Because Microsoft ain’t gonna make Windows any better for this form factor until it is way late to the game, as usual.
Windows is basically a product for corporations now. Consumer Windows is an afterthought most of the time.
However, I could be wrong with Xbox’s theorized pivot away from hardware.
windows optimized for handhelds is already a work in progress, its just not remotely done
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embedded windows in the japanese arcade scene has been working fine so far. for example, most of bandais arcade machines in the past like 7 yaers or so basically run embedded windows.
it was a benefit to non arcade users because a majority of games that were on those machines eventually got pc versions, or a new game on pc for the first time (e.g Tekken 7, Taiko No Tatsujin), where historically, theyve basically never been on PC officially.
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im not defending mocrosoft at a whole, im just saying windows embedded isnt as bad as you actually think it is, and consumers benefitted from it more than it not
A Japan that still faxes even in modernity?
what a country does has barely anything to do with rhis context. thats like saying the U.S is shit because they didnt have tap to pay until Covid happened, whoch other countries have been usong for a decade before, or having terrible public transportation and internet infrastructure, and in the latter case, basically invented it.
That’s your defense of MS? I bet they aren’t even using a special build of windows — just the desktop schlock with some shitty 3rd party app on top.
that shows how ignorant you are with it because all of the games arent directly ported. look into the efforts required to port Gundam Extreme Versus 2 on teknoparrot. if it was a native game, then they wouldnt have to jump through as many hoops as the game doesnt have a PC port (nor any of its predecessors have ever had one)
Windows phone on Nokia Lumia was pretty good and well polished, and I’m a Linux fan.
Windows optimized for anything seems to be pretty much impossible.
They could even bring back the Zune branding if they finally do it. It’d almost be poetic.
Year of the linux handheld then?
Thank you for making your comment licensed under creative common. I’ll now steal it, repackage it and sell for 9.99$ without even acknowledging your existence
But will you train an LLM with it??
But… it’s a Non-commercial Attribution license. /s/ns
I’m joking, but on a more serious note for those that don’t know, not all Creative Commons licenses allow you to monetize, and be sure to actually read which version of license is used if you plan to use a CC work for anything other than personal use.
But at least you know you’re a bad boy and Santa will know too.
Oh my God! Someone call the police!
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Reminds me of my friend getting in trouble in high school’s the PC lab for changing all the startup screens from saying “Windows 95” to “Winblows 95.”
A misunderstood visionary.
As much as I love my steam deck and the os, I do wish it was slightly easier to install third party games.
I know it’s not hard and I’ve installed plenty, but like it’s so incredibly easy with steam that it’s made me lazy to even install games I already have on gog
Yes, the extremely popular handheld PC gaming market.
How many actual PC handhelds are there?
The link in the article that promises “plenty” of handheld examples talks about Steam deck, Asus, and… the switch. And that’s it. And obviously the switch is not a PC handheld, so… ?There’s quite a few. Steam deck and Asus, as you mentioned, but there’s also AyaNeo, GPD, OneXPlayer, Aokzoe, Lenovo, etc. And many of these brands have several different models, if you’re counting individual products.
MSI just announced their handheld PC too, it has an Intel (Meteor Lake) CPU with Arc graphics.
Oh, good shout! That one looks 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Ah thanks.
How many of those do people actually use though?Removed by mod
And, most importantly, money bags to subsidise the hell out of it. Let’s not kid ourselves here, the damn low price is one of the main reasons why people buy the SD rather than the ~2x more expensive alternatives.
I hear that.
But how many people actually use all of those other brands listed?
It’s ok to just say “no one” without downvoting.
All I’m hearing is crickets
Anecdotally, I have an Aya Neo. I know a few people with a few of the others brands. There’s a decently sized Aya Neo Discord that I’m part of, and I would assume the other brands have something similar. There’s definitely use of non-Steam handhelds, or there wouldn’t be a growing market for them.
Do you have a steam deck too?
I do not
Such as?
The problem that could occur is: Right now Microsoft doesn’t care about Linux or competitors, every OEM has to buy a Windows key anyways regardless. If SteamOS actually becomes a shippable option, Microsoft’s cavalier attitude is going to change quickly, and a lot sooner than it will take them to get an Xbox Handheld out the door.
I don’t understand how that’s a problem. Can you go into a little bit more detail about what you think the consequences might be to manufacturers choosing to use Steam OS or some other Linux operating system on their handheld devices?
Why would an OEM need to buy a Windows license if the customer has no interest in using Windows?
It’s in their licensing, and how MS-DOS became the de facto operating system of early PCs. If you want to license Windows, you have to pay for every unit you sell - not just units with Windows pre-installed, but every unit.
Incredible.
Ideally it would be better to see eventually a variety of OSs based on linux, maybe forks of steamOS.
But for the time being, definitely adopting steamOS would be better.
Well there is bazzite or chimera
This is the best summary I could come up with:
We can only hope this is the start of a trend, as Valve’s gaming-focused operating system brings many advantages over gaming portables (and maybe desktops) that run a full Windows installation.
In an increasingly competitive portable PC gaming market, being able to cut out that significant cost over Windows-based alternatives could be a big deal.
Our review of the ROG Ally highlights just how annoying it can be to have to fiddle with Windows settings on a touchscreen running “an awkwardly scaled” version of the OS.
That comes through in many little ways, like a built-in “suspend” mode, tons of battery-optimization features, and menus that are designed for a small screen and joystick navigation.
That’s a huge change from the desktop-focused “Steam Machines” era of the mid-'10s, when early versions of SteamOS could only run the relative handful of games that developers bothered to explicitly port to Linux.
That’s also a huge change from the Steam Machines era, when Ars’ testing showed that many SteamOS games ran significantly worse than their Windows counterparts on the same desktop hardware.
The original article contains 651 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I wouldn’t ditch Windows entirely, but I could see the business case of making sure your game can run on SteamOS.
The article is not at all answering the headline
