There's a few more you can find around and it seems when PC Gamer spoke to Valve, they confirmed that there will be some new API that developers will be able to hook into that will tell games if they're being run on the Steam Deck. That sounds really good, as at least then developers can ensure their game will look good on the smaller screen, and gives developers a chance to set some automatic graphics settings for the best experience.

I'd actually rather devs didn't do this. There is a whole spectrum of performance characteristics that don't fit into the is on a deck or isn't on a deck boxes. If they need to know the resolution, capabilities, or speed, of the hardware they're running on for their game to work properly check for those things.

Also, Valve have said that they want other manufacturers to make their own handheld computers running SteamOS in the future. Those are going to have different characteristics. Where are they going to fit in the is a steam deck binary?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

From what's been shown, I'm pretty glad our unit has been reserved at the top-end for the anti-glare etched glass which very clearly makes quite a noticeable difference.

For my part, I didn't pick the higher model for the glass or the extra storage. The biggest, prettiest games I'm going to be playing on my gaming rig or streaming from my gaming rig, so storage isn't that big a deal. I strongly suspect that they're making a loss on the cheapest SKU, and only really breaking even on the middle one. Since I'd like everyone selling good Linux hardware to make a profit from doing so, so that they keep doing it, the highest option was an easy choice.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: gradyvuckovicAnd with the Steam Deck, you could even develop handheld games on a handheld gaming device! With Linux!

Valve did have Blender running on the docked Deck when they got journalists in to do their hands-on.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Philadelphus

Quoting: Lars Wingefors, co-founder and Group CEO of Embracer.“I’m looking forward to continue growing the Embracer Group both organically and in-organically the decades to come.”

How do you in-organically grow a group? :huh:

Is it gonna be robots with frickin' laser beams? Because I'm not sure I'm ready for that.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I wonder if they'll ensure that the text and UI scales well on, say, a small relatively-low resolution 16:10 screen?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: RedjeTotal war warhammer is the only game in the Total war franchise that I really like.

I exspect feral to port warhammer3. It is way more popular then Troy.
The steam deck could even boost their sale numbers if its day1 release. Both release dates are late 2021, that could line up pretty nicely.

It's not Feral's decision, though. They need to persuade game developers to give Feral a cut of the income in exchange for making a handcrafted artisanal boutique Linux/Mac version out of their Windows-only game and providing full support, rather than the game developer relying on Proton (which doesn't cost them any money) and telling their Linux customers to go stick their head in a pig if there are any problems. The lower the Linux market share, or the better Proton is perceived to be, the harder that persuasion is.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

and so the concerning consolidation continues

I'm fairly relaxed about Embracer doing this. Their historical MO has been to scoop up dead or struggling developers and give them a chance to keep going - a bit of money, a bit of security - but otherwise largely leaving them alone. That seems like a better thing to do than to money hat already successful developers and use them as a competitive cudgel (Microsoft) or destroy them (EA).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: The_AquabatI don't get why the graphs count only "Spanish from Spain". Quite frankly is not fair to Spanish :P, it's the same as counting only English from GB. Sorry but it doesn't make sense.

The Steam language settings distinguish between Spanish - Spain and Spanish - Latin America, and also Portuguese and Portuguese-Brazil, so they get separate entries in the Steam Hardware Survey. The GOL graphs don't show all the languages.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: PhiladelphusAnd I've been doing jobs requiring Linux use and programming for almost a decade now, imagine the average non-computer-literate person!

This is a fallacy, btw. If you're not into computers, you're only looking skin-deep. "This is the Internet, this is the app store, this is the update button" is all they need to know. Linux is the ideal grandmother OS. It's the Windows Power Users that have the hardest time; they're very familiar with the entrails of Windows and freak out about Linux' guts being different when they try to poke at them.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheRiddickI think eventually however Valve will need to make it so Indie developers can pay less on their platform, maybe they can tie it to the release of Source3.0 engine? I don't know...

Most games on Steam are indies. If Valve make things more expensive for the big guys then they'll pull out (rather than, say, EA starting to put their things on Steam again) and the platform suffers. That's why, when they did do a price cut, it was the games that sold lots of copies that benefitted and not the squillions of tiny games.

View this comment - View article - View full comments