The Steam Deck is growing from strength to strength. Valve’s recently released Steam Year in Review for 2024 revealed that, from a hardware point of view, the Steam Deck is proving to be a major success for the company, with a huge 64% increase in playtime hours on the handheld gaming PC compared to the year before.
It’s no surprise to see the Steam Deck become such a valuable asset for gamers – it’s kickstarted an entirely new ecosystem for PC gamers. You can’t consider the best gaming handheld PCs without thinking about this particular Valve handheld, and with SteamOS now launching on other third-party handhelds, the company’s grasp on the entire market is growing ever stronger.
In its 2024 Year in Review post, Valve explains just how big of a success the Steam Deck has been for the company so far. According to Valve, gamers spent 330 million hours playing games on a Steam Deck in 2024, 64% more than 2023, thanks to a number of huge releases that suited the console, with Balatro and Black Myth Wukong mentioned.
Valve also points out the role of Linux in the success of the Steam Deck, with the regularly-improved Proton compatibility layer making it easier to play Windows-only games on the platform. While Windows 11-powered handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally X have better hardware, the simplicity of SteamOS arguably makes it the better operating system for handheld gaming, at least for the moment.
That’s bad news for Microsoft. Valve’s success with the Steam Deck and SteamOS means that the chance of Linux toppling Windows 11 as the best platform for gaming doesn’t seem as farfetched these days, even if there’s still a long way to go. If Valve can continue to dominate the handheld gaming market, either through the Steam Deck or SteamOS on other handhelds, Microsoft will need a big success with its rumored Xbox handheld to be able to respond.
With any luck, this competition leads to better handhelds with an even wider selection of playable games for gamers. Until then, you can check out our Steam Deck OLED review next for our thoughts on the best handheld you can buy right now.
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