I fully agree that was “a problem”. but I fully hold to the fragmented hardware also being a significant problem. IMO the steam deck still significantly makes gains from being a consistant hardware target for dev’s to base things on, in addition to basically having little to no consumer confusion, if a game says “will run on steam deck”, it’s safe to assume, it will run on a steam deck. This time around valve specifically hasn’t released a steam deck 2, because they want to avoid any hardware confusion.
I don’t think hardware vendors will use chips or parts that lack decent working linux drivers, which would make the “too many hardware variants” point moot.
Then again, higher ups are known for taking stupid decisions.
The key problem why “Runs on SteamDeck” exists is not the raw power of the SteamDeck (or lack thereof) but the compatibility with Linux. Unless someone decides to utterly cripple a handheld for the sake of battery efficiency any game labeled with SteamDeck support will also run on any other handheld running SteamOS.
The problem with the SteamMachines ultimately was the lack of game support. The hardware confusion was just the cherry on top. You could even argue that the lack of supported games back then meant a limited number of customers would be interested which in turn led to companies releasing underpowered hardware. By that logic one can even claim the failure of SteamMachines is entirely down to the piss poor Linux support then.
All these handhelds have decent AMD hardware, I would bet money that absolutely any new steamOS handheld will have similar or more powerful hardware than the OG deck. This new Lenovo device specifically is more powerful than the OG deck as well.
And with steamOS being Linux, a free and open source system, hardware fragmentation wont really be a thing. With Android hardware fragmentation was bad because many devices would never get updated after a year or so, but this is true Linux and valve is a consumer friendly company so I don’t really know what you mean talking about hardware fragmentation.
This is great for valve, and great for gamers. There is no down side to this.
I fully agree that was “a problem”. but I fully hold to the fragmented hardware also being a significant problem. IMO the steam deck still significantly makes gains from being a consistant hardware target for dev’s to base things on, in addition to basically having little to no consumer confusion, if a game says “will run on steam deck”, it’s safe to assume, it will run on a steam deck. This time around valve specifically hasn’t released a steam deck 2, because they want to avoid any hardware confusion.
I don’t think hardware vendors will use chips or parts that lack decent working linux drivers, which would make the “too many hardware variants” point moot.
Then again, higher ups are known for taking stupid decisions.
The key problem why “Runs on SteamDeck” exists is not the raw power of the SteamDeck (or lack thereof) but the compatibility with Linux. Unless someone decides to utterly cripple a handheld for the sake of battery efficiency any game labeled with SteamDeck support will also run on any other handheld running SteamOS.
The problem with the SteamMachines ultimately was the lack of game support. The hardware confusion was just the cherry on top. You could even argue that the lack of supported games back then meant a limited number of customers would be interested which in turn led to companies releasing underpowered hardware. By that logic one can even claim the failure of SteamMachines is entirely down to the piss poor Linux support then.
All these handhelds have decent AMD hardware, I would bet money that absolutely any new steamOS handheld will have similar or more powerful hardware than the OG deck. This new Lenovo device specifically is more powerful than the OG deck as well.
And with steamOS being Linux, a free and open source system, hardware fragmentation wont really be a thing. With Android hardware fragmentation was bad because many devices would never get updated after a year or so, but this is true Linux and valve is a consumer friendly company so I don’t really know what you mean talking about hardware fragmentation.
This is great for valve, and great for gamers. There is no down side to this.
I… think we are saying the same thing with different words and emphasis.