Valve clearly has no problem creating competitors to its own Steam Deck. The Steam publisher is working with Lenovo to optimize its portable console's operating system, SteamOS, for the newly unveiled Legion Go S. And Valve intends to make SteamOS thrive beyond that: the software will be available for download in April. That's several weeks before the Legion Go S is scheduled to go on sale in May!
This means that SteamOS will be available to install on any other portable PC console, at least that's what we can hope for. Pierre-Loup Griffais, one of the bosses of the Steam Deck and the OS, and Lawrence Yang, designer at Valve, did not want to confirm to The Verge which devices will be compatible. We bet that the ROG Ally will be among the first consoles supported, as was confirmed last August by Valve.
Be careful, the company will provide a beta version of SteamOS. "Anyone will be able to download it and try it," explains Valve, which adds: "And of course, support will be extended and the user experience improved in future versions." While anyone will be free to download and install this software, the publisher wants to work directly with manufacturers who want to pre-install SteamOS on their devices.
Not only are manufacturers not allowed to sell or modify the operating system, but this partnership will allow consoles "Powered by SteamOS" to function exactly like a Steam Deck. This means that the consoles will receive the same software updates at the same time, as well as the shader caching system that allows games to launch smoothly.
Valve actually wants to prevent the fragmentation of SteamOS. And is positioning itself head-on against Windows, which is poorly suited to portable consoles, but which nevertheless equips the vast majority of the market outside of the Steam Deck. As for the possibility of launching TV boxes running on SteamOS, why not? As long as Valve is involved, the company would see no problem with it. An interesting case to follow, because SteamOS would then find itself in direct competition with home consoles…
Source: Steam
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