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Steam Deck Now Supports Xbox Game Pass and Cloud Thanks To Help From Microsoft (ign) (xcloud)

kingfey

Banned

Valve's Steam Deck has joined the ever-growing list of devices compatible with some form of Xbox Game Pass, as the Xbox Cloud Gaming beta is now available for owners of Valve's handheld gaming PC.

On Twitter, Xbox Cloud Gaming's head of Product and Strategy, Catherine Gluckstein, said it was a collaborative effort between Valve and Microsoft to get xCloud and Game Pass working on Steam Deck. And, as it turns out, Valve got a lot of help from Microsoft to get the service up and running.



On Steam Deck, players can access Game Pass through Xbox Cloud Gaming within the Microsoft Edge Beta. This means that players will have to install and launch the Steam Deck version of Microsoft's web browser to navigate to the xCloud launcher. The process is similar to how xCloud works on PC, where Game Pass subscribers can access games through Xbox's website.

If you're confused about how it all works, Microsoft has posted a tutorial article for Steam Deck owners looking to access Microsoft Edge and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Last month, Valve president Gabe Newell said he'd be "more than happy to work with [Microsoft]" to get Xbox Game Pass on Steam. Newell doesn't see Valve creating its own Game Pass competitor anytime soon, so it seems like he wants Game Pass to be a bigger part of Valve's future. While the xCloud support on Steam Deck won't be as impactful as a Game Pass app on Steam, it's certainly a big step.

Valve is also working on getting Microsoft's operating system onto the Steam Deck. Right now, the Steam Deck uses a Linux OS, but Valve is slowly rolling out Windows support for the device.

The Steam Deck is mostly living up to its promises, with some serious caveats along the way. In our Steam Deck review, we said "while I can certainly recommend the Steam Deck with some major caveats, including a noisy fan and comparably long loading times, I’m definitely not as head-over-heels in love with it as I hoped I’d be when I first opened the box."

For more, check out seven unexpected things we discovered about the Steam Deck. And, read up on the Xbox Game Pass lineup for March to see which games you can try out on Valve's handheld.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Yes good for now, but it needs a dedicated ND optimized app. The way the one works on series consoles is much better than edge.
 

Dr.Morris79

Member
EGlsJrv.gif
 

Plantoid

Member
Smart way to avoid 30% cut from steam, that's the main reason I don't think gamepass as it is today would be on steam, maybe a different "tier" exclusive for pc/steamdeck
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Anything via cloud is not what I'd call "working".

Native support is all that matters. I doubt many people who have purchased a Steam Deck did so to play games via the bloody cloud on it.


This is just a harbinger of things to come, it looks like MS and Valve have a good channel of communication.

Cloud now, maybe a native app not too far into the future.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Just got around to trying this out - very cool! Works well enough for me to have played Tunic for a while.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I loaded this and it worked pretty well, but what a pain to load. Why doesn't ms take like 10 minutes and write an actual app for steam, even if it uses edge?
 

JackSparr0w

Banned
Anything via cloud is not what I'd call "working".

Native support is all that matters. I doubt many people who have purchased a Steam Deck did so to play games via the bloody cloud on it.
Indeed you can do xbox cloud on your phone with a far better AMOLED screen.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Indeed you can do xbox cloud on your phone with a far better AMOLED screen.

Sure but are two controllers attached? Does it drain your phone batter to play? The screen is smaller too by a fair amount. (6.2 vs 7.0 is actually 27% bigger)
 

twilo99

Member
Any machine that can run the edge browser is esentially an xbox when it comes to access to the game library. If you have a good internet connection and a server close by, you are golden. The games run very nice.

I just got a macbook air and having xbox cloud on there is really great.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Does Parsec run on it though? Local streaming is the only type that really makes any sense.
Parsec runs great, but I wasn't able to get it to launch in SteamOS "game mode" (only "desktop mode"). Obviously Steam Remote Play works fantastically right from the jump.
 

Zannegan

Member
What browser would you suggest.
Heard Brave gets the job done?

And no im not going to Firefox.
That was mostly a joke on how hard it is to get rid of Edge. On the other hand, I have had generations of bad MS browsers to build up my dislike and distrust. Plus, I just genuinely dislike the way big tech handles browsers/privacy, which goes for Chrome too. *shrug*

As for what I do use, it used to be Firefox. As they got increasingly invasive though, I switched to Brave this past year. If you don't mind the occasional crypto ad, then it seems as you say, to get the job done.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Time for Microsoft and Valve to make a deal and officially bring Gamepass on Steam. Gabe's OK with it!
EA and Valve have a partnership for EA Play so why not!

EA Play is all first party games, MS can't just put "Gamepass" on Steam as it's largely 3rd party content

Could they partner to unlock 1st party games if you have a Gamepass sub?

Sure, but that's a lot less exciting as it's... well, it's a lot less games.
 
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Plantoid

Member
EA Play is all first party games, MS can't just put "Gamepass" on Steam as it's largely 3rd party content

Could they partner to unlock 1st party games if you have a Gamepass sub?

Sure, but that's a lot less exciting as it's... well, it's a lot less games.
Plus, ms would have to pay whatever tax steam charges so...
 
It would be like streaming on my gaming PC.

Completely useless.
Doesn't streaming allow you to play a game much faster than downloading it in full and configuring it to play? This is especially nice on Steam Deck where storage is at a premium. It is not about replacing local games it's about providing an ADDITIONAL way to play. It's nice to have options and it's far from being useless.
 
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CrustyBritches

Gold Member
xCloud works pretty good on Deck. I put it on my son's 256GB(+512GB sd) unit because I didn't want to put Windows on his Deck and have to deal with storage management, or with him downloading viruses disguised as Minecraft mods and such.
 
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A.Romero

Member
Doesn't streaming allow you to play a game much faster than downloading it in full and configuring it to play? This is especially nice on Steam Deck where storage is at a premium. It is not about replacing local games it's about providing an ADDITIONAL way to play. It's nice to have options and it's far from being useless.

That's right. Of course streaming has it's use cases, even on PC.

However, haters gonna hate.
 

baphomet

Member
Doesn't streaming allow you to play a game much faster than downloading it in full and configuring it to play? This is especially nice on Steam Deck where storage is at a premium. It is not about replacing local games it's about providing an ADDITIONAL way to play. It's nice to have options and it's far from being useless.

You're talking seconds compared to minutes. At no point would I stream something on a device I can play it natively on. Completely useless.

Storage at a premium? You do realize it has an SD card slot right? There you go, 1TB+ Steam Deck.
 

BeardGawd

Banned
Doesn't streaming allow you to play a game much faster than downloading it in full and configuring it to play? This is especially nice on Steam Deck where storage is at a premium. It is not about replacing local games it's about providing an ADDITIONAL way to play. It's nice to have options and it's far from being useless.
Loading times should be significantky shorter too due to the SSDs on xCloud.
 

BeardGawd

Banned
You're talking seconds compared to minutes. At no point would I stream something on a device I can play it natively on. Completely useless.

Storage at a premium? You do realize it has an SD card slot right? There you go, 1TB+ Steam Deck.
Halo Infinite runs at 30fps on the XB1. If you can stream it you'd get no installs, 60+ fps, much lower load times, significant graphics improvements and resolution compared to native.

Compared to what? The nvme drives in the Steam Deck?
Yes.
 
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baphomet

Member
Halo Infinite runs at 30fps on the XB1. If you can stream it you'd get no installs, 60+ fps, much lower load times, significant graphics improvements and resolution compared to native.

What are you even talking about? No one is talking about an Xbox One.
 
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