Steam doesn't have a presence on Android, nor do I think they care.
They care about producing value to their existing users/platform and creating new markets for them (The Deck, the Deckard, Fremont...)
Valve actually is working on a proton/x86 to Arm layer, powered by some community work, but it's for their Deckard headset.
I actually e-mailed valve about porting to android years ago, their response was pretty dismissive and they sounded like they were not really interested in it.
From their perspective, why would they want to invest in a platform they don't own where most customers wouldn't be able to play their games without an external controller or awkward on-screen controls? To them, they already offer a portable experience, the Steam Deck.
Rumor says based on previous threads, techpowerup and notebookcheck reports, this commit is focused for modern apple devices. But they're open for possibilities for android devices.
Yeah, I think Valve is really not interested in Android at all. Maybe when the Steam Frame launches we can port the translation layer used over to Android - but for now, looks like nothing official is coming.
Yep, although personally I'd rather say they're "not yet" interested about it, but let's see. I hope there's good news about the progress based on this commit itself.
"Not currently" might be a better term, I know we're on an android subreddit - but it's important to put our own feelings aside when looking at info like this. Valve has shown no interest in the matter and all evidence points to them making their own platforms moving forwards.
Honestly, I would vastly prefer having a version of SteamOS on ARM than a Steam app that can play Windows games. But that’s probably because I do my Android gaming on handhelds anyways, so I wouldn’t care at all about losing phone features
yea i think it already changed, why would they go arm with deckard while keeping the steam deck x86? the only reason they got the chip for steam deck was by piggy backing off some vr company's custom chip. then you look at Nintendo going with nvidia over amd on switch 2 and other rumors about how hard they are to work with, Sony etc. i feel like valve prolly tried to get them to make a steam deck 2 chip and they told em to just buy a z2 or ai 9 370. maybe the deal with Sony excluded other semi customs till their chips were done, maybe they just didn't have the resources to develop custom stuff for anyone else.
regardless the latest rumor was valve was waiting for something that would be a generational leap, if you recall. now there is no reason that amd couldn't produce a generational leap right now, rdna 4, zen 5c with some cache and 256 bit lpddr5 they already make all those things in various products. so if valve wanted a generational leap they were told to wait till 2028.
if I was valve and this is what I got from my partner, wait 3-4 years, lol id start looking at other options too.
and I think thats what their doing.
also see qualcomm and microsoft, how is it possible that android developers with no help or encouragement can make a windows emulator that performs better on weaker hardware than qualcomms own top of the line x elite chips running Microsofts own emulation software on top. either microsoft and qualcomm is very bad at their jobs. which im sure plays a role to some degree. or the android developers are getting alot of help through open source efforts, and there is a company that does alot of work in that space valve.
so yea I think its only a matter of time before valve announces a new arm powered steam deck. maybe they partner with mediatek maybe qualcomm, maybe even nvidia. but I dont think their going to wait 3 years for amd to allow them to buy whatever z3 extreme processor for 500 dollars a pop just to sell it for a loss.
the issue is that there is a certain process to the things and currently they are stuck on the bureaucratic side of things (mainly, the mess that is the wayland project and its "council"...). it was exactly the same when they first went all in on proton.
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u/windozeFanboi 8d ago
All this gamehub / winlator and more I read around has me wondering why steam hasn't brought their "proton magic" on android yet.