Valve’s Steam Deck is your best answer if you want portability and a large library of games. Of course, you can always play through the large library of games that Steam has to offer but, what if you wanted to play other games? Like games from other services, like Xbox Cloud Games? You can do that with your Steam Deck.
Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming service is also pretty good and also has a large library of games. However, no Xbox Cloud Gaming app has been developed for the Steam Deck. So, what do you do? Should you install Windows on your Steam Deck so that you can play your Xbox Cloud games on the Steam Deck? Nope. Instead, there is a simple way for you to enjoy Xbox Games on your Steam. Here’s how you can do it,
Play Xbox Cloud Games on Your Steam Deck
While there is no Xbox Cloud gaming app available for the Steam Deck, there is however a workaround that you can follow to enjoy all of your favorite Xbox Games on your Steam Deck.
Install Microsoft Edge On Your Steam Deck
First things first. You will have to get the Microsoft Edge web browser on your Steam Deck. These are the steps that you will need to follow to install Microsoft Edge.
- To enter Desktop Mode on your Steam Deck from home screen, long press the Power button and then choose the Switch to Desktop option.
- Click on Application launcher/Start icon from the Taskbar of the Desktop screen.
- Now, Navigate to Favorites > Discover and type in Microsoft Edge.
- Once you see the browser from the search results, tap on install.
- You will now have the Edge browser installed on your Steam Deck.
However, that is not the end, you need to add the Microsoft Edge browser to Steam. First, select the Application Launcher from the bottom left of the screen. When you spot Microsoft Edge under Internet section, right-click on it and then select the Add to Steam option. Make sure to tick mark the Microsoft Edge option and then select the Add Selected Programs button.
Now, Microsoft Edge has been added to your Steam client on your Steam Deck. There is however a little more configuration that needs to be done.
Open the Application Launcher on your Steam Deck and search for the Konsole app (System > Konsole). When the command window of the Konsole app has opened, you need to type in the following code:
flatpak --user override --filesystem=/run/udev:ro com.microsoft.Edge
To run the code, simply hit the enter key and that is it. Finally, type in Exit to close the command window of the Konsole app. Now, it is time to set up the Xbox Games app on your Steam Deck.
Setting Up Xbox Cloud Gaming On Your Steam Deck
Now we are in the final part of getting the Xbox Cloud gaming to work on your Steam Deck. First, we will have to rename the Microsoft Edge app to Xbox Cloud Gaming
Renaming The Web Browser
- Launch the Steam client on your Steam Deck.
- Click on the Library option and select Microsoft Edge.
- Right-click on Microsoft Edge and choose Properties.
- Rename it to Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta).
Configuring The Launch Options
Now that you have renamed the Microsoft Edge browser to Xbox Cloud gaming or to whatever name you like, it’s time to configure how the app is going to launch.
- In the Steam Client, select the Library option.
- Now select the Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) app that you just renamed and right-click on it and choose Properties.
- Scroll down and find the Launch Options. You will see one line code.
- In the code add the below command after the @@u @@
- –window-size=1024,640 –force-device-scale-factor=1.25 –device-scale-factor=1.25 –kiosk “https://www.xbox.com/play”
- Close the window and go back to the Steam OS launcher (quit desktop mode).
- Go to Library > Non-Steam, and open the Xbox Cloud Gaming beta app and you can access the platform.
- In case you want to switch the controller layout to Gamepad with touchpad as Mouse, click on the small Gamepad icon at the right side Right-click again on the recently created Xbox Cloud gaming app.
- Under Controller Layout you can choose preferred option like Gamepad with Mouse Trackpad.
- Finally, save the settings.
And that is it, You now have Xbox Cloud Gaming services on your Steam Deck without the need to install Windows
This concludes the guide on how you can configure and set up the Xbox Cloud gaming service on your Steam Deck without having to worry about switching operating systems. Do you think this is a good workaround? Share your thoughts down below.
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