Valve confirms it'll support the ROG Ally with its Steam Deck operating system

Valve once imagined that each PC shaper could person their ain "Steam Machine," a PC crippled console moving the company's Linux-based SteamOS. It took a decennary for that imagination to germinate into the company's ain internally developed Steam Deck gaming handheld, but the archetypal imagination isn't dead.

The company's long said it plans to fto different companies usage SteamOS, excessively — and that means explicitly supporting the rival Asus ROG Ally gaming handheld, Valve decorator Lawrence Yang present confirms to The Verge.

A fewer days ago, immoderate spotted an intriguing enactment in Valve's latest SteamOS merchandise notes: “Added enactment for other ROG Ally keys.” We didn't cognize Valve was supporting immoderate ROG Ally keys astatine all, fto unsocial extras!

Maybe Valve was conscionable supporting those keys successful the Steam desktop lawsuit connected a Windows, wherever it offers a Steam Deck-like Big Picture Mode interface for immoderate PC, and the enactment mistakenly made it into these spot notes? I asked to beryllium safe.

But no: this is so astir Valve yet supporting the ROG Ally and different rival handhelds!

"The enactment astir ROG Ally keys is related to third-party instrumentality enactment for SteamOS. The squad is continuing to enactment connected adding enactment for further handhelds connected SteamOS," Yang tells me.

That doesn't mean Asus volition officially bless Valve's installer oregon merchantability the Ally with SteamOS, of course. (Asus has told maine determination are galore reasons wherefore it ships with Windows; a large 1 is that Microsoft has dedicated validation teams that guarantee its operating strategy works crossed galore antithetic hardware configurations and chips.)

And it's not similar Valve is suggesting it'll connection SteamOS for rival handhelds anytime soon, either. Valve is “making dependable progress,” Yang tells me, but it “isn’t acceptable to tally retired of the container yet.”

We already knew Valve plans a wide merchandise of SteamOS 3 that you tin theoretically instal connected non-handheld PCs arsenic well; Yang says it's likewise making advancement determination but it's not acceptable rather yet.

So that's the update connected turning Windows handhelds into Steam Machines; what astir Valve's committedness to fto you crook Steam Decks into dual-booting Windows machines too, letting you swap betwixt the 2 OS astatine will? Here's Yang connected that:

Valve isn't the lone 1 adapting its compelling operation of Linux and controller-friendly Steam UI to Windows handhelds. Universal Blue touted that its Bazzite operating strategy had already achieved enactment for the Asus ROG Ally X earlier it adjacent came out.