Steam Deck can now run 1,200+ verified games, up from 350 at launch

[Cal Jeffrey]

TL;DR: Valve's Steam Deck now has more than 1,200 games verified to run without issue. This number has more than tripled from when the portable console launched. There are also another 1,200 titles that are playable, but might have some problems.

Boiling Steam has been tracking the number of games that can run on the Steam Deck. Since the handheld PC launched on February 25, the numbers show that Steam has been verifying playable games and making tweaks to the OS to ensure more titles will work flawlessly on the machine.

On release, the Steam Deck only touted about 350 games guaranteed to run from day one. About another 300 were deemed playable but with issues — many just because they were designed for keyboard and mouse input. It's not a terrible start, but with thousands of games on Steam, the Steam Deck barely scratched the surface of its namesake's library.

Today, roughly 1,289 games work flawlessly on the handheld PC, and another 1,169 are playable with issues. That is considerable progress, and the numbers will only increase over time as Steam tests more titles and makes further tweaks to the Deck's software.

But the brunt of the effort does not fall squarely on Valve's shoulders. Many playable games only need controller support to move them to the verified column, which is up to the developers. That said, the future looks pretty bright for the on-the-go gaming PC so far.

Image credit: Boiling Steam

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94453-valve-has-verified-almost-1300-games-run-steam.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

What are the top 5 Pc Games that Steamdeck can run.

 

[Burty117]

It took Nintendo 5 years to figure out Bluetooth Headphones, it took Valve 2 months to figure out how to emulate an extra 900 games.

 

[Dimitriid]

I think a few folks might actually start to sweat up at Microsoft.

 

[brucek]

Nice to see the backwards progress, but I think the real impact of the Steam Deck will be on forward progress. If it continues to do well enough, and/or if even just a few individual developers on a team have one and like using it, studios will have motivation to build in a good experience on Steam Deck / linux during the game's primary development and testing period. This was less likely to be the case previously.

 

[yRaz]

Really hate to post this(no, I don't), but remember what I said about a real company developing Linux for consumers? A year from now people will start seeing it as a legitimate alternative because, surprise, it's open source and everything the Valve is doing can me ported over to other distros.

And if MS keeps P*ssing people off any inconvenience(or learning curve) Linux might have will suddenly be worth dealing with.

 

[psycros]

Really hate to post this(no, I don't), but remember what I said about a real company developing Linux for consumers? A year from now people will start seeing it as a legitimate alternative because, surprise, it's open source and everything the Valve is doing can me ported over to other distros.

And if MS keeps P*ssing people off any inconvenience(or learning curve) Linux might have will suddenly be worth dealing with.

This will only happen if we see a ready-to-go Linux gaming solution for PC marketed as seriously as Windows. At this point Valve is probably the only company who could supply the OS, and I think they'd need a major partner to get it rolling. SteamOS preinstalled on XPS's or Omens is what we need, or a dead-simple installer that experienced Windows users can download and install themselves. Last I checked Valve didn't even have a proper installer or ISO for SteamOS.

 

[yRaz]

This will only happen if we see a ready-to-go Linux gaming solution for PC marketed as seriously as Windows. At this point Valve is probably the only company who could supply the OS, and I think they'd need a major partner to get it rolling. SteamOS preinstalled on XPS's or Omens is what we need, or a dead-simple installer that experienced Windows users can download and install themselves. Last I checked Valve didn't even have a proper installer or ISO for SteamOS.

Steam uses Proton and its avaliable on basically every distro. And many distros are easier to install than windows, it's not like Debian where you have to build your own OS.

To be fair, steamOS sucks. PopOS is way better but Mint is my personal favorite.

Linux has changed so much over the last few years that whatever people think they know about it is pretty irrelevant now. Between Android, chromeOS, SteamOS and Valve actively developing for Proton which makes installing windows applications basically a native experience, we aren't.

Money can solve basically all problems and there is a lot of money being dumped into Linux development by everyone from billion dollar corporations to developers. Mostly because it isn't just desktop users getting annoyed with Microsoft, it's businesses.

And, heck with everything, being browser based and in the cloud now, you dont even really need to develop native apps

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Really hate to post this(no, I don't), but remember what I said about a real company developing Linux for consumers? A year from now people will start seeing it as a legitimate alternative because, surprise, it's open source and everything the Valve is doing can me ported over to other distros.

