Comment on Steam Hardware Announcement
missingno@fedia.io 4 days agoI want to see The Year of the Linux Desktop™ as much as anyone else on this platform, but I think you're living in a bubble if you believe there's any universe in which this could suddenly dethrone Windows.
It'll carve out a good niche for itself, but that's really all it will be.
deliriousdreams@fedia.io 4 days ago
Here's the thing. Since November 2022 Valve's Steam OS has carved out almost a 5% share of the market for Linux (if we include Linux users who don't use Steam OS). Windows has something like a 25-30 year head start on steam in this respect.
Something like 35% of PC gamers are still using Windows 10 after the EOL BS MS pulled in October. There is something to be said for those users being more willing to jump ship to steam than there is for them to buy wxhorbitantly priced hardware to stay on windows when their hardware inevitably begins to show its age.
I think it's fairly likely that Steam OS will continue to take chunks of user base out of MS for the foreseeable future.
It may not be the year of the Linux desktop, but it's not nothing either.
Valve's devices are more hamstrung (as someone else in one of these threads said) by where you can source their hardware than they are by the MS dominated market share.
It can't hurt to support this, despite the popular games it /may/ not be compatible with over time, because users are also becoming increasingly disillusioned with MS in general.
Lots of things remain to be seen but nobody (MS included) was expecting Steam to be successful as a platform for game sales, nor were they expecting them to be successful with physical hardware and yet here we are. Is that success limited? Sure. But it has become less limited over time.