Valve is still beavering away at the internals of SteamOS, and the latest update notes for the 3.8.25 Beta release mention the addition of "initial gamepad support" for several non-Valve gaming handhelds. The mighty MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is on the list, as are two offerings from Ayaneo.
These are the Ayaneo Pocket S2, an Android-first, Snapdragon-powered device that launched in June of last year, and the Konkr Fit, a recently-launched Windows handheld released under one of Ayaeno's sub-brands.
The Fit comes in two AMD APU flavours, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 and the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. It's also got TMR joysticks and Hall effect triggers, which should hopefully benefit from the latest update.
Tucked away at the bottom of the "Non-Valve Devices" section is a note on updated gamepad support for the OneXPlayer Apex. You know, the one with an optional plug-in liquid cooling tower released back in the pre-memory crisis times, when ultra-high-end handhelds made a small modicum of sense.
Anyway, it seems Valve is working hard on SteamOS compatibility with the latest handheld releases—even if they're increasingly looking like some of the biggest victims of the RAMpocalypse so far.
Alongside gaming laptops, gaming PCs, consoles... all the things we like, basically.
Speaking of recently-released devices hit hard by the pricing stick, the update also includes new firmware for the Steam Machine, which is supposed to fix a couple of problems including "a rare issue where CPU performance could be degraded until reboot after waking up from sleep."
No software update is going to solve the consumer pricing problem in hardware right now, but it's pleasing to see Valve trucking on anyway. If you're planning on dropping some serious cash on a new handheld gaming PC sometime soon, it seems SteamOS is rapidly becoming ready for you. Even if your bank balance might not be, naturally.
1. Best overall:
Asus ROG Xbox Ally X
2. Best budget:
Asus ROG Xbox Ally
3. Best high performance:
MSI Claw 8 EX AI+
