Phil Spencer: xCloud and Xbox Games Work Well on Steam Deck - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2021 / 3,106 Views
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer visited Valve Software this week and has had a chance to test out Valve's upcoming portable gaming device, the Steam Deck, for nearly a week.
He says gaming on the game, screen size, and the controls are all great, and he has even had a chance to play Halo and Age of Empires on the device. He took the opportunity to test on xCloud, also known as Xbox Cloud Gaming, on the device and he said it works well.
"Was [at Valve Software] this week talking w/ Scott, Erik, Gabe about Steam Deck," said Spencer via Twitter. "After having mine most of the week I can say it's a really nice device. Games with me on the go, screen size, controls all great. Playing Halo and Age feels good, xCloud works well. Congrats SD team."
The Steam Deck will launch this December starting at $399 for the 64 GB eMMC model. The price goes up to $529 for the 256 GB NVMe SSD model and $649 for the 512 GB NVMe SSD model.
Was @valvesoftware this week talking w/ Scott, Erik, Gabe about Steam Deck. After having mine most of the week I can say it's a really nice device. Games with me on the go, screen size, controls all great. Playing Halo and Age feels good, xCloud works well. Congrats SD team. pic.twitter.com/q4hWBvkk85
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) August 13, 2021
The Steam Deck runs on SteamOS, a custom Linux operating system, however, Valve has confirmed you can install different operating systems and third-party software to the device. This includes the ability to install Windows on it and play your Xbox games that are available on PC and even use your Xbox Game Pass subscription on it.
The head of Valve Gabe Newell has stated he wants the Steam Deck to sell in the millions.
"Our view is, if we're doing this right, we're going to be selling these in millions of units," said Newell at the time. "And it's clearly going to be establishing a product category that ourselves and other PC manufacturers are going to be able to participate in. And that's going to have long-term benefits for us. So that's sort of the frame in which we're thinking about this."
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has said the Steam Deck is an "amazing move by Valve. A handheld PC/console hybrid running the SteamOS fork of Arch Linux, and it’s an open platform where users are free to install software or their choosing - including Windows and other stores."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Wait, i am confused. People on the intenet tell me MS care so much about console sales.. than why are they supporting this? A none made Xbox alternative?
I agree, but everything has to be console wars.
That seems like a really weird way to play Age of Empires. That bit of the article baffled me.
some people like challenges
yah, even if those touch pad/gyro controls are on point :) You need to really want some AOE to want to play an RTS on this.
Not if you play it "docked" to a monitor, as Valve has suggested is one of the recommended uses for this device.
This guy is doing it already https://youtu.be/2F4Kkebs85o
I guess that’s one potential way to even the odds against friends that don’t play it competitively.
Not if you use it as a regular PC, plugged into a monitor, with keyboard and mouse, which Valve has demonstrated people doing.
Thanks scrapking.
No worries! thumbs up
Now I have to get it.
I think it is safe to assume he played those games from SteamOS yes. Esp. if he had access to a SteamDeck for a month for testing. I doubt Valve asked him to install Windows. So for now, I assume this with SteamOS; but I'm very interested to see what will be the support (drivers) for Windows on this thing. I'm really interested by it but for me, SteamOS is a no go and I look forward to install Windows, emulators etc.. Valve said you can install any OS but my only worry is about the drivers and well the controls will be supported by Windows.
Yea I want to install windows as well. That's why I didn't preorder. I want to see what everyone elses experience is with the thing.
My guess is that, if it sells well, it'll be well supported. They've already had hundreds of thousands of pre-orders.
He probably played them on SteamOS, AOE isn't available on the cloud. They don't support linux/steamos natively but ProtonDB shows Halo MCC and the Age of Empires series as being supported through Proton, A.K.A Steamplay.
This is a PC... Not sure what you are talking about with this "problem PCs have": But on an actual PC, there is no reason "space" would just be "gone" and you cannot take it back on Windows or Linux (SteamDeck default Steam OS runs on Linux and you can install Windows too).
No it does not :) I mean, when you know how partition, file system works, this is non sense... I get that some people may not understand how it works but "losing" space and not being able to get it back does not make sense at all when you install a game. If someone does not understand where those files are (and let's say the uninstaller does not remove them, you can do it manually). If it is a permission issue, you can also fix that. Sorry but even if Google shows you results, it does not mean that it is actually a real issue, just something that some people may not understand. The only time I would see someone saying that is because they basically do not understand how it works and just claim to "lose" space.
Also to note I have over 500 games on steam and have never yet run into a game where the uninstaller doesn't work. This is like saying "Hey once someone got a new PS4 game and their was no disc in the case so there is a problem with PS4 games not having a disc in the cases"
He is specifically saying PC... And anyway, the fact that he is asking is this is like a PC shows that he does not know what the device is from the start :)
Interesting that you accuse someone of having no idea and have no idea how Gamepass games are installed on the PC. The games are not simply copied as files to your hard drive. The Xbox app creates a virtual encrypted hard drive per game. You have no access to this virtual hard drive. Not even as administrator. What happens if the xbox app does not remove the virtual hard drive due to a bug? You lose space or you have to format the entire partitiion.
By definition, Administrators cannot be prevented from administering a computer. Being unable to understand the contents of a file because it is encrypted is something very separate from being able to view it or delete it. Worst case, an administrator can just format the entire hard disk (if they are that much of a computer noob that they don't know how to boot to recovery mode and delete stuff).
The hell are you talking about,... Yes, those are simply COPIED FILES at the end (no matter how they are used "vHDD, jpg, mp3, etc."), they are files on your partition. like the post from OneTime, if you are an admin, you can delete the files (and again, I understand that for some, this may not be easy) but there is no magic or mystical things about it making the space not "reclaimable", YOU ALWAYS CAN. Also, I'm not accusing someone, this guy literally wrote that he does not understand that this is a full fledged PC (I mean, this is stated like everywhere that the SteamDeck is a PC... in a mobile form factor, you can install any OS, anything), so saying that "PC has this common issue" makes no sense and shows that he has very little knowledge about how a PC works.
You can delete all games. Sometimes games are still shown in your library even if they are deleted and sometimes you have to manually delete it outside of the Xbox App but you can obviously delete everything if you understand a PC.
It's just annoying that you don't have a simple folder for Xbox games like you have with Steam and pretty much every other service.
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