But Steam Frame reveals that Valve’s ambitions run much deeper. The standalone VR headset runs SteamOS on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor based on the Arm architecture, rather than the x86 processors from AMD and Intel that have powered PC gaming for decades.
And Valve expects its existing x86 Windows games to run on it anyway. That’s why the Arm chip inside the Steam Frame is so much more important than VR. Valve is starting to dismantle the fundamental assumptions about what hardware and software a gaming PC needs to run its games.
The writing is on the wall. We’re looking at the end of everything Valve has been building with SteamOS, Proton, Steam Deck, and now Steam Frame: buy anywhere, play anywhere. Your Steam library won’t care what operating system you’re using, what processor architecture is inside your device, or eventually even what type of device you’re holding. As long as you have enough computing and graphics power to run the game, Steam will take care of the rest.
AND that It would be a real game changer. Fasten your seatbelt.
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First Valve made Windows optional
The magic of the Steam Deck software is easy to take for granted now, but it’s worth revisiting how crazy its basic premise once sounded.
Most PC games are Windows games. Valve didn’t solve that problem by convincing thousands of developers to create and maintain native versions of Linux. He built Proton to allow versions of Windows to run on Linux.
