Valve is rumored to be developing an Android emulator

Valve has continuously refined Steam to offer more features, such as the recent release of the Steam game recording beta. This is a new built-in system for creating and sharing gameplay footage, usable with any game on Steam, with recording, playback, editing, and sharing capabilities. From capturing thrilling moments to documenting entire campaigns, this new functionality offers a multitude of uses.

According to a report by Notebookcheck, a user recently found data on SteamVR suggesting that Valve is developing an Android emulator. Five application packages were discovered, two of which showcased new icons and mentioned the open-source, free Android emulator Waydroid.

Waydroid is an open-source Android emulator for GNU/Linux systems, with its code repository hosted on GitHub. It leverages Linux namespaces (user, pid, uts, net, mount, ipc) to run a full Android system within a container and can provide Android applications on any GNU/Linux-based platform (arm, arm64, x86, x86_64). The Android system within the container can directly access necessary hardware through LXC and Binder interfaces.

Rumor has it that Valve is working to integrate Waydroid into Steam, with speculation that this effort is primarily aimed at the Steam Deck. Running Android applications within the Windows operating system is not novel, and other solutions are available. However, providing a corresponding solution on Steam OS with proper optimizations could further enhance the Steam Deck’s appeal.

Additionally, Waydroid currently only supports Intel and AMD graphics cards. For PC gamers, most of whom use NVIDIA graphics cards, this means relying on software rendering, which cannot utilize GPU acceleration. However, since the Steam Deck’s SoC uses an AMD Zen 2+ RDNA 2 architecture, this does not pose a problem.