s08nlql9Me when Valve releases a phone
Where!? When!?
Nowhere. This is speculation.
Snot FlickermanNot even speculation, just shitposting.
Valve has done a ton of work on expanding their level of access in the gaming sphere, from Proton to the new Fex, but they are a PC gaming company, period. Yes, they’ve had forays into selling movies and a light foothold on Android, but the movie sales were short lived and the Android support is limited. For all intents and purposes, their near exclusive focus is PC gaming.
SteamDeck doesn’t run Android, it runs full Linux.
Other Linux phone variants are in such infancy I doubt Valve would want to take on such a project in it’s current state. Maybe 10 years down the line, if their hardware gambits pay off.
Even then, mobile devices is a whole different ball game of working with cellular service vendors to get support for you device. Currently Valve doesn’t have to work with any vendors other than traditional PC and game peripheral parts providers, they don’t have to cut deals with xFinity or other ISPs to get their products to connect to them. They are not having to make deals with AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. Getting into the phone sphere is such a huge undertaking, and while it’s a fun thought, it’s such a far-off and unlikely move for Valve.
Oh what’s fex? Sorry, I could probably Google this
The new translation layer they’ve been working on for their new VR headset, the Steam Frame. Steam Frame runs on an ARM64 processor so Fex is a translation layer for x86/x64 games to play directly on the Steam Frame hardware (meaning if you install an x86/x64 game to the Steam Frame SD card, it will use the Fex translation layer to run the game natively and locally). Honestly, in my personal opinion, it feels like a bigger and more impactful project than even Proton because it’s the first step to opening up PC gaming to other chip architectures other than the traditional x86/x64 Intel/AMD chips. What if you could buy an ARM64-powered Linux PC and still run your entire Steam library on it? That’s the potential future here.
Don’t feel bad about not searching for it, I like to have conversations with real people, and I don’t mind doing my best to answer questions. Cheers!
I mean Arm is big on mobile, so my thought with this was to be honest their work here COULD open up the possibility of a Linux based steam phone.
woelkchenthey are a PC gaming company, period.
And a hypothetical Steam Phone would be an ARM PC, dockable for a full PC experience but mobil use could be similar to XPeria Play. It’s not a huge leap from Steam Deck formfactor-wise.
Not even speculation, just shitposting.
Valve confirmed that there are more ARM devices in the making. The type of device is speculation.
SteamDeck doesn’t run Android, it runs full Linux.
SteamOS on Frame is compatible with Android apps because it ships Waydroid. When Valve contributions to Waydroid surfaced months ago, I already speculated that it’s probably a porting aid for Quest games to Deckard but as soon as the tech is there (which it is now), you can bet there is someone at Valve flashing SteamOS onto a Pixel phone or so, just tinker with it.
We’re in trouble if people are speculating on things posted in a shitpost section.
BjörnThe thing is that it’s not totally baseless. The Steam Frame is already halfway there. Most of its components are repurposed phone parts. They’re only missing a 5g modem. And a “Small Screen” interface for Steam.
Give them five to ten years and they might actually pull it off.
…. do they really want to go into that market?
Seems mobile gaming is more prominent in Asian countries and they kind of have their own phones.
Not soon enough
Chemical Wonkaidiot
Well, it would need to be open with open sauce drivers to run whatever OS you choose.
It would also have to be of higher spec.
Basically just take that Frame, cut the battery in half, change the cameras to 1" (wide & telephoto), swap the LCDs with one big ol’ OLED, and cram it in a nice alloy body. And RGB lighting everywhere (kidding).
Yes please.
eta
guynamedzeroYou know, I would 100% buy a phone from them if it runs Linux
With the amount of work they are putting in compatibility layers technology, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could run The Witcher 3 on it out of the box.
AdrianTheFrogpeople are saying that the witcher 3 works really well with the winulator app (uses wine and box86, which i’ve heard usually performs a tiny bit better than FEX, what valve is using, at the cost of occasional innacuracies)
not disagreeing, but if you just want to run the witcher 3 on your phone you can do it right now
We really live in crazy times
obnomusYep u can use gamehub lite, winlator and gamemative to play pc games on android natively.
Here’s an example witcher 3 is running at 30fps on Ultra settings. Btw try gamehub lite since it removes all the bloat and provacy invasive stuff from the original version.
If you have a phone running Android, it already runs Linux.
I unfortunately do not, and come on, you know that’s not what I’m talking about
Everyone loves a big deck
maccentric
3 Guys 1 Deck - Hearthstone Skit | Viva La Dirt League (VLDL)
I kinda wanna hate that but, while pricy, it…it would be good, wouldn’t it? It’s Valve after all. It wouldn’t be astounding. But it would be stable, reliable, accessible…
All dreams as of now but…
real_squidsBut it would be stable, reliable, accessible…
And have a 50% chance to be abandoned/unsupported in 2 years. In the real world they have zero reasons to release a standalone phone, (huge) maybe they could make a tablet for remote play.
mobile gaming is one the biggest segments of the gaming industry based on revenue. depending on how scummy their intentions are, a GabePhone could be a very good business move
They would then have to compete with google’s storefront, which is wild to think about. Unless they pull an EGS and promise a much better revenue split, but even then it’s gonna be ridiculously hard
rapcheelast year i plugged in my steam link just to see if it still works and it had an update
it gets a “nicer than amd link” award then lol
stable
SteamOS is by far the least stable experience I’ve ever had out of all consoles and handhelds I remember owning.
Linux phone would be nice though.
Steamy Chocolate Bar.
I think it’d be Steam Sight, or Steam Sight Glass.
It fits the theme and is essentially a window to peer into steam pipes to assess how things are going. An easy view inside the system.
Also called View Port, Sight Window, and I think Sight Flow?
Isn’t Steam Frame run in SteamOS(which is linux based) made for ARM chip?
While there likely won’t be a steam phone, it technically exists as of now.
What the other comment said. Since Valve is already half way there with their Steam Frame version of SteamOS(which run on ARM architecture, where phone and tablet also use) and Linux phone iirc do exists, it’s only a matter on how much futher Valve wanna go. So as of now they “technically” already have half a steam phone.
It only lacks a modem tho.
It’s a few gens back top of the line snapping turtle (Snapdragon), 16 giggies of ram, a battery, two LCDs, a bunch of cameras, and it runs Linux (SteamOS of unknown openness).
Having a Linux phone that chroot compartments for Android apps is the dream.
Not exactly that but Jolla might be interesting for you. I had the first edition of the device in 2014 and I loved it.
Thry finally released a second gen hardware last year I think.
BlackBerry had a separate walled/secured android instance a long time ago. I wish that more people bought the phone. Jolla is interesting, but I really want the banking apps to work.
Steam Xperia Linux phone would be a dream. I think if a Steam phone did well then other companies like Asus would jump into Linux phone.
Then suddenly we get mainstream alternatives to Android.
You mean the one with PlayStation integration? Fuck yeah.
I was just checking that yesterday, and there was the opportunity to have something equivalent to a “steam phone” with https://liberux.net/#specs , but the indiegogo failed.
One that is actually sold is the Furiphone , which is under finalization of software update., and has chroot for Android apps with Waydroid. check the links ! 😊
The GNU organization just announced a Linux phone a couple weeks ago
Not quite. FSF (Free Software Foundation) announced the Librephone project. Its goal is to work towards having phone hardware with open firmware. They are still in the phase of finding out what that entails.
They are not making a phone. It’s more a campaign of nudging other manufacturers in that direction.