HANDHELD NEWS – Valve has summarized its achievements for 2024, and Steam Deck makes an appearance in the big document!

According to Valve, Steam Deck players played 330 million hours last year. That’s a big increase over 2023. How big, huge: 64%! That’s quite a jump for a handheld PC, and slowly the user base is starting to “fine-tune” the major publishers to support the platform(s). Earlier this year, just before the release of the PC port of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Square Enix emphasized that the sequel to the Clouds storyline was playable (supported) on Steam Deck, and Ubisoft also emphasized a week before the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows that the game would still run on Valve’s device…

Valve’s hardware involvement is no secret. A new model of the Steam Deck is slowly being built; SteamOS will soon be released on the Lenovo Legion Go S, and many other handheld PCs will surely follow. Who knows… maybe in the future the MSI Claw or Asus ROG Ally X will support Valve’s Linux-based operating system! After all, it’s cheaper than a Windows license.

“The future of hardware at Valve is bright. Steam Deck, SteamOS, and SteamVR are delivering tons of value to players and developers, building on a decade of investment in UI, Linux compatibility, input support, custom silicon, motion tracking, displays, battery efficiency, and more. Every developer making PC games benefits from these investments, and gamers can now enjoy their PC games in so many new contexts. Valve’s hardware teams are excited to see Steam in the living room, the airport, the backyard, and wherever else customers want to take their PC game library,” Valve wrote.

Steam Deck 2 is still a ways off, and Steam Machines is not as important to Valve. But manufacturers can always choose SteamOS!

Source: PCGamer