I was almost interested in this newly announced Steam Deck rival until crypto vibes spoiled it all

It’s amazing how a single sentence can serve up a rollercoaster of emotions, especially when I’m being baited by the idea of a Steam Deck rival. In this case, the culprit was an announcement for a brand new handheld that uses PlaytronOS, an open-source Linux operating system that’ll allegedly take the fight to SteamOS and Windows. Ambitious, right? Well, the reveal also included the words ‘Web3’, so I've already accepted that this one’s for the Crypto bros. 

And what a shame too, as the so-called SuiPlay0X almost sounds like something that could take on the best gaming handhelds out there, at least when you brush away the Web3 dust. Announced via Twitter, the portable pitch drowns itself in chat about how it’ll use the blockchain to provide access to the likes of the Epic Game Store, but also promises to unify all PC storefronts with a single launcher.

Okay, that’s not a completely new idea, and if you’ve got a Steam Deck OLED, you might already be using something like the Heroic Games Launcher to access EGS and GOG. But, with Playtron CEO Kirt McMaster claiming that the goal is to “extract the PC gaming ecosystem from Windows,” during an interview with Venturebeat, I’m now wondering whether the SuiPlay0x could offer more than just a software solution.

BREAKING: announcement from onstage at #SuiBasecamp: we’re excited to share the first handheld gaming device with native Web3 capabilities – the SuiPlay0X1, powered by @PLAYTR0N! pic.twitter.com/Zubhx6gyXGApril 10, 2024

Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself, but Playtron’s pitch got me thinking about last year’s new Snapdragon G series unveiling, as Qualcomm touched on the idea of bridging the gap between PC and mobile. It’s worth hammering home that the company says that the hardware side of the SuiPlay0x is theoretical for now, and Qualcomm’s vision specifically mentions using something called ‘Android+’. However, the basic principle of breaking down platform barriers appears to be similar, and if using the Asus ROG