Valve's Steam Deck made waves in the PC gaming handheld market with SteamOS as one of its biggest features. Now, the OS, which is favored by many portable gamers, appears to be officially coming to more handheld PCs, and the Asus ROG Ally may be the first of many.

As seen on SteamDB, new branding guidelines suggest that Valve's SteamOS will soon officially run on many devices, and the “Powered by SteamOS” badge indicates that the device will automatically boot with the operating system indicating that the device will automatically boot up with the operating system.

A post on GamingOnLinux confirms this, citing Valve's updated branding guidelines and how other manufacturers are shipping handhelds for gaming and letting customers know that their devices are powered by SteamOS.

The updated guidelines state: “The Powered by SteamOS logo indicates that the hardware device runs SteamOS and that SteamOS is activated when the device is turned on. The partner/manufacturer ships the hardware with a Steam image provided by Valve and/or developed in close cooperation with Valve.”

and states.

This indicates that Valve's operating system will finally be included in many PC gaming handhelds, but it is not yet clear when.

Valve has already confirmed SteamOS support on rival gaming handhelds, and the company has updated its operating system for the Asus ROG Ally X with back button support. However, that did not stop owners from running SteamOS, and our own Jason England has made the Asus ROG Ally X the de facto Steam deck.

Immediately, it completely outperformed the original Windows 11 operating system on the ROG Ally, increasing frame rates by 15% and extending battery life by 22% It is well known that Windows 11 is not suitable for gaming handhelds but our tests proved it.

One of our complaints about the Asus ROG Ally was that Windows 11 caused the battery to run down and not reach its full gaming potential. However, the inclusion of SteamOS fixes some of its shortcomings and makes it more competitive against Steam Deck.

This also applies to the Lenovo Legion Go, and with rumors of a Legion Go 2 and a lower-priced Legion Go “S”, it is possible that a SteamOS-powered handheld PC will appear in the future.

With the “Powered by SteamOS” badge now officially available, we may not have to wait much longer to use Valve's OS outside of Steam Deck. With the ROG Ally X already proving to be a major upgrade, who knows, the list of best portable gaming consoles may change.