86
Don't expect a SteamOS phone after the Steam Machine, Valve engineer says
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
86 points (97.8% liked)
Hardware
4642 readers
19 users here now
All things related to technology hardware, with a focus on computing hardware.
Rules (Click to Expand):
-
Follow the Lemmy.world Rules - https://mastodon.world/about
-
Be kind. No bullying, harassment, racism, sexism etc. against other users.
-
No Spam, illegal content, or NSFW content.
-
Please stay on topic, adjacent topics (e.g. software) are fine if they are strongly relevant to technology hardware. Another example would be business news for hardware-focused companies.
-
Please try and post original sources when possible (as opposed to summaries).
-
If posting an archived version of the article, please include a URL link to the original article in the body of the post.
Some other hardware communities across Lemmy:
- Augmented Reality - !augmented_reality@lemmy.world
- Gaming Laptops - !gaminglaptops@lemmy.world
- Laptops - !laptops@lemmy.world
- Linux Hardware - !linuxhardware@programming.dev
- Mechanical Keyboards - !mechanical_keyboards@programming.dev
- Monitors - !monitors@piefed.social
- Raspberry Pi - !raspberry_pi@programming.dev
- Retro Computing - !retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org
- Virtual Reality - !virtualreality@lemmy.world
Icon by "icon lauk" under CC BY 3.0
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah, it's not like an open phone ecosystem couldn't be created, that's for sure. If the whole industry would come together they could clearly make an open-standard system that would work just as well with custom OSes as x86/x64 does.
My point was that right now in the current setup that exists, someone like Valve couldn't just waltz in, create their own Custom ROM and expect that it just works on all phones.
That would be the only viable way that something like SteamOS would make it onto phones. Either first-party manufacturing by Valve (like the Steam Deck) or partnerships with other first-party manufacturers.
Sounds we are very much on the same side of this discussion.
The main issue with a non-Android SteamOS phone would be the apps. It would be amazing for gaming, but if it doesn't run Android/iOS apps (with the latter being extremely unlikely), it will likely suffer the fate of all the other smaller phone OSes. The main issue I see there is that if I would use a SteamOS-phone, I'd still have to carry a regular Android phone for all the apps I need (2FA/Authenticators, government 2FA, banking app, public transport, messaging, ...). The only use case that would really benefit from a SteamOS phone would be gaming. So in the end, a better device to fill that use case would be a small handheld gaming device with a built-in controller. Basically a Switch Lite Steam Deck.
Valve brought gaming to Linux, I'm confident they could bring banking to Linux too.
If all banking apps were already on Steam, I would agree. Fact is, I haven't seen a single banking app on Steam.
Well, it's not a phone replacement yet.
I'd expect them to release a phone-sized gaming device with built-in controls. Something like a Switch Lite.