Playtron are quietly building up their Linux-based PlaytronOS behind the scenes, and not only have they released their first Alpha but they've pulled in another investor too.
As a reminder: PlaytronOS was announced back in March, with a plan to bring their Fedora Silverblue based Linux system to as many devices as possible. They're not a hardware company though, think of them more like a vendor making a specialised version of Linux to ship to OEMs. Unlike SteamOS from Valve they are working on direct integrations with not just Steam but also GOG, Epic Games and other platforms directly inside the system. The first hardware that will be actually using it is the SuiPlay0x1, a strange looking and sounding web3 / blockchain handheld.
Just announced via a press release shared with me today, Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd., have invested in the company. This is in addition to Samsung Next, Polychain Capital, Alumni Ventures, Mysten Labs and others that previously invested in them.
From the press release:
"Square Enix’s investment in Playtron underscores its commitment to driving innovation and enhancing player experiences and access," said Hideaki Uehara, General Manager, Investment & Business Development of Square Enix. "This collaboration aims to leverage Playtron’s"GameOS" to expand distribution of Square Enix’s portfolio of beloved franchises and explore new creative possibilities that are only possible when harnessing the full power of an operating system."
Playtron’s CEO, Kirt McMaster, added, “We are thrilled to join forces with such a legendary games publisher as Square Enix. The PC we know is morphing into new forms that require a purpose built OS for gaming that meets the demands of powerful new gaming hardware such as handhelds and new players who have grown up in a mobile 1st world with much more sophisticated UX sensibilities. This investment will accelerate the development and deployment of GameOS and create new experiences for players around the globe.”
Additionally, the first Alpha version of PlaytronOS has now been released for those of you who wish to test and give feedback. So far they note it has been tested across the AYANEO 2, ASUS ROG Ally, GPD Win 4 (2023), Lenovo Legion Go, Valve Steam Deck LCD and Valve Steam Deck OLED.
One of their developers kindly shared a bunch of screenshots of it in action (click to enlarge):
A lot of what they do is open source, but seemingly not all of it. In their FAQ they noted: "At first, only the operating system code will be open source. We have plans to open source more and release API documentation to allow developers in the community to contribute and build their solutions using Playtron.". They will also still have the anti-cheat problem that SteamOS has but they do say they're "working with interested partners to enable anti-cheat services".
Still early days, but it's looking pretty promising. The real test will be getting more known vendors to use it once it's further along in development.
See more about Playtron on the website. The first Alpha of PlaytronOS can be downloaded here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Vortex_Acherontic Sep 4
Quoting: Purple Library Guyone that already supports native Linux games.
Did you read the post till the end? Because that is where the issue lies it doesn’t just because it is a Linux based OS.
Quoting: fewtariusBetween SteamFork, Bazzite, ChimeraOS, and all of the other open source gaming distributions out there, what will this one do differently?Don't know about SteamFork (it just displays a blank screen, maybe because I have a Polaris card?) but compared with the rest, I think they're going for extreme minimalism, think something like Batocera maybe.
That if the current alpha is to believed, so likely is a bit premature to form a definitive opinion.
Other than linking your Playtron account to Steam/whatever and some minimal settings, there's nothing much else to do, no tweaking no nothing, just simple tiles to click install on, and play. If there's some minimal tweak/launch option that can make your game playable, you cannot do it, is only up to them to fix it. Again, maybe too early to tell.
I can't see many people going for this approach, but I suspect will make a niche of users very happy, especially on handhelds. It seems to work OK so far, every game I tried installed and played with no hiccups, and overall is a very seamless experience. I was also impressed how it automatically converted/sent 5.1 surround sound through optical cable, something that I always had to tweak around, no matter the distro.
Quoting: dubigrasuDon't know about SteamFork (it just displays a blank screen, maybe because I have a Polaris card?) but compared with the rest, I think they're going for extreme minimalism, think something like Batocera maybe.
Could be something with the Polaris architecture, I think I have a Polaris card here so I can take a look at that. Batocera isn't minimal, it's pretty heavy.
Quoting: dubigrasuI was also impressed how it automatically converted/sent 5.1 surround sound through optical cable, something that I always had to tweak around, no matter the distro.
This is a trivial thing to do, just need to check the capabilities of the connected device and match against a list of optimal profiles.
Quoting: fewtariusYeah sorry, I probably remembered it wrong, but in any case I've meant the unified tiles interface.Quoting: dubigrasuDon't know about SteamFork (it just displays a blank screen, maybe because I have a Polaris card?) but compared with the rest, I think they're going for extreme minimalism, think something like Batocera maybe.Batocera isn't minimal, it's pretty heavy.
Quoting: fewtariusIt is trivial, ( even more these days) but none of the distros I tried did it out of the box without my intervention. And that was fortunate with PlaytronOS, since like I said, is a sort of a black box.Quoting: dubigrasuI was also impressed how it automatically converted/sent 5.1 surround sound through optical cable, something that I always had to tweak around, no matter the distro.
This is a trivial thing to do, just need to check the capabilities of the connected device and match against a list of optimal profiles.
(though you can still drop to tty and do some magic)
Quoting: dubigrasuBatocera isn't minimal, it's pretty heavy.Yeah sorry, I probably remembered it wrong, but in any case I've meant the unified tiles interface.
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No worries, I'm very familiar with EmulationStation. I created JELOS and 351ELEC (Now known as AmberELEC) before starting SteamFork.
Quoting: dubigrasunone of the distros I tried did it out of the box without my intervention
Yeah, forcing a setting like this works for some but can break for others so it's almost always left default for the user. There were a few devices we supported at JELOS that required forcing them into pro audio mode for audio to work at all, but on others that would break them.
Building a compatibility matrix could resolve that, but it would be a nightmare to maintain. It's pretty neat that they're doing it in PlaytronOS though tbh. I wonder if that component is FOSS.
Quoting: Vortex_AcheronticI read the post till the end. The end was irrelevant. It doesn't matter how hard it is to support Linux native games, nor does it matter if Linux native games inevitably suxorz or whatever.Quoting: Purple Library Guyone that already supports native Linux games.
Did you read the post till the end? Because that is where the issue lies it doesn’t just because it is a Linux based OS.
The point is, if
--Distro A does in fact support Linux native games
--Someone creates Distro B, which is based on Distro A
--And Distro B does not support what Distro A supports
--then that's ridiculous.
All the hard work you talk about has been done. Sure, they could deliberately decide to drop support for Linux games because they have a bee in their bonnet about how crappy Linux native support is . . . but that's ridiculous. And just for the record, I play almost solely Linux native games. They're fine.
Quoting: Vortex_AcheronticMy personal observation is that around 90% of native Linux games can not compete with their Windows counter part and the user is probably best advised to run the Windows version.I don't doubt that you can name a handful of examples, but I don't know how you got from that handful to 90%.
My personal observation is that everything in my library works just fine.
chickenb00 Sep 5
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