So, looks like Putin's ordered the Russian government to 'consider the issue of organising' domestic versions of the Steam Deck, SteamOS, and Steam itself (with a side order of Steam Machines)
Everybody wants to be like Gabe, right? That seemingly laid back attitude, that masterful command of his company, that super healthy bank balance, and that body. So, it's no wonder Russia's premier, Vladimir Putin, also wants to be like the great man, and so he's asked the Russian government to look into making him a Valve of his very own.
Following a meeting in late January, where Putin chaired a gathering focused on the socioeconomic development of the Kaliningrad region, the president has now approved a list of nine instructions to follow up on.
One of which involves the creation of an entire digital entertainment platform, which looks a lot like everything Valve has made over the past few years.
The listing was found by our own Joshua, and while the below is a reproduction of a machine translation of the text, he has verified it himself and having a postgrad-level qualification in Russian I feel pretty confident in what it's saying. The instruction itself is to:
«Consider the issue of organising the production of stationary and portable game consoles and game consoles, as well as the creation of an operating system and a cloud system for delivering games and programs to users.»
So yeah, effectively Steam Machines, Steam Decks, SteamOS, and Steam.
Putin isn't the only one with grand ideas about making their own handheld, but Phil Spencer at least has his own operating system already. However much it feels like Windows itself is the problem.
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The deadline for this consideration is June 15th of this year, and that honestly doesn't give them a lot of time to come up with anything other than: «Sir, it's going to be tough. But if we just copy Valve and create a seminal work of PC gaming brilliance first, the rest ought to fall into place.»
Kommersant, a Russian-language newspaper, has investigated how feasible it is itself, and has spoken to industry figures, including the
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