Steam Deck Gets Xbox Cloud Gaming Support With Microsoft Edge

The fully handheld Steam Deck is finally in the hands of many gamers who previously anticipated its gaming PC-on-the-go design, which has been compared to the Nintendo Switch.

Created by Valve, the owner of the PC gaming platform Steam –- and the original developer behind the "Half-Life" series of video games which have become greatly popularized over the last few decades -– the Steam Deck is catered to PC gamers who'd like to play with their entire catalogs of Steam games, whether they're laying on the couch or sitting on the bus.

It's an unexpected but pleasant surprise, then, to see Microsoft joining in with all of this Steam Deck excitement as well, as it now offers Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) on every Steam Deck that has Microsoft Edge installed.

Xbox Cloud Gaming's Head of Product & Strategy, Catherine Gluckstein, took to Twitter on March 18 to make the announcement, stating, "We worked closely with our friends at Valve to support #Xcloud #XboxGamePass through Microsoft Edge for the Steam Deck."

On March 14, Xbox Cloud Gaming received boosts to performance on iPad and iPhone mobile devices. This aligns with a trend toward making each of its massive libraries of streamable Xbox and PC games available to a far greater audience of users than those who own the latest Xbox. More importantly, it means that you can now theoretically play "Halo: Infinite" on a handheld device such as an iPad or, more pertinently, a brand-new Steam Deck.

Cloud gaming is still very much a work-in-progress, however, and we don't recommend trying to play all of your games on the cloud unless you have a powerful internet connection. That said, advances in WiFi technology should make this a much more feasible way to play video games in the near future.

The official Microsoft Support website has all the instructions to get Xbox Cloud Gaming set up on your Steam Deck device, and Microsoft highly recommends that you plug a keyboard and mouse into your Steam Deck to get through its setup instructions as fast as possible. Alternatively, you can follow the instructions provided by Edge Community Manager, MSFTMissy, who posted her own set of instructions onto Reddit.