It Looks Like 2025 Will Be The Year Of SteamOS

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It looks like this year is going to be a huge year for SteamOS, the main operating system used with the Steam Deck. Before 2024 ended, Valve decided to restructure their branding guidelines, and within the 40+ page document, there were dedicated sections for devices that use SteamOS. The section mentions a specific brand for devices "Powered by SteamOS." This could mean many things, including new Valve hardware that uses SteamOS (like a Steam Machine), but the most likely scenario appears to be other handhelds that will ship with the operating system.

There have been a couple of hints already, but nothing compared to the bigger confirmation that came from GPD. On the GPD website, they mention that their GPD WIN 4 supports SteamOS. This appears multiple times throughout the GPD WIN 4 page, where GPD says the device fully supports SteamOS.

One thing I noticed that I found interesting is that they mention the "system adaptation" will be provided by Valve. My gut feeling says this probably means Valve is making the drivers and changes for a specific SteamOS build that will be fully functional with the GPD WIN 4 and its internal components for full compatibility.

This comes right before CES 2025, where Valve's own Pierre-Loup Griffais will be there with Lenovo to most likely announce SteamOS coming to the Lenovo Legion Go handhelds. It is looking more and more likely that SteamOS will be coming to other handhelds. I wouldn't be surprised if we soon saw an announcement from MSI, AYANEO, or OneX about supporting SteamOS, and if it was going to be announced, CES would be the perfect place to do it.

I think this year is going to be the year we also get a SteamOS Desktop image. With the operating system now coming to other handhelds, I strongly feel like this is going to be when we see Desktop versions as well. If Valve is already helping make iterations for new handhelds, I am sure a more generic version for Desktop setups will also be coming.

So why would people want to use SteamOS over something like Windows? Well, there are loads of nice benefits. SteamOS is a much lighter operating system, so it uses less resources than Windows does. It also doesn't have much bloat, and due to it being a Linux distribution, you have a lot more control and power over how the OS works. However, there are some games with anti-cheat that won't work without Windows, and Linux OS can be complicated, but I believe the pros outweigh the cons, and I would love to have it on my desktop.

Time will tell if this is really the year for SteamOS, but based on everything announced and shown so far, I would be very surprised if this wasn't a big year for Valve's operating system.

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