Steam Deck owners just got one of the most interesting new features to land on Valve’s handheld in a while — and it has nothing to do with Valve. A third-party app called Asobi: Remote Play, developed by Inside Internet, has entered public playtest on Steam and is now letting Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and other SteamOS/Linux device users stream PlayStation games directly from Sony’s cloud servers without a PS5 anywhere in the equation. If you’ve got an active PS Plus Premium subscription, you can pull games straight from the cloud catalogue onto your Deck right now, for free, during the playtest period.
This is a genuine step up from what Steam Deck owners had before. The ability to stream from a PS4 or PS5 you physically own over your home network isn’t new — apps including earlier versions of Asobi and the open-source Chiaki client have supported that for a while. But the new PS Plus Premium cloud streaming integration is different. It removes the requirement to have a console running on your home network entirely. Games stream from Sony’s servers directly to your Deck, which is exactly what the PS Portal has been doing since Sony took cloud streaming out of beta in November 2025.
What Asobi: Remote Play Actually Does
The app handles two distinct functions, and it’s worth being clear about what each one requires.
The first is standard Remote Play — streaming games from a PS4 or PS5 console you already own, over your home network. This doesn’t require PS Plus at all and works exactly as it always has. If you’ve been using Chiaki on your Deck for this, Asobi is an alternative that some early testers are already saying they prefer for its performance and overall experience.
The second — and the genuinely new part — is PS Plus Premium cloud streaming. This lets you stream games straight from Sony’s servers to your Steam Deck without needing a console powered on anywhere. You’ll need a PlayStation Network account and an active PS Plus Premium subscription to access it. The cloud catalogue includes supported games from the PS Plus library as well as eligible digital PS5 games you already own, though not every purchased game qualifies — availability still depends on Sony’s cloud catalogue, your account tier, and your region.
Developer Ichenzo announced the playtest on the app’s subreddit: “Good news everyone! The PlayTest for Asobi: Remote Play on Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and Linux is live now. All premium features are unlocked until the full release becomes available on the Steam Store. Cloud gaming will require a PSN account with an active PS Plus Premium Subscription. Invites are going out by email to everyone who signed up. There are a lot of you, so give it a little time.”
Free vs Premium: What You Get at Each Tier
Asobi operates on a free base tier with an optional premium upgrade. Here’s the breakdown of what each delivers:
- Free tier: Up to 1080p at 30fps, automatic bitrate adjustment, standard dynamic range
- Premium tier: 1080p at 60fps, HDR support, manual bitrate control, low-latency modes, controller haptics, and 4K upscaling. The app also lists output up to 120fps on supported displays — though this refers to the display output, not the PlayStation cloud rendering resolution.
During the current playtest, all premium features are unlocked for free. That’s a meaningful window to properly evaluate what the full experience feels like before the developer locks pricing in. The Steam page currently shows a separate Asobi Premium package listed but with no announced price — so enjoy the full feature set while you can. There’s also no need to exit to desktop mode or run anything outside Steam to get it working, which makes the whole setup notably cleaner than some third-party streaming solutions on the Deck.
How This Compares to the PS Portal
The obvious question: why use Asobi on a Steam Deck instead of just buying a PS Portal?
The PS Portal currently sells for £220 in the UK and around $200–220 in the US, and it’s a dedicated Sony device designed specifically to pair with the PlayStation ecosystem. Sony took PS Portal cloud streaming out of beta in November 2025, giving Premium subscribers access to over 2,000 streamable PS5 and classic titles without needing a home console powered on. For someone already deep in the PlayStation ecosystem with a PS5 and an existing PS Plus Premium subscription, the Portal is a polished, purpose-built solution.
But for someone who already owns a Steam Deck, Asobi removes the need to spend another £220 on separate hardware just to access Sony’s cloud catalogue. You’re still paying for PS Plus Premium — which currently costs $19.99 per month or $159.99 per year in the US after Sony’s May 2026 price increase — but the hardware barrier disappears. The Deck becomes the streaming device, the Portal becomes optional, and the only ongoing cost is the subscription you might already be paying anyway.
The caveat, of course, is that Asobi has no official affiliation with Sony, PlayStation, or Valve. It is not a Sony product, not endorsed by Sony, and the developer carries an explicit disclaimer to that effect. That’s worth factoring into your expectations — this is third-party software accessing Sony’s streaming infrastructure, and there are no guarantees about long-term stability or Sony’s appetite for tolerating it.
Platform Support and What’s Coming
The current playtest covers Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and any SteamOS or Linux device that can install Steam apps. Early testers on non-Deck Linux setups like Bazzite have noted some friction — the initial registration process involves a touchscreen button that’s easier to handle on the Deck’s native interface — but the Deck itself appears to be the primary focus of this release.
A Windows version is confirmed but not yet live. Developer Ichenzo described it as coming “soonish,” so PC players on Windows will need to wait a bit longer before they can get in on this without booting into Linux or SteamOS. An Android version also appears to exist already in some form, based on community reports.
The app is still listed as “Coming Soon” on the Steam store page proper, meaning the full release hasn’t happened yet. The playtest is the way in for now, and invites were going out by email to everyone who had signed up. Given the volume of signups, Ichenzo cautioned that it might take some time for all invites to go out.
The Bigger Picture: PlayStation Games on Non-PlayStation Hardware
What Asobi represents is a broader shift in how PlayStation games can be accessed. Sony’s own cloud streaming infrastructure is doing the heavy lifting — Asobi is essentially a client that connects to Sony’s servers and routes the stream to Linux devices. The games themselves are still running on Sony’s hardware; the Deck is just the display and input layer.
For the gaming community, this matters for a few reasons. Gaming hardware costs across the board have been climbing through 2026 — PS5 prices have risen, PC component costs remain elevated, and the PS Portal itself isn’t cheap for what it does without a subscription behind it. A tool that lets someone access Sony’s cloud catalogue on hardware they already own, without buying an additional device, is a real value proposition for PS Plus Premium subscribers sitting on a Deck.
Sony’s position on this is, as of now, unaddressed publicly. The infrastructure being accessed is Sony’s own cloud service, which PS Plus Premium subscribers have already paid to access. Whether Sony moves to restrict or block third-party clients like Asobi down the road is an open question — one that’s worth keeping an eye on as Asobi moves from playtest toward full release.
For more on the current state of gaming hardware and the cozy game space expanding across platforms, check out our coverage of Moomin: Midsummer Madness heading to Nintendo Switch 2 this fall and the massive day-one success of ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs on Steam. On the bigger AAA side, Marvel’s Wolverine lands on PS5 on September 15, and Blizzard is riding high as Xbox’s top-performing studio for FY26.
