This had been Tweeted way back in October, but Pavel Djundik, founder of SteamDB, discovered via datamining that QR code scanning could potentially become a thing on the Steam Deck when logging into your Steam account, as you can see in the cover photo. Well, turns out it could become a reality…within the next couple of weeks I would imagine, as Pavel recently replied to his own Tweet and said:

Whelp, looks like LTT beat me to the Switch emulation guide I was planning on doing. But that’s not the point of this post. Content creators – and small ones, at that – have had their videos ripped off their channel from the DMCA-hungry lawyers at Nintendo just for showing off gameplay footage of Switch games being emulated on the Deck. Well, Anthony from LTT decided to take matters into his own hands, braced himself, and put up a full guide on how to emulate Switch games on Deck (mind you, he’s doing it through a completely legal means).

A new beta update is now available for the Steam Deck client. Notable features with this update are the ability to schedule when night mode should turn on and off (no need to install the plugin anymore!), and the option to scale the Steam Deck UI when the Deck is connected to an external display. There’s also a toggle to automatically scale the UI to the appropriate size when connected to said display.

UPDATE: Valve will reportedly be using the Flatpak version of Firefox with the next update to SteamOS 3.3, according to an update from GamingOnLinux. Well, at least the stock version of Firefox supplied with SteamOS. It’s come to my attention, thanks to Quinn from our Matrix channel, that SteamOS is using a highly outdated version of Firefox. The latest version is 102.0.1, which came out today. However, the latest build on SteamOS, even on the beta 3.

About a week ago during the Nintendo Direct Mini, Nintendo announced Portal: Companion Collection for the Nintendo Switch, and it came to the eShop the same day. Curious George (that is, me) wanted to do a comparison between running the games on the Steam Deck and on Nintendo’s current-gen console, and see how each platform fares. I couldn’t help but find it ironic that Valve would partner with Nintendo right around the time the Steam Deck embargoes were lifted earlier this year, and I had concocted some theories as to why they were doing this.

Last week I had been working on a script for Gardiner Bryant on how to get DOSBox games running on Steam Deck. I had gotten a start on it…but I struggled with getting the sound to work, as well as getting the games to run in fullscreen. Gardiner figured it out better than me, and just yesterday he posted a video on his YouTube channel (he also has the video on Odysee, if you prefer that video platform instead).

The Plugin Loader for the Steam Deck is now known as Decky Loader, and along with the new name change come a few updates. Primarily we’re looking at a React-based plugin store now, which, per the pull request, “replaces the web-based plugin store with a native-feeling one.” It’s also now possible to uninstall Decky Loader. Full patch notes are as follows: Uninstall script addition by @ggppjj in #48 Use unique ids in call_server_method by @patkub in #55 react: Add Router hook & fix typescript issues by @AAGaming00 in #68 Add contributor install script by @TrainDoctor in #69 Implement React-based plugin store by @AAGaming00 in #81 remove body property in args by @hulkrelax in #91 Uninstall functionality by @botatooo in #97 Use deckyState in uninstall menu (fixes #98) by @botatooo in #100 Fixed plugin installation ssl verification issue by @WerWolv in #101 Keep in mind this is a pre-release.

Man, it’s been hard to keep up with all the updates Valve has aggressively been pushing out for the Steam Deck. So, I hope nobody minds if I just do a quick copy & paste of the patch notes for today’s update, as both the underlying SteamOS has been updated to 3.3 (as a beta), as well as the Steam Deck client itself (also in beta). The SteamOS update adds keyboard support for additional languages, brings the adaptive brightness toggle back, updates both the graphics and wireless network drivers, adds a built-in controller driver when Steam isn’t running in Desktop Mode, and plenty of bug fixes.

Just when you thought that there hadn’t been any updates in a while for the Deck, today we get “a very nice set of bug fixes.” Such as when scrolling through a EULA causing navigation issues, deleting a screenshot causing crashes, and the controller configurator not loading when Steam Cloud is disabled. Those things should no longer be a problem. Patch notes are as follows: Fixed an issue where clicking in-game links when offline would get Steam Deck into a bad state Fixed navigation issues in the game EULA dialog Fixed crashing issue when deleting a screenshot Fixed the controller configurator failing to load when Steam Cloud is disabled Fixed configurator failing to load when encountering corrupted controller layout files Fixed controller virtual menus being limited to 4 active menus Fixed a bug causing the touchscreen to occasionally be stuck in mouse-emulation mode when accessing the configurator in-game You can also see the patch notes on Steam.

Good news for those of you still waiting on your Deck pre-order: now that the wave of Q2 emails have been sent out, Valve will reportedly be increasing the rate at which the device will be produced at the factory. @OnDeck reported on Twitter that “production has picked up, and after today we’ll be shipping more than double the number of Steam Decks every week!” They’ll even be sending Q3 emails a day early, on June 30th.