And if MS keeps P*ssing people off any inconvenience(or learning curve) Linux might have will suddenly be worth dealing with.

I think that's what they meant by Windows 10 being the last version of Windows, as people will go Linux after 2025.

Every now and again I test Linux and I'm finding almost everything I use, even work apps now work and didn't only a few years ago.

 

[Fulljack]

I think that's what they meant by Windows 10 being the last version of Windows, as people will go Linux after 2025.

Every now and again I test Linux and I'm finding almost everything I use, even work apps now work and didn't only a few years ago.

people keep saying that every year is the year of Linux. guess we'll wait until 2025 for now, lmao.

 

[yRaz]

people keep saying that every year is the year of Linux. guess we'll wait until 2025 for now, lmao.

I don't think you understand how much money is being dumped into Linux. 2017 we started seeing major changes in usability but it wasn't until 2019-2020 that "normies" could daily drive it.

Google has literally spent BILLIONS supplying ChromeOS laptops to schools. We're about to see a whole generation who grew up on ChromeOS move into the work force and start buying their own computers. ChromeOS is Debian based so all the major distros can take their work and apply it to new releases.

They fixed the GUI issues, have almost completely replaced Tar.gz files with .appimages and now you don't even need to use the command line.

It's changed and it's only going to get better with time, especially now that MS has pissed off enough Billion dollar tech companies to make it worth while for them to invest in it.

 

[Dd663]

It took Nintendo 5 years to figure out Bluetooth Headphones, it took Valve 2 months to figure out how to emulate an extra 900 games.

Huh? I seriously doubt Nintendo didn't know how to do Bluetooth audio connections for 5 years. They just withheld the functionality until recently, most likely because the Bluetooth connection has a limited bandwidth that has to be shared with their controllers, and they couldn't decide if it were worth it until now.

And the Steam Deck certainly isn't emulating all those games. Proton is a compatibility layer, it's not emulation. And at least some of those games are probably natively compiled for Linux and not even using Proton. Also, all those games were simply individually verified to work on Steam Deck, but they most likely worked before the verification process anyway.

 

[Fulljack]

I don't think you understand how much money is being dumped into Linux. 2017 we started seeing major changes in usability but it wasn't until 2019-2020 that "normies" could daily drive it.

Google has literally spent BILLIONS supplying ChromeOS laptops to schools. We're about to see a whole generation who grew up on ChromeOS move into the work force and start buying their own computers. ChromeOS is Debian based so all the major distros can take their work and apply it to new releases.

They fixed the GUI issues, have almost completely replaced Tar.gz files with .appimages and now you don't even need to use the command line.

It's changed and it's only going to get better with time, especially now that MS has pissed off enough Billion dollar tech companies to make it worth while for them to invest in it.

I's not a matter of how much money are being dumped, it's a matter of convenience and marketing. most people would just use what's available for them. if they got windows laptop/pc then they'll stay using it. it's also a matter of marketing. there's a ton of linux distro out there, and easily overwhelm "normies" on which to use.

by you argument, I could only see that the only linux that are going mainstream for consumer are chromeos, in which google spends billions in procurement to help market it.

 

[yRaz]

I's not a matter of how much money are being dumped, it's a matter of convenience and marketing. most people would just use what's available for them. if they got windows laptop/pc then they'll stay using it. it's also a matter of marketing. there's a ton of linux distro out there, and easily overwhelm "normies" on which to use.

by you argument, I could only see that the only linux that are going mainstream for consumer are chromeos, in which google spends billions in procurement to help market it.

So you're a student and you just graduated highschool, you spent the last 13 years using chromebooks so you are inclined to buy one.

Well the enthusiast PC community still exists so people who have to install an OS on their latest PC build have to choose. Instead of windows, which we are all collectively starting to hate, the investment that Google, Valve and others have put into developing Debian based Linux distros gets passed on to everything else. So people selling prebuilts, it could legitimately become an option, "I'll save $100 and use Mint".

Windows isn't going to die, but it's marketshare will drop significantly and a large part of that is they're pissing so many tech companies off by forcing them to use THEIR software while throwing in advertising based on data they collect off you that it's actually worth peoples time to put a few hours in to get use to linux. No harder than switching from iOS to android.

Seriously, changing your default browser in W11 takes longer than installing Linux. And you can't even move your taskbar around without making a Microsoft account.

