Valve, the company behind the popular PC game store Steam, is working to bring SteamOS to rival portable gaming handhelds like the ROG Ally. The company unveiled in a community post that a recent beta version of SteamOS (version 3.6.9) now has added support for “extra ROG Ally keys.”
Linux-based SteamOS is the primary operating system for Valve’s gaming handheld Steam Deck, initially used for the company’s game streaming application, Steam Link. Steam Link is an application used to stream games from a local PC to a supported device.
Valve designer Lawerence Yang told The Verge, “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.”
Majority of the gaming handheld devices like the ROG Ally, MSI Claw, ROG Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go run on Microsoft Windows. As Microsoft has not yet made any efforts to optimise Windows for gaming handhelds, companies like Lenovo and Asus have created their own proprietary layers on top of the Windows OS to make the user interface accessible for handheld devices. SteamOS on other rival gaming platforms poses a challenge to Microsoft and could be a welcome addition to the supported gaming handhelds.
Valve’s SteamOS is designed for portable handheld gaming devices in mind.