This will probably be the biggest competition the Steam Deck has within the handheld PC space.
Most noteworthy is that windows is finally focusing on providing a decent handheld experience, including booting straight to a controller friendly interface, and reducing background processes for better fps and battery.
Edit: The handheld Xbox UI will.come to all windows PCs, but it’s not clear if the reduced performance bloat version will be available. It sounds like only Xbox branded devices may get the full benefit of optimized windows.
It’s also the ugliest handheld PC yet (imo), but I can appreciate that they’re pushing for comfort over looks.
You are sitting here saying finally a competitive os market but the competition has pretty much just ended.
They would both have different strengths, so handheld Windows will never snuff out SteamOS when it has a pretty good head start already. Not to mention that any windows handheld will be more expensive than a SteamOS one unless Microsoft is willing to give the license away for free.
SteamOS has had a good start but its not a headstart. Its still a minority OS in the handheld space. Now that you can get a slick UI with good preformance, 100% software compatibility, im failing to see the advantages that will draw windows users onto steam.
Im a linux users so I place a lot of value in the freedom of the ecosystem but most non linux users dont think about that or care. SteamOS needed this win to convince people to leave the microsoft ecosystem and now microsoft has closed the gap.
Steam Deck sold about 3.7 million units, while the handheld PCs have sold around 6 million since the Steam Deck was launched. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a minority to me unless you’re counting the Switch, as well.
However, neither this Xbox handheld and the Steam Deck will be able to even compare to the volume being sold by Nintendo, so what’s the point of even including it in this comparison? We might as well include Android gaming in that comparison, then, which should dwarf everything else by comparison.
Fizz was comparing SteamOS vs Windows market share, which SteamOS/Linux is just 2.69% compared to windows, now with new windows for handhelds there’s a risk that Microsoft could further solidify its monopoly in the PC ecosystem. This development could pose a significant challenge to Valve’s efforts to compete with SteamOS/Linux, potentially stifling its growth in the handheld gaming space.
Bro, he said a minority in the handheld space. Why would you use the number that included everything that is not handheld?
Competition in the handheld gaming device is good. Why would we want another category where Valve has a monopoly in?
I doubt Microsoft has what it takes to completely overcome Linux’s advantages, and the competition will not stifle SteamOS’s growth because it is a growing market. Both handheld OS can occupy its own niche that they are good at.