But you bring up that Linux wont be mainstream, it already is. Most people already have an Android device and all smart devices already run a custom version of Linux. Combine that with tech giants pouring billions of dollars into getting rid of MS and you have a dangerious market for MS.

steam has 134million active monthly users, as of April, 1.12% run a linux distro and that's been growing by about 0.03% a month for the last 2 years. Lets call it 1%, that's a market of 1.34 million users developers have a market to make games for. There is a lot of money to be made and there is a lot of money to spent. And, frankly, it's because of what MS is doing.

I'm going to speculate, but I'm going to hazard a guess that MS is collecting and selling user data to put ads in their OS because they know sales will drop and they need to find a new revenue stream. The problem is, if they push too hard they'll drop off the map.

But I also think that system builders would be inclined to offer linux systems because they can make more money buy not paying for a windows license to sell the PC with. Linux has to get to a point where that's a legitimate option, but increasing profit margins for manufactures is a huge incentive.

 

[Fearghast]

What are the top 5 Pc Games that Steamdeck can run.

What are top 5 games on PC to begin with? :-D
This is not your "typical console" with 1 generation of games, this is a PC with a back catalogue that stretches for decades.

 

[Sausagemeat]

Really hate to post this(no, I don't), but remember what I said about a real company developing Linux for consumers? A year from now people will start seeing it as a legitimate alternative because, surprise, it's open source and everything the Valve is doing can me ported over to other distros.

And if MS keeps P*ssing people off any inconvenience(or learning curve) Linux might have will suddenly be worth dealing with.

Linux needs to get better for it to be considered a “legitimate alternative”. Right now Windows is an order of magnitude better than Linux for playing games. I don’t like Ms but I’m only going to ditch windows if it offers an improvement and right now gaming support on Linux is a laughing stock and people who make the switch from windows are getting a big downgrade.

 

[R00sT3R]

I still say the screen is a big letdown.

I don't have one, but every video I've seen of a Steam Deck running, it looks horribly washed out.

 

[DSirius]

I think a few folks might actually start to sweat up at Microsoft.

Imagine devs gaming engines, or just Epic making Unreal Engine 5 or future versions to run on Linux too. Will be the final nail in Microsoft coffin.

 

[yRaz]

Linux needs to get better for it to be considered a “legitimate alternative”. Right now Windows is an order of magnitude better than Linux for playing games. I don’t like Ms but I’m only going to ditch windows if it offers an improvement and right now gaming support on Linux is a laughing stock and people who make the switch from windows are getting a big downgrade.

No it's not, the only reason major games can't run on Linux is that people like Epic are out right obstructionists and use DRM to intentionally block Linux support on their games. If you want to say games don't run as well on Linux, I'd say only when using nVidia drivers because nVidia is also known for their trash Linux drivers and being obstructionists.

You obviously haven't tried to use linux anytime in the last 5 years. If this was 2019 or 2020 I MIGHT be able to agree with some of what you said, but with all the money being dumped into by HUGE tech companies it has accelerated as an unfathomable rate.

 

[defaultluser]

Imagine devs gaming engines, or just Epic making Unreal Engine 5 or future versions to run on Linux too. Will be the final nail in Microsoft coffin.

You do know that there will barely be a million steam decks shipped by this time next year (production limits, even if for some reason preorders exceed this)?

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy the things - as Zen 4 devices start shipping in-quantity by this time next-year, the market for an unbalanced Zen 2 design will be dead at $399.

Zen 4 is getting universal APU support (so the mobile parts will include some beefcake integrated RDNA2 competitive with Steam Deck):

https://www.techspot.com/news/94461-amd-zen-4-roadmap-confirms-phoenix-powerful-dragon.html

Unless Steam makes a $100 price-cut by fall next year, this thing will die off at 1 million sold.

 

[yRaz]

You do know that there will barely be a million steam decks shipped by this time next year (production limits, even if for some reason preorders exceed this)?

I'm still trying to figure out who is going to buy the things - as Zen 4 devices start shipping in-quantity by this time next-year, the market for an unbalanced Zen 2 design will be dead at $399.

Zen 4 is getting universal APU support (so the mobile parts will include some beefcake integrated RDNA2 competitive with Steam Deck):

https://www.techspot.com/news/94461-amd-zen-4-roadmap-confirms-phoenix-powerful-dragon.html

Unless Steam makes a $100 price-cut by fall next year, this thing will die off at 1 million sold.

