mimixco

True. But Nintendo has sold very well from their proprietary handheld device and its store. So they probably think they can. Maybe they can. They already have a great UI in Xbox and a great library of games that will run. They might not need anything else to make it.

Xbox runs Windows so MS could make everything work on a handheld device w/ Windows w/ an Xbox-style UI. Xbox ran Windows from the very beginning. Only the "chrome" is different.

Not lecturing anyone. Just citing from the article why that might be a stumbling block. I'm a happy Steam customer. No complaints from me and I have no dog in the fight. I hope Steam Deck is very successful.

Yes, all of these workarounds are examples of why it's not a workable solution. Can you imagine if a Nintendo Switch required that much falderal? It wouldn't sell.

The point I'm making is that normal folks will not dock it or goof around with touchscreen compromises in order to run Windows, which they will also have to install themselves! This is the opposite of a smooth, integrated, pick-up-and-play experience.

Since MS makes hardware now, what's to keep them from making a handheld that runs the Xbox version of Windows?

I think you'll be very hard pressed to use a tiny device without a mouse or keyboard effectively in Windows. Even Windows 11 contains numerous small and overlapping dialogs with all kinds of UI affordances. None of this is setup for touch. Yes, theoretically, you could get it to work, but it won't be fun. The pop-up keyboard, for example, will likely cover a big part of whatever dialog box you're typing into. Moving and managing windows with touch is also not fun at all.

Not coincidentally, this is the same reason that MacOS doesn't have touchscreens. Everything about that OS also requires a mouse (or touchpad) and a keyboard. Just adding a touchscreen to a Mac won't do it.

For sure! Being tied to MS is probably why they didn't do it. I seem to remember that's why Newell made Steam in the first place, so he wasn't tied to MS.

Right. I'm talking about the rest of the computer. How will you manage files on a Steam Deck? How will you access Windows Update? Is your "desktop" going to be covered in icons?

Using Windows on Steam Deck (not using Steam on Steam Deck, using the Windows OS) is going to be difficult because the device lacks a mouse and keyboard on which Windows is dependent. Fixing this for Xbox required making an entirely new UI (for the OS, updates, sign-ins, everything) which Steam has not done for the Deck.

Yes, that's what I meant. Surely home computers have been gaming machines since before Windows and that was also a heavy use case for Windows early on.

What I mean was that Steam simplified the selling, installation, updating, forums, mods, everything else -- the store that Microsoft really wanted to have with Games for Windows that never took off.

We've lost the essence of journalism.

Instead of a venue where multiple options are presented for review by the reader (along with editorial comment, of course), we now have platforms which are nothing but editorial. Not only individual people but individual comments are called out for censorship. This is not how news reporting was done in the past.

It's sad because today, there isn't a single website where a curious individual can review all of the views on a subject (or all of the comments of opposing politicians, for examples) without the platform weighting or simply removing views it doesn't like. This is a loss of objective information and is detrimental to education and intellectual and social advancement.

Instead of journalism, each "platform" now picks and chooses stories and voices that amplify its overlords' goals and nothing more. There is no truth to be delivered, only "my" truth as seen by my platform owners.

It's a sad day.

I know. But that's not a smoothly-integrated user experience and navigating the rest of Windows on that machine without a mouse and keyboard is going to be a pain.

Steam didn't build a console UI that works from the boot state, like MS did for the Xbox version of Windows. If it were up to me, I think I would have picked that approach rather than adding an emulation layer (Proton/WINE) in-between.

Lots of misinformation on YouTube is bad for people and isn't stopped. And I would hardly call Google, YouTube's owners, a "company with a conscience" since nearly their entire business is based on predatory surveillance advertising.

In a democratic society, the elected leaders need to communicate their ideas, however wrongheaded. If they aren't allowed to communicate, how do they reach their electors and how do they tell potential voters they're right (or wrong)? When you are at the platform level like YouTube, you have a responsibility to carry information from the government even if you don't like it because you didn't elect Ron Paul, his constituents did.

Indeed. Tech companies now silence politicians unilaterally, while governments made up of the same politicians do nothing to stop the widespread flow of toxic misinformation on tech platforms.

So, who is really in charge?

The Oracle vs. Google battle has shown that compatibility is different from copying. Amdahl and IBM went through this, too, with mainframes.

I see this as a victory for all software makers.

I'm excited about the Steam Deck but hesitant about this Linux decision. Despite Gabe Newell's objections, Windows works quite well as a gaming UI. The Xbox runs Windows and all of Steam's games work on Windows, so calling it a "steaming pile" or whatever really isn't accurate. It's more like sour grapes.

Steam managed to create the Windows gaming environment out of whole cloth. Microsoft's attempt to control gaming for PCs failed horribly, leaving Steam the victor. But, by the same token, Steam has no console presence, which with subscription models like Xbox Game Pass, can be very profitable.

What kind of console can they do? Not a home one. It's almost over for those anyway. So, a portable. What OS can it run? Not Windows. Steam isn't going to write an Xbox-like UI for Windows that would look good on the Deck, something Microsoft addressed back in the days of Xbox One.

The Xbox UI (and its integration with the PC) have only gotten better since then. So much so that many games are now "play anywhere," meaning you can buy it on one device, play on another, and pickup and play later on a third via streaming. This is remarkable and fantastic!

Will Linux on the Steam Deck enable this kind of "play anywhere" model? Hmmm.... Maybe. It will be a hard road. The article mentions that the "top shooters" don't run on Linux. That's pretty bad. Those are the games that have heavy user bases and you need them onboard.