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The Steam Deck looks to be a high-tech way to play your PC games library on the go, but Valve has emphasized that it’s first and foremost a PC at heart. That means you can load it up however you might outfit a standard PC, which has raised the question: can we use Xbox Game Pass on it? So far there are more questions than answers.
For its part, Microsoft isn’t giving a clear answer. A Microsoft spokesperson simply told GameSpot, “We’re always excited when companies create new ways for people to play the games they love.” Xbox head Phil Spencer also lent his public congratulations on Twitter.
It stands to reason that the Steam Deck could potentially be made to run Game Pass games, which would grant it a massive library, including a steady stream of new first-party games. That’s an enticing possibility that makes the value proposition of the Steam Deck that much more appealing, especially if you’re already a member of Game Pass anyway. And Microsoft hasn’t shied away from the centrality of Game Pass to its overall market strategy. The company plans to bring it to TVs without an Xbox, so it would make sense for it to explore support for a device like Steam Deck, which would offer a portable version of Game Pass that doesn’t rely on cloud streaming.
Some questions remain open, though. For one, which Game Pass are we referring to in this dream feature? Microsoft offers three separate tracks of Game Pass–console, PC, and cloud. There’s plenty of overlap between the three, but the libraries differ slightly. As the Steam Deck is a PC at heart, it would probably be easiest to make it work with the Game Pass PC library. But some of those games are more targeted at KB/M controls, which wouldn’t necessarily work well with the Steam Deck controller. It’s also difficult to tell if text that was meant to be read on a monitor would cleanly transfer to a much smaller screen, though this is a problem potentially facing all PC games played on Steam Deck.
There is also the underlying technology at play. Steam Deck runs SteamOS by default, which doesn’t run Game Pass by itself. You may have to install a separate OS on the device, and we’re not yet sure how complex that process could be. You may have to choose one OS over another, and lose the SteamOS interface in the process.
Switch vs. Steam Deck comparison
The SteamOS also uses Proton to make non-Linux games playable, but that could mean extra work for Microsoft to ensure that each Game Pass game is compatible with Linux or Proton. That could ultimately lead to some Game Pass games being supported and not others, which could be awkward and confusing for casual players who enjoy the simplicity of Game Pass as a service. That alone might be enough to make it not worthwhile for Microsoft, at least until Steam Deck establishes a large enough install base to warrant the effort (which would track with Xbox’s reluctance to meaningfully get into VR).
And then of course there’s the question of market considerations. The Steam Deck should be very customizable, by nature of being a PC, but Valve is still aiming to push its closed ecosystem. Analyst Daniel Ahmad speculated that Valve is using the default Steam storefront to boost its profit margins for the Steam Deck, so that it doesn’t need to rely on the hardware itself to generate a profit.
If that’s the case, Valve may not be too keen on helping on-board customers into a competing service for which it makes no profit. Whatever work may need to go into helping Game Pass run on Steam Deck, Valve might not be jumping at the opportunity to do it.
Suffice to say that Game Pass on Steam Deck is an exciting possibility, but there are plenty of hurdles to overcome–both internal and external to the device itself. If it does work, though, it makes the promise of a decently-powered PC in your hand that much better.
The Steam Deck preorders open today at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. Check out our Steam Deck preorder guide for more details.