They can upgrade the hardware in the steamdeck. I actually predict Valve is trying to become a hardware company. The steam deck costs more than $400 to make, it's basically a way for them to offset development costs. But the core of the Steamdeck isn't in the hardware, it's in the software. If they didn't have the software to run on the hardware there would be no point in creating it.

I think fairly soon we will here about an upgraded steamdeck and it will could even be based on zen4. They already tried to make the steamdeck somewhat repairable, it would be interesting to see if they create a board standard, open or otherwise, where you could just drop in the latest "steam board" in your old steam deck. This being marketed to hardware enthusiasts and it's working, it'd be a missed opportunity to no capitalize on that side of things. It's not like it would be impossible, either. Rasbi-Pi has millions of units sold and there are tons of cases for them so there is a real world example of this being done before and market interest in said product.

 

[Fulljack]

So you're a student and you just graduated highschool, you spent the last 13 years using chromebooks so you are inclined to buy one.

Well the enthusiast PC community still exists so people who have to install an OS on their latest PC build have to choose. Instead of windows, which we are all collectively starting to hate, the investment that Google, Valve and others have put into developing Debian based Linux distros gets passed on to everything else. So people selling prebuilts, it could legitimately become an option, "I'll save $100 and use Mint".

Windows isn't going to die, but it's marketshare will drop significantly and a large part of that is they're pissing so many tech companies off by forcing them to use THEIR software while throwing in advertising based on data they collect off you that it's actually worth peoples time to put a few hours in to get use to linux. No harder than switching from iOS to android.

Seriously, changing your default browser in W11 takes longer than installing Linux. And you can't even move your taskbar around without making a Microsoft account.

But you bring up that Linux wont be mainstream, it already is. Most people already have an Android device and all smart devices already run a custom version of Linux. Combine that with tech giants pouring billions of dollars into getting rid of MS and you have a dangerious market for MS.

steam has 134million active monthly users, as of April, 1.12% run a linux distro and that's been growing by about 0.03% a month for the last 2 years. Lets call it 1%, that's a market of 1.34 million users developers have a market to make games for. There is a lot of money to be made and there is a lot of money to spent. And, frankly, it's because of what MS is doing.

I'm going to speculate, but I'm going to hazard a guess that MS is collecting and selling user data to put ads in their OS because they know sales will drop and they need to find a new revenue stream. The problem is, if they push too hard they'll drop off the map.

But I also think that system builders would be inclined to offer linux systems because they can make more money buy not paying for a windows license to sell the PC with. Linux has to get to a point where that's a legitimate option, but increasing profit margins for manufactures is a huge incentive.

oh yeah, if the point were mainstream, then Linux already is through Android phones. where people are locked from the inside of their phones, full of closed source blobs and proprietary drivers and some were even denied access to bootloader. but hey, Android are indeed one of Linux distros, though.

yeah, Chromebook is cool and all but I don't see it as a powerhouse just yet. it's cool if you're just web streaming or even light office works but the push to ChromeOS in high powered market segment hasn't arrived yet. I'm talking about video editing, gaming (not streaming games, not viable everywhere just yet), or even dedicated for professional such as CAD.

my point is if Linux want to get mainstream, there's need to be a single entities to promote them. your average Joe won't know if Android or ChromeOS were Linux unless they dug inside system information. Google doesn't promote those products as Linux distro, no! they promote it as their own thing. would your average Joe who has been using Windows or Macs knows which Linux distros to use? this is my point, nobody knows which distro to use unless they're savvy enough, which is less than 10% of the market. do you get my point now?

it was never about Windows vs Macs vs Linux. it's more to Windows vs Macs vs Ubuntu vs ChromeOS vs thousand other distros.

 

[Sausagemeat]

No it's not, the only reason major games can't run on Linux is that people like Epic are out right obstructionists and use DRM to intentionally block Linux support on their games. If you want to say games don't run as well on Linux, I'd say only when using nVidia drivers because nVidia is also known for their trash Linux drivers and being obstructionists.

You obviously haven't tried to use linux anytime in the last 5 years. If this was 2019 or 2020 I MIGHT be able to agree with some of what you said, but with all the money being dumped into by HUGE tech companies it has accelerated as an unfathomable rate.

Yeah see it is a downgrade. Linux doesn’t support as many APIs as Windows. Or as many launchers, anti-cheat solutions or games.

