Quoting: scaineBut as for Valve, yeah, good point - Canada has around the same population as Australia, so it's clearly not the numbers driving this decision. It's either regulation, import/export laws, or supply chain. Or something else - global freight isn't my thing, so I'm guessing.

Canada is, like, a couple of miles from Valve HQ.

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For some reason they kept calling it S@box, but it's s&box.

Everyone knows it's s#&%box.

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Quoting: dpanterBleh, guess I didn't have enough fingers. Concerned this might hurt the Linux gaming handheld scene instead. I didn't trust Ayaneo before, things like this sure don't help and I definitely don't trust their ability to maintain a fringe spin of a fringe distro.
What will they do when issues start happening? Tell people to install Windows instead? :unsure:

The same thing they do for issues with their Windows handhelds - say nothing and release a new model every two weeks.

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Quoting: sarmadSounds like they are going in the other direction and targetting lower prices rather than fancier spec sheet. That's smart if they manage to bring the price down to something below the price of Steam Deck.

It's extremely unlikely to be cheaper than the Deck. Valve have economies of scale that Aya Neo don't have, and Valve don't actually need to make money on the hardware. The Next (which this is supposed to be a cheaper version of) is $1,315, and their cheapest product is $899.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyOK, this quote annoys me:

"No unfortunately not. From a security point of view supporting WINE would be like having a bank vault at the top of Nakatomi Tower then installing a doggy door in it."

Shyeah right, your anti-cheat is like a bank vault at the top of Nakatomi Tower. Also you walk on water and your shit doesn't stink. I'm sure it's been hacked six ways from Sunday, and here he is being all arrogant about it. What a douche.

Even if one were to claim that Linux were less secure - despite literally all of the high-value infrastructure everywhere using Linux... the vault at Nakatomi Plaza got breached. If he's going to go with plots from films he should have gone with Fort Knox: so radioactive that it's worthless.

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Still got the controls in the wrong place, and still no trackpads. The hand model seems quite uncomfortable in the promo image. Maybe these handheld PC makers should try using their devices to play games once in a while?

However, I hope the experience of putting Linux on their hardware was smooth, and I hope it pays off for them.

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Quoting: elmapulthe issue is that windows is more well know, the other oems might brute force every combination of price /specs/form factors until they manage to grab the atention of the same public that is currently purchasing steamdecks (except for us linux users or super hardcore gamers that actually pay atention to reviewers who said good things about steamOS), and then receive they reward from ms for killing another linux initiative.

or they might harm the reputation of handhelds in general making the public who never had an good experience give up on it and go back to notebooks /nintendo handhelds (that will be a reprise of what happened with netbooks)

I mentioned in a comment on a different article the big reason why that won't happen: the Deck is already here, and already great. Valve really knocked it out of the park with the hardware and the PR.

The Deck is what every handheld gets compared to. Journalists only cover the non-Deck devices because they want the drama of a conflict; eventually they'll get bored of covering devices that don't stand up, the non-Deck devices will get no coverage, and the Deck will keep on selling. At some point in the future, should another device come along that's actually as good as the Deck so journalists cover this segment again, the articles are going to be "finally there's something as good as the Deck" and the Deck gets more coverage yet again.

valve already said they will lock the hardware specs, having steamOS in different hardware configs but having those made by the other vendors would be the ideal scenario to fight the midlegen competition while steamdeck 2 dont lauch.
alternativelly if valve can keep pushing the price down or the proposal enticing (eg: hall effect sensors for the next steamdeck 1)

i dont know how valve will play this 4D chess against an multi trilion dollar corporation, but i would feel more relief if they werent fighting alone.

What Valve really need to do, while they're designing the Deck 2 and waiting for hardware to catch up, is get the Deck available in more countries. Maybe they'll need to take somewhat unfavourable terms with a logistics partner, maybe they'll need to grasp the nettle and build out a logistics network of their own; but they need to get more Decks in more people's hands and build the momentum of the Deck into action by game developers and Steam customers. Ideally they'd also manage to get it into widespread physical retail. The biggest flaw of the Deck is that people that want one can't get one.

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What do you think to Valve's stance on this?

It's a very Valve solution. Limit their own liability while "providing value to customers" in their habitual phrasing - customers that want AI can have it and customers that don't can avoid it. Developers get to do what they want as long as they provide sufficient data to Valve.

One thing that could provide a wrinkle is language support. If the data sets the AI is trained on are majority English then the output will be majority English, and Valve have recently been tightening up on half-arsed localisation - promo artwork has to be available in all the store page languages, for example.

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Quoting: PhiladelphusOut of curiosity, would they actually show up? And not just appear as part of "Windows 11"?

Yes. They all have APUs. "AMD Custom GPU 0405," the APU used in the Deck (although, according to a Discord comment, potentially not the Deck OLED) is used by 0.78% of hardware survey respondents; I've not seen any of the chips used by any of the other handhelds in the list. 0.15% is the share that gets you out of the Other bucket.

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Quoting: Mountain ManWhy are these vendors afraid to embrace SteamOS? Windows is an objectively terrible operating system for a handheld device.

Microsoft will give them a big bag of money; Valve will not give them a big bag of money.

(plus they already have a business relationship with Microsoft and they don't with Valve, and they have experience slapping Windows on their hardware and they don't with Linux)

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