Steam Deck made Windows optional. Steam Frame takes aim at x86. Valve is building a future where your Steam library barely cares what kind of computer sits underneath it. Is that good for gamers?
Valve spent the last decade making Windows optional for PC gaming. Now it wants to do the same thing to x86 — the Intel- and AMD-based CPU architecture at the heart of every gaming PC. If it succeeds, the resulting shake-up could change what “PC game” even means.
The Steam Deck proved Valve’s Proton compatibility layer could run an enormous library of Windows games on Linux without developers needing to port them to Linux first. That breakthrough helped make the Steam Deck a success.
