Eh, I'm not so sure. Gamers like Valve more than they like Microsoft.

Linux is free as well, and runs 99% of games you want to play on a handheld pretty well. It's not going to be that 1% that love Gamepass or really want the Windows UI on a gaming device to overthrow the Deck.

Lastly, first mover advantage. The Deck was very well received, Valve have just to eventually upgrade the hardware in a Steam Deck 2, and it'll sell like hot cakes again.

> Gamers like Valve more than they like Microsoft.

Thanks for making me laugh.

How is that whole Year of Desktop Linux going?

Had SteamDeck not been released wihtout Windows and DirectX "emulation", the usual 2% folks would be the ones using it.

It's all anecdotal, but yeah. I'm a gamer and I like Valve more than Microsoft. By a wide, wide margin.

Same. For sure. Any pure player whose existence depends on gaming (or whatever) is going to be preferable to a behemoth like Microsoft who can promote infinite agenda-ridden VPs who disappoint customers, but because the losses are survivable they keep doing it.

MS has been like this for a long time. Just ask all the PlaysForSure music owners.

How is that SteamMachine support going?

Support for SteamOS v1/2, the one on Deck is rebased on Arch, lasted to 2018 which is when Proton entered the picture. If that wasn't good enough (fair enough) they were just PCs so you could install Windows on it if you felt you weren't being well served. Or a Linux distro, where the game experience is better than it ever has been largely thanks to projects sponsored by Valve.

So for the very few people who bought them, I'd imagine they're unlikely to be all that upset.

Badly, I imagine :)

Microsoft is the one that has to up their game. Windows XP and random Linux distro offered more or less the same interface and features for netbooks so there was no real drawback going with XP. With SteamOS Valve has crafted a controller first UI and ensured features like sleeping a game actually work, the ability to easily adjust TDP, controller settings, frame cap, etc. Right now Windows has none of that so you're left navigating a mouse cursor with an analog stick or tiny touchscreen and using whatever half baked software the OEM cooked up.

None of the Steam Deck competitors have trackpads either which make games not designed with controllers in mind so much more playable without hooking up a KB/M. I think it would be kind of a wash with Windows and no trackpads, yes you can play anti-cheat but strategy and other games are off the table or super clunky.

Somehow I keep reading about this exodus into GNU/Linux for gaming since Windows XP, instead we have a device that has to emulate Windows and Direct X to be taken seriously by the gaming community, and in the process helps game studios to ignore GNU/Linux and leave the work to Valve.

The Steam Deck encourages devs to test on Wine/Proton before release. Games like Spider-man Remastered have boasted about being Steam Deck verified on day one. Having a Linux "native" only handheld wouldn't have helped put nearly as much spotlight on the device. And in the end it really doesn't matter too much. It works and it does a lot of things better than the platform it's "emulating" so who really cares?

And this is why Windows ends up winning in the eyes of game developers.

"OS/2 runs Windows applications better than Windows"....

And thank god. If Microsoft hadn't done all the work of building an easily-copied raster graphics API, we wouldn't be so lucky as to preserve them all on Linux. Want to play Diablo 2? You can't, at least on Windows anyways. It's broken by default, and getting it working entails a variety of full-screen, low-res hacks. Want to play the Fallout games without their infamous windowing issues? Not an option, even on Windows 11.

With Wine, all of these functions can be mapped to their modern counterpart. Tray icons and fullscreen behavior can be updated to work as they should in x11, Quartz and Wayland. Breakage can be worked around in the same way Microsoft does with registries, but by the community. The end result is good enough that entire portions of Microsoft's customer base could just move over to Wine without knowing what happened.

Honestly, the best thing Microsoft could do right now is turn DirectX into a useless Metal-style API, and send the game devs running back to Vulkan. Would certainly make porting to multiple consoles easier.

> None of the Steam Deck competitors have trackpads either which make games not designed with controllers in mind so much more playable without hooking up a KB/M

At least for myself and two friends I just asked, none of us have ever used the trackpads aside from on the desktop and rapid-fire typing. On the desktop you can make do with joystick mouse relatively well, and typing with sticks or perhaps gyro is a bit slower but works fine. None of us has ever used the touchscreen.

For the Deck 2 they should honestly strip out the touchpads and touchscreen.

By taking out the touchpads they claw back real estate that can be used for battery or slimming down. No touchscreen means a little bit more money can be diverted to screen quality, and the screen itself is more likely to have smaller bezels.

I know stating this will ruffle some enthusiast feathers and probably send me into the deep grey, but I honestly think the trade-off would be worth it.

I've used the trackpads a ton and strongly disagree. It makes games like Civ VI, Magic Arena, etc. very playable on Steam Deck. They are EXTREMELY handy for older games not designed around a controller on PC like for example Morrowind. The UI there was always designed with a mouse in mind and having the trackpads act as a mouse is far superior to clunky analog stick movement. You can also use them as a "virtual numpad" type thing which is great for older FPS where weapon selection is dependent on number keys. They are insanely versatile and for any game that wasn't explicitly designed with an Xbox pad in mind amazing.

The touchscreen can go though.

> By taking out the touchpads they claw back real estate that can be used for battery or slimming down

I want real estate for a bigger D-pad. I find the Steam Deck's D-pad less comfortable than even the Joy-Con's.

The touchpads allow PC MMORPGs to work, which is a sizable audience. Their use goes a bit beyond enthusiast.

I play Stellaris on the Deck using the touchpads. I don't know how I would with just the joysticks.

The touchscreen is useful at the very least for the virtual keyboard.

They're a god send for me. They're so flexible and re-mappable I simply couldn't recommend a device in the same form factor without them.

Games like minecraft (java, not bedrock) make no concession for controllers but are flawless experiences due to the track pads giving precise, accurate mouse controls for the crafting interface. They can also be configured as flexible rotary menus or button grids directly in Steam.

They're great for emulators too, which have a lot of complex controls for things like save states. I've played a bunch of PS1 games through and found having all the controls for the emulator I would ever need in one sub-menu on the left trackpad.

They're IMO the real selling feature of the steam deck. The rest is just a computer to run the trackpads.