Valve software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais puts it like the sky’s the limit. I don’t want to overstate what he said – he was excited about it PossibilityNot a specific device, and you’ll see it in more context when we publish the interview later this week.
But when I asked if he thought there would be other SteamOS devices with Arm chips, he said the answer is yes, and he’s excited about it.
“I think this paves the way for different, maybe ultraportable, maybe more powerful laptops to be Arm-based,” he begins. “Handheld, there’s certainly a lot of potential for Arm, and at some point in the Arm world one may even see desktop chips.” I immediately think about how Nvidia reportedly has an Arm-powered gaming laptop coming, and how Razer showed up at Qualcomm’s last coming-out party for laptop chips.
“We will continue to grease the wheels, not only to make SteamOS work on a variety of Arm devices, but also to make the catalog more reliable in terms of compatibility and performance,” says Griffiss.
But then again, Valve isn’t talking about Steam Deck 2 today, and I guess Griffiths doesn’t see enough power in the Arm handheld chips. Now! As yet – At least not for a “generational leap in computation without sacrificing battery life”, like Valve promised for the Steam Deck successor.
“When you get into lower power, anything less than a Steam Deck, I think you’ll find that there is an Arm chip that is probably competitive with x86 offerings in that segment,” he told us earlier in our conversation.
I like to imagine that Griffis was winking when he said “anything below the steam deck,” but his camera was off.