Steam Deck competitor is already talking to Valve about adding SteamOS support
pcgamer.comGPD is reportedly working with Valve on getting SteamOS on its upcoming WIN Max 2 portable gaming PC. In a reply to a backer on the WIN Max 2's Indiegogo page (thanks GamingonLinux(opens in new tab)) GPD said that Valve had reached out about a «cooperating proposal» to get SteamOS onto the powerful handheld. Handheld gaming PCs have been around long before the Steam Deck(opens in new tab), but SteamOS has given Valve's little console an advantage. It lets you easily navigate and play games in your Steam library without too much fuss, and it doesn't incur the Windows tax that can add significantly to the overall price of the handheld.
GPD's full reply to the backer who asked about SteamOS integration reads: «Appreciate for your support! As earlier of March this year, Valve contacted us about cooperation proposal. But for this cooperation, Valve needs to match the appropriate Steam OS system for our 6800U handheld. We need to provide the device to Valve official, and Valve also has to improve the Steam OS system for the 6800U handheld, this process may take half year.»
The WIN Max 2 is a mighty little portable gaming PC with a built-in gamepad and keyboard. It runs off your choice of an AMD Ryzen 7 or Intel Core i7 mobile processor, 16GB or 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB or 2TB NVMe SSD starting at $1,297. GPD has raised nearly $2 million through crowdfunding.
Since a lot of these handheld PCs are running Windows or Linux usually, you could theoretically install SteamOS by yourself. But it isn't optimized for those devices and likely doesn't have drivers for their hardware, meaning you could run into a bunch of issues. Having SteamOS built-in and officially supported with Valve's seal of approval would give some legitimacy to
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