consumer experience.

I love the idea in one sense, which is that I think they're two great companies working in areas that could plausibly converge and be quite complementary. I do have to imagine there's something about their different respective business missions or business cultures, and the ethos and philosophies that inform them that might not make it work in practice. Although I definitely see a place for a framework laptop that's happy to run SteamOS.

I think perhaps that's the goal is that there's any number of companies that we feel are pretty great that are phenomenal at serving a specific vision of gaming and computing that's oriented around Linux and that are quite happy to talk to each other in effective ways and so I wouldn't necessarily say that the culmination of that should be a merger between those companies but an ecosystem that thrives with deeply compatible hardware and software.

Valve has put out some artistic and engineering masterpieces consistently over the years. They currently print money with steam. However, they aren’t putting out a Half-Life 3 to rake in more money. They don’t believe they have anything worthy from a storytelling or tech perspective. But they put out Half-Life Alyx, which was an incredible VR game.

Further, I wouldn’t call the Steam Deck itself a financial priority. Hardware is famously risky. Obviously, they want to continue their financial success, but they don’t seem to pursue that at all costs like other companies that run their IP into the ground to make more money. Having their financial success allows them to keep their integrity and continue pursuing artistic and engineering successes to diversify their income stream and build goodwill. Their work on Proton is a crowning achievement for their pursuit of engineering successes.

They "don't care about what OS their console uses", but they do care about the shitty Windows UI because you can buy Steam Deck alternatives with Windows. And they are not selling because the Windows experience is terrible.

Linux doesn't have user experience rules, which is why Steam OS works.