Gabe Newell

The best part of this video is how confused some Steam Deck buyers are when Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell shows up at their house to deliver the company’s recently released handheld gaming device.

That said, several of the Steam Deck buyers featured in the video below recognize Newell when he shows up at the doorstep to drop off their Steam Deck. However, there are instances where other people living in the house accept the order, leading to even more confusion. This makes sense because while Newell is a famous video game developer, he is only well-known amongst a specific group of people.

We hired a new delivery guy to help with the Steam Deck launch, not sure he's going to work out. pic.twitter.com/JgcpTIBX7u

— Steam Deck (@OnDeck) March 1, 2022

Amusingly, Newell also seems a little embarrassed that he signed some of these Steam Decks and even says, “Hopefully, people won’t get mad that I’m signing them.” The entire video is extremely awkward in a very endearing way, but it’s also a great promotional video for the Steam Deck given its focus on collaborating with owners to improve the device.

In an interview with PC Gamer, Newell said that Valve has no plans to build a game subscription service and that it wants to find a way to bring Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass platform to its new handheld console. On another Steam Deck-related note, Elden Ring runs surprisingly well on the powerful handheld following an upcoming update that’s currently available in beta.

I’ll have more on the Steam Deck in the coming days, including a review of the portable.

Image credit: OnDeak (Screenshot)

Source: OnDeak Via: The Verge

Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell isn’t interested in doing a Steam game subscription service but is open to bringing Microsoft’s Game Pass to Steam.

Newell did an interview with PC Gamer about the recent Steam Deck release. However, the publication also asked him whether Valve wanted to make its own subscription service like Microsoft’s Game Pass.

“I don’t think it’s something that we think we need to do ourselves, building a subscription service at this time. But for their customers it’s clearly a popular option, and we’d be more than happy to work with them to get that on Steam,” Newell said.

“We’ve talked to people there quite a bit about that topic. If your customers want it, then you should figure out how to make it happen. That’s where we’re at.”

So, it sounds like we won’t see a “Steam Pass” subscription (or whatever Valve would call it). However, Microsoft’s Game Pass on Steam is also quite intriguing. Some people have had issues with how the service handles installing and managing games on PC, while other games have had issues or missing features on Game Pass. If people were able to use Steam to handle game installs instead, it might make Game Pass more popular.

Moreover, as PC Gamer points out, there is precedent for Steam hosting other subscription services. EA added its EA Play subscription to Steam in 2020. Moreover, Steam support for Game Pass could open the subscription up to Steam Deck owners. Currently, Steam Deck runs Linux, which means Game Pass isn’t available — it uses Microsoft’s Xbox app, which doesn’t exist for Linux.

That said, PC Gamer notes that Steam Deck owners may be able to play Game Pass without the need for Linux support in the future. Valve and AMD are reportedly still working on driver compatibility to allow installing Windows on Steam Deck — once that’s sorted out, Steam Deck owners may be able to install Windows and access Game Pass that way.

Regardless, Game Pass on Steam depends on Microsoft too. Valve is clearly open to the idea, but it remains to be seen if Microsoft is — judging by previous comments, it might be. In August 2021, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said there were “no plans to bring [Game Pass] to any other kind of closed platforms right now” in response to questions about putting the subscription service on the Nintendo Switch.

Instead, Spencer said the team was focussing on “open platforms” but acknowledged that Xbox was open to discussions about bringing the “full experience to a device that players want.” Maybe that sentiment includes game distribution platforms like Steam too.

Source: PC Gamer Via: VGC News