You claim it’s not a downgrade then state exactly why it is. Because corporations choose not to spend the money supporting the platform. Now sure if all the users moved to Linux these companies would see interest to support them but that’s not how the world of IT works. You don’t choose your solution and wait for it to work, you pick the solution that works for you now.

I don’t like windows, I would love to see MS’s monopoly broken. But I can’t see it happening en masse with Linux personally. I have actually recently used Linux, it’s fine, it does work better than most expect but it’s nothing special and it’s definitely significantly worse for gamers at this point.

P.S. If Nvidia Linux drivers are as trash as you claim then Linux will never become mainstream. The average buyer chooses Nvidia 8 out of 10 times when buying a dGPU. Nvidias market share is enormous. I’m sure this is Nvidias “fault” but why should they spend the money and resources to support an operating system that most of their customers aren’t using?

 

[yRaz]

oh yeah, if the point were mainstream, then Linux already is through Android phones. where people are locked from the inside of their phones, full of closed source blobs and proprietary drivers and some were even denied access to bootloader. but hey, Android are indeed one of Linux distros, though.

yeah, Chromebook is cool and all but I don't see it as a powerhouse just yet. it's cool if you're just web streaming or even light office works but the push to ChromeOS in high powered market segment hasn't arrived yet. I'm talking about video editing, gaming (not streaming games, not viable everywhere just yet), or even dedicated for professional such as CAD.

my point is if Linux want to get mainstream, there's need to be a single entities to promote them. your average Joe won't know if Android or ChromeOS were Linux unless they dug inside system information. Google doesn't promote those products as Linux distro, no! they promote it as their own thing. would your average Joe who has been using Windows or Macs knows which Linux distros to use? this is my point, nobody knows which distro to use unless they're savvy enough, which is less than 10% of the market. do you get my point now?

it was never about Windows vs Macs vs Linux. it's more to Windows vs Macs vs Ubuntu vs ChromeOS vs thousand other distros.

omg, Are you even current on linux? Ubuntu is now the Dane Cook of Linux distros. You can totally jailbreak your phone and run any number of custom android ROMs. Phones are locked down by the manufacturer, not the operating system(I'm looking at you, Samsung!). You can install basically whatever app repository you want even on non-jailbroken phones.

And it doesn't matter if Joe Blow knows crap about Linux, that's the whole point, they don't have to anymore. They just want a device that works and, apparently, the US education system thinks investing billions into developing education apps for ChromeOS. And I'm just realizing that citing the US education system as a source for my argument isn't going to help my case. But it doesn't really matter which OS it is because they'll all Debian based and you can install ChromeOS apps on Hannah Montana Linux if you wanted. Yes, Hannah Montana Linux is a real thing.

And the fact is that there is consistent yearly growth. You don't buy stocks that continually go down overtime. I constantly argue with people like you online over Linux, but the numbers aren't lying. I mean, please, look at apple back when they were still based on PowerPC chips, everyone thought they were going to fail but look at them now.

 

[defaultluser]

They can upgrade the hardware in the steamdeck. I actually predict Valve is trying to become a hardware company. The steam deck costs more than $400 to make, it's basically a way for them to offset development costs. But the core of the Steamdeck isn't in the hardware, it's in the software. If they didn't have the software to run on the hardware there would be no point in creating it.

I think fairly soon we will here about an upgraded steamdeck and it will could even be based on zen4. They already tried to make the steamdeck somewhat repairable, it would be interesting to see if they create a board standard, open or otherwise, where you could just drop in the latest "steam board" in your old steam deck. This being marketed to hardware enthusiasts and it's working, it'd be a missed opportunity to no capitalize on that side of things. It's not like it would be impossible, either. Rasbi-Pi has millions of units sold and there are tons of cases for them so there is a real world example of this being done before and market interest in said product.

Pi has millions of units sold because they're priced at $35-$50, and bring impressive value (because there are tons of alternative platforms gunning to take their market - See Orange Pi, or Nvidia Jetson)

Steam haven't touched or mentioned a refresh of the three-year-old Index, so your hopes are really unlikely for Valve to be anywhere near aggressive-enough hardware updates to keep-up with the rest of the performance ultra-portable 11 to 13" laptop market To yearly-refresh the Deck (their primary competitor)

Not to mention faster-iterating handheld makers like GPD and AYANEO don't have to spend time and money developing their own semi-custom silicon, and the trying to justify continued buyers on an outdated device with no exclusives (while getting trounced by he latest handhelds from both of these companies !)