As great as some of the Steam Deck’s competitors are, offering innovations in power, form factor, controls and more (and in a lot of cases actually being available in Australia), there’s no doubt that many feel held back by Windows and its awkwardness on a dedicated handheld device, as well as general instability. The dream then, for a lot of users, would be to have their choice of hardware along with Steam’s dedicated handheld OS – and ROG Ally owners might just be a little closer to that dream.
In a report from The Verge, which comes after users had started to spot references to the ROG Ally in the most recent SteamOS release notes, the outlet hit up Valve designer Lawrence Yang to get confirmation that the company was genuinely working on ROG Ally support and that the notes weren’t a mistake.
“The note about ROG Ally keys is related to third-party device support for SteamOS. The team is continuing to work on adding support for additional handhelds on SteamOS,” Yang told The Verge’s Sean Hollister, confirming the company is indeed working on supporting not just the Ally but even more gaming PC handhelds.
Valve confirms it'll support the ROG Ally with its Steam Deck operating system https://t.co/wFi5nsphxS
— The Verge (@verge) August 14, 2024
As Hollister points out, this news doesn’t necessarily mean that ASUS is going to suddenly start pre-installing SteamOS on its ROG Ally devices in place of Windows, or that Valve is even planning to offer it to other vendors in the near future, but it confirms that the company is still very much intent on expanding SteamOS to more devices when it feels it’s ready for the prime time.
On the inverse, Valve also wants to make Windows available to Steam Deck OLED users in a dual-boot situation, confirming it’s still a priority but that – much like SteamOS support on other devices – just isn’t ready yet. I’m particularly excited to hear more about the full release of Steam OS3, which should open the doors for non-handheld but otherwise non-traditional PCs (like the Geekom A8) to run SteamOS natively – opening doors for a console-like PC experience in the loungeroom.
