GPD, the company behind many portable devices like the upcoming GPD WIN Max 2, made a claim about "cooperating" with Valve to get SteamOS working on their hardware. This is the same GPD that blocked us on Twitter, after we confronted them about pinching videos that didn't belong to them.
On the IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign for the GPD WIN Max 2, which will be powered by a either a AMD Ryzen 7 6800U or an Intel 12th gen Core i7-1260P, they were asked in the discussions section if they had plans to integrate it with SteamOS. The two replies they gave officially are as follows:
Appreciate for your support! As earlier of March this year, Valve contacted us about cooperation proposal. But for this cooperation, Valve needs to match the appropriate Steam OS system for our 6800U handheld.We need to provide the device to Valve official, and Valve also has to improve the Steam OS system for the 6800U handheld, this process may take half year.
And also:
Thank you for your support! Yes, Valve has contacted us to consult if we are interested in the built-in Steam OS system, they can promote our products on the Steam official website, we will agree to this cooperation, we think this cooperation will be the best.
Can't link to them directly, as IndieGoGo doesn't have direct-comment links but here's a shot I took.
Direct Link
I reached out to Valve, and today they replied and sent over a statement that said:
We're excited to eventually make SteamOS available for all devices, including handheld PCs manufactured by other companies. The team is still working on finalizing SteamOS, and we don't have anything else to announce today.
This isn't exactly breaking news by itself, since we already knew for a long time that Valve planned to release SteamOS fully to the public and so of course other hardware vendors would be able to use it too. However, GPD are clearly planned to do something with SteamOS on their devices much like OneXPlayer are also planning to do.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
FurbyOnSteroid Jul 13, 2022
Last edited by FurbyOnSteroid on 13 July 2022 at 6:30 pm UTC
Mountain Man Jul 13, 2022
Quoting: MrowlLet's forget about GPD for a moment, if this is true, then the bigger story here is that Valve are reaching out to other Handheld Gaming PC companies to ship their devices with Steam OS. This would confirm that Valve doesn't consider these devices to be competition, as they help drive Steam OS adoption.
Makes sense. I would beleive the Deck doesn't likely turn a huge, if any profit. The money is in game sales. More devices with SteamOS leads to more sales on steam.
Quoting: MrowlLet's forget about GPD for a moment, if this is true, then the bigger story here is that Valve are reaching out to other Handheld Gaming PC companies to ship their devices with Steam OS. This would confirm that Valve doesn't consider these devices to be competition, as they help drive Steam OS adoption.
If you believe that Valve's actual goal with the Steam Deck was to get game developers to target Linux as a platform this makes complete sense and is very expected. Breaking into the hand-held PC market at such a low price-point to drive Steam games adoption would be the public reason to get the device in people's hands, but I think "internally" this is to get a Linux device in lots of people's hands and create the hype to convince game developers and publishers to target Linux. Same with Valve working on Proton to make getting games that targeted Windows to also work on Linux with very minimal effort (especially compared with porting those games to other the other consoles) is another factor in convincing game developers and publishers; this very much in line with a primary goal of getting games running on Linux.
I quote "internally" since Valve hasn't really been that secretive about getting games working on Linux for a long time. The Steam Machines may have been a public "failure", but I think Valve learned lots on that project and on the Steam Controller.
wit_as_a_riddle Jul 13, 2022
I thought to myself, "was it GPD who were all shitty about the Steam Deck? Nawww, I think it was Aya." Turns out it was GPD, ugh.
This new that they want to collaborate with Valve is very encouraging, I hope very much to have a good experience with SteamOS on my unit. I was planning to installing HoloIso but maybe I won't have to.
EDIT: Should have looked at the screenshot, it was *my* question they were responding to 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks so much for the write up, I would have missed it!
Last edited by wit_as_a_riddle on 13 July 2022 at 9:48 pm UTC
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