Steam Runs On Nintendo Switch Using Valve's Proton Linux Beta

BlueSky user aagaming posted a proof-of-concept video that shows Steam running on the Nintendo Switch. This feat required lots of manual tweaking, but actual game support is fairly limited despite how far along Proton, the compatibility layer Valve has developed that allows Windows software to run on Linux-based operating systems, has come. This is because the Arm branch of Proton integrates FEX, a utility for running x86 games on Arm architecture, and the Switch kernel is simply not able to handle that kind of heavy-duty workload.

In theory, the system should be able to play native Arm games on Linux just fine, but those are few and far between on Steam. What's most interesting about this story isn't that recent versions of Arm64 Linux, Steam, and Proton can be made to run on Nintendo Switch. Rather, it's the implications for the rest of the Arm-based PC market, ranging from budget gaming handhelds to premium thin-and-light laptops.


With Steam's support for Arm64 improving ahead of the standalone VR Steam Frame headset which is due to arrive later this year, the outlook for playing Windows games on Arm hardware with alternate operating systems looks much more promising. Private testing of Proton and FEX on the Steam Frame has already shown Windows games running fairly well on Valve's hardware, and should correspond to good performance on other mid-range and higher-end Arm chips.

While it is a disappointing that the Nintendo Switch can't really run games as intended with Proton and FEX, it is important to remember the original Switch is based on NVIDIA's Tegra X1 SoC originally released in 2015 for the first NVIDIA Shield console. Decade-old mobile hardware doesn't really compare to modern Arm-based chips like the Snapdragon X2 Elite or the x86-based PlayStation 5, but it's still interesting to see how capable the original Switch still is all these years since its release.