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I think it's fairly likely what will happen in the next 2-3 years is they'll make EAC work on Steam OS. Essentially all it needs is to boot in secure boot mode with a signed kernel and a module that does the verification. It will piss off a lot of purists, but it can happen. It won't work on all Linuxes of course, but it can work on these devices.

But even if that doesn't arrive soon, the Deck has already proven this isn't that much of a barrier to success, even if it is a barrier to world domination.

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I'm just glad that the kinds of games that have anti-cheat are the kinds I don't play. They are all competitive games which I avoid like the plague. Thankfully MMORPGS don't use these, at least not yet.

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il be the person to make the comment this time, it's my turn

There are many games outside of those with anti-cheat both current, retro and modded that get my time and money..

there, i said the obvious comment

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It's funny how they admit that KLACs don't solve the cheating problem any more than other system, but have just dug themselves in so far that they don't see any problem with that, just imposing ever more restrictive requirements like Secure Boot and TPM. These don't even deal with cheating methods outside the OS like display assist tools.
I foresee a backlash in the not-too-distant future where people see how much cheating is still going on, especially given how much developers have touted KLACs as the be-all-end-all of anti-cheat.

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any kind of name would be better than Steam Machine LOL ... aka an iron.

Someone in Valve likes to name products in a fashion of steam/gas/water/hydraulic engineering. Even the company name is VALVe.
Other names:
Pressure Vessel for Valve's container system for files access isolation.
Steampowered - the website name.
Pipeline - a project for training inexperienced developers.

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Played it on Xbox Game Pass. Pretty fun. A bit repetitive but a solid game with decent humour.

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I'd say it is the opposite. Steam Machine will be the killer of kernel level anticheats. Of course, there will be stupid managers that will lock their games out of millions of steam decks and steam machines, but many will reconsider. Percentage of linux and steam os systems doesn't matter, when it is millions in absolute numbers.

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To be fair, Kernel-level anti-cheat isn't THAT common. Like 99.99% of all games don't use it. It's common in a certain genre - competitive multiplayer games, namely shooters and MOBAs. A lot of people (like me) who wouldn't touch shooters and MOBAs with a ten-foot pole anyway, are mostly unaffected by kernel level AC.

I suppose we can only wait and see. Steam Deck brought attention to Linux. The reactions were different, so far. Some (shooter) devs went "Ugh, let's just ban it!" and others went out of their way to support their games running on Deck and even desktop Linux. If the Steam Machine generates at least as many sales as the Deck (and why wouldn't it - handheld gaming is niche compared to living room gaming), we might see even the shooter devs changing their stance. There will be a point when saying no to Linux money no longer makes sense, and we're not that far away from it.

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PS: can we use Steam Link to stream a anti-cheat enabled game from a Windows computer to a Linux one running Steam?

Yes.

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Kernel-level anticheats are de facto rootkits anyway.

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PS: can we use Steam Link to stream a anti-cheat enabled game from a Windows computer to a Linux one running Steam?

That's how cheating works today. People simply use streaming and image recognition. The cheat may not run on the system on which the game is running. We are currently in a transition phase, but kernel-level AC systems in particular are likely to greatly accelerate the transition.

So the elephant in the room is that these kernel-level AC systems no longer work at all in the age of AI and real-time image recognition for everyone. Not only can you not play Valorant on Steam, you also can't play it on Nvidia Now. It's a classic retreat battle. And everyone knows how they end up.

Games like Battle Field don't need kernel level AC at all because they are not F2P. Cheaters will always be found sooner or later with AI because publishers have better training data. But this does not work in real time. So you need a paywall to prevent cheaters from constantly re-entering competitive matchmaking.

Valorant and Fortnite have a different business model. I fear one without a future.

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It’s a cycle. There is more cheater than players on Linux because there is no reason for actual players to use Linux because the games don’t support it…

Valve is trying to change that by allowing a lot of players to use Linux, so there will be more legitimates players than cheaters the next time the games developers will try to support it. I hope that a lot of people will buy SteamOS-running machines thinking "oh, well, I don’t want / need to play with theses games on it anyway", and then later, a new game with anti-cheat will appear and the players that already use SteamOS / Linux + Steam will ask for it.

Or, and I think it will be the majority, some people will use the Steam Deck and Steam Machine while still having a Windows PC for some games. But with times, they’ll start to think "it would be great if I could play this game on my couch / while travelling", and then asking for these games to support Linux. And installing Windows on an handheld or the Steam Machine is not interesting, because buying and installing Windows, for it to be slower, isn’t worth it (pre-installed Windows fix the first part, but it’s still slower…).

