Valve is welcoming Android games into Steam
Valve has officially unveiled the Steam Frame, a revolutionary new device that positions the company at the forefront of mobile and virtual reality gaming. Described as a “Steam Deck for your face,” the Steam Frame is a wireless VR headset that runs on an Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, allowing users to play both Windows games and Android apps seamlessly. This move marks Valve’s ambitious entry into the mobile gaming landscape, as the company aims to attract developers to bring their Android applications—especially those tailored for VR—onto the Steam platform. According to Valve engineer Jeremy Selan, the goal is to make these apps feel like native Steam titles, enabling users to download and play them without any additional hassle.
The Steam Frame is particularly focused on attracting VR developers who are already familiar with creating Android APKs for mobile VR platforms like the Meta Quest. By launching a developer kit program, Valve is providing the necessary tools for developers to port their content directly to the Steam Frame, ensuring that these titles will run natively on the device. This strategic move not only enhances the gaming library available to users but also promises excellent performance since the apps will run without the need for translation layers. While the focus is primarily on VR games, Valve has expressed an openness to other types of Android applications, although they remain more cautious about non-gaming software.
In addition to its gaming capabilities, the Steam Frame is designed to offer robust browser integration and multitasking features, allowing users to access web applications and potentially sideload additional APKs. This flexibility hints at a broader vision for the device, with Valve suggesting that the Steam Frame could pave the way for SteamOS to function on a wider array of Arm-based devices in the future. As Valve continues to innovate and expand its ecosystem, the Steam Frame represents a significant step toward creating a versatile gaming experience that blends VR with mobile technology, setting the stage for future developments in the gaming industry.
You can think of the
just-announced Steam Frame
as a wireless VR headset for your PC, or a Steam Deck for your face. But another way to think about it is that Valve is finally entering the mobile realm. The Frame doesn’t just run Windows games on its Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon chip — Valve will now support and encourage developers to bring their Android apps to Steam as well.
It’ll try to make some of them first-class citizens, too, Valve engineer Jeremy Selan tells
The Verge
. “From the user’s perspective, our preference is that they don’t even have to think about it, they just have their titles on Steam, they download them and hit play.”
Valve says the Steam Frame can use the same Android APKs developers already use to bring their apps to phones and Android-based VR headsets such as the Meta Quest — and it’s launching a Steam Frame developer kit program to help put the hardware in developers’ hands.
It sounds like Valve is specifically hoping to attract some of those Meta VR game developers, rather than just any kind of Android app you might find on a tablet or phone. “They’re really VR developers who want to publish their VR content, and they’re porting a mobile VR title where they’re already familiar with how to make those APKs,” says Selan. “They are now free to bring those to Steam, and they’ll just work on this device.”
In terms of performance, Selan suggests it should be excellent because the code is running natively. While Valve’s SteamOS is not Android and needs to use its Proton compatibility layer to make apps feel at home, the Arm code will run on an Arm processor without needing translation first.
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When I ask about Android apps beyond games — and mention how I’d really like to see things like Discord voice chat in Steam, not just Wallpaper Engine — Valve seems a little less sure. “We’ve never disinvited people from doing that,” says Valve’s Lawrence Yang. “We are a games company and we are focused on games, but like you said, there are a lot of things on Steam that are tools, software like Blender for instance.”
@verge
Valve is bringing headsets back, and not just for VR! This is the Steam Frame, and it one-ups Meta Quest by playing flat Windows games on its Arm chip too. Kind of like a Steam Deck for your face that gives you a private virtual room! For VR lovers, it cuts the cord and bypasses your busy Wi-Fi with a direct 6GHz link to your PC. Price, local performance, battery all still TBD, though!
#steam
#valve
#steamframe
#headset
#vr
♬ original sound – The Verge
Selan chimes in, “We don’t have it quite working to show you today, but our intention is to have rich browser integration, so at any point you’ll be able to bring up a browser, have floating windows, all of the multitasking environments you’d expect, so you could certainly go to any website and have those apps present.
“I know there’s a difference between that and what you asked, but we expect that will bridge a lot of that gap.”
Will there be a way to quickly launch those web apps from Steam, and let users turn them into buttons, perhaps? “That’s our hope. I don’t want to promise that for launch, but that’s our hope,” Selan says.
Valve likes to build for the long haul, and I would be surprised if its plans begin and end at Android-based VR games for the Steam Frame. I think this is more likely the tip of the iceberg. For one thing, it’s looking like
Google will soon be forced to open up Android to alternative app stores
, so Steam might soon be able to easily sell games on phones just like its rival Epic has been trying to do.
In the meanwhile,
Gamers Nexus
reports
that you’ll also be able to sideload Android APKs onto the Steam Frame, too.
But Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais also hints that there’s potential in bringing SteamOS to other devices with Arm chips, at least someday. He tells me he thinks the Steam Frame paves the way for SteamOS to work on “a wider variety of Arm devices,” including laptops, and that Arm obviously has “a lot of potential” in future handhelds.