Let’s hope for the best.

PS: can we use Steam Link to stream a anti-cheat enabled game from a Windows computer to a Linux one running Steam?

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I try by Lutris (Ubisoft Connect was installed), but crash dialog appear.

I had the same issue. I managed to solve it by changing the runner to wine-10.16-staging-amd64-wow64 x86_64.

I had to install it first, though. You can download this version through Preferences > Runners > Wine.

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Even if they solved this problem I would never allow any Game Developer direct kernel access on my computers, no god damn way, I would probably still avoid games that require this like the plague they are.

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This PC World article from the start of 2025 suggested that there were somewhere between 4 and 6 million Steamdecks sold to that point, with another 2 million expected to sell by the end of this year. So best case, 8 million steamdecks out there.

But there are 84 million PS5 consoles out there, 10 times as many decks, let alone XBOX and Switch devices. So, as a dev, I don't where the tipping point is, but I think it all adds up - Deck, Frame, Machine, they'll all contribute to applying pressure to support the idea of Linux as THE operating system to game on.

That's my optimistic hill that I'm willing to die on.

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Now I only need an easy way to rotate mouse sensor in Linux...

I don't understand that...

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My bet is February next year for the release date announcement.

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Have there been any reliable leaks on timing? Are we thinking like a year from now, or maybe even as close as this winter/spring?

They've said that they'll announce a release date early next year. Whether the release will also be early or later in the year we won't know till they announce it.

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I try by Lutris (Ubisoft Connect was installed), but crash dialog appear.

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Check this out, linked below. I feel so bad for any 11th hr employees affected by this nonsense.

Today, Business Korea (as spotted by Eurogamer) reported that the company has “begun offering resignation support to all employees.” Business Korea writes that the resignations would be voluntary, with severance based on years of employment.

https://aftermath.site/lets-see-how-being-ai-first-is-going-for-krafton/

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I'm running an older Ryzen 6core with a 7600 using 8GB VRAM and 16GB RAM already and it is surprisingly capable. So this isn't really much different for me. It is a lot smaller and better integrated though. I expect that there are also a lot of optimisations on the hardware and software. I think my major wish is that it had 32GB RAM for the system as that is a bottleneck I have been hitting for some games.

However, none of our TVs are above 1080p and I don't know when we'll bother upgrading. All three are by now well over 12 years old I believe and they just keep chugging along quite happily.

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Now I only need an easy way to rotate mouse sensor in Linux...

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Have there been any reliable leaks on timing? Are we thinking like a year from now, or maybe even as close as this winter/spring?

If it's a year from now, I think I'll get my friend a framework desktop instead. If it's sooner, I may wait for THE MACHINE!

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any kind of name would be better than Steam Machine LOL ... aka an iron.

I would love to have a Gamecube themed one of these though! And also a skin wrap for the steam controller that changes the controller colors to gc colors!

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I'm tempted, but Ubi has so so so soooooooo lost their way. I can only imagine all the good people left long ago due to corporate enshittification and what's left just .... aren't the best?

Example: Star Wars Outlaws. So extremely frustrating. They absolutely nailed the worldbuilding, art, audio, and then the actual gameplay was a combination of extremely boring plus extremely frustrating. The entire thing felt like it was a game made by a committee of accountant suits who have never actually played a game before.

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Yeah, okay fine I'll find the money...

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Now I wonder if Valve will participate in the VR event?

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I'll definitely be watching closely at how this performs compared to ps5 and series x

I've had my PC for 8 years now, the longest I've ever gone, normally every 5 years I build a brand new PC but for me these days it's just unfeasible :( *cries in poor*

That's why when rumours came about a possible new steam machine I was hopeful, I'd love a console/PC hybrid that can play the latest titles at reasonable settings

Also everyone said the price point for steam deck was always a good deal for the hardware inside, so I feel the steam machine will be good value for money which in this day and age is something to behold.

I'm also just happy valve has made me excited about hardware again, I use to get excited every time a new console was announced but that died for me after the 360/ps3 era..new hardware from valve always gives me a huge tech-boner :)

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Yeah, I kind of wanted to play it, but knowing it’s Ubisoft and all the hoops I’d have to jump through and EULA I’d have to accept, even free doesn’t sound worth it.

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I wish it was actually called the 'gabecube' lol, gamecube was the first thing I thought of when I saw the reveal

Edit: I use the "target acquired" portal 2 gun turrent movie intro for few years now, for when I'm on big picture mode :)

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