Microsoft should be terrified of SteamOS

> PC gaming is one of the few places left that Windows has any relevance

While it's true that Windows may face challenges in some areas, claiming it has become irrelevant outside of PC gaming feels like an exaggeration. Here are some recent statistics from Wikipedia [1] to put things into perspective:

Desktop/Laptop operating system browsing statistics

Windows 72.17%

macOS 15.42%

Unknown 6.1%

Linux (excluding ChromeOS) 4.03%

ChromeOS 2.27%

FreeBSD 0.01%

Other 0.01%

Desktop OS market share according to StatCounter as of February 2024. ChromeOS is also based on the Linux kernel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

I think this is a big leap. Organisations worldwide use Windows. Office 365 is not a good replacement for Office on-device, and I bet it will never be. I'm a big fan of this happening, but I don't think this is the nail in the coffin. It definitely is a nail, and I use Steam on Linux happily, but not the nail.

The Windows version of Excel has the add-ins necessary to connect to ERP systems and just more connectivity options in general. This alone will prevent most organizations from leaving Windows. Excel for Mac isn't great (find/replace is really annoying) and neither is LibreOffice Calc (formatting norms).

As for gaming, my desktop runs Cosmic OS and I have had no issues thanks to Steam/Proton. The only issues people have for the most part are related to online multiplayer games that require users to install rootkits in order to play.

I haven’t tried Wine lately but I will say many applications I’ve used over the years in business environments businesses to some degree depended on for some function did not run in Wine very well and almost always required a Windows machine.

I can think of at least 3 applications in my current environment where Wine almost certainly wouldn’t work and we either get Windows machines or spin up VMs for those applications that aren’t just legacy, they’re in active development.

Some industries build application specifically assuming the client will run them on Windows. The world hasn’t entirely moved to SaaS and until that happens, having local native environments for certain applications will still be needed, albeit for a friction of total use cases across most businesses, but still some fraction will remain for awhile. I look forward to the day that fraction is 0.

As much as I’d love to not just use but daily Linux, unfortunately it’s nowhere close to Windows (and presumably MacOS) in user friendliness. Good design is discoverable. A CLI unless well designed is not, a GUI with only buttons is (as you can keep clicking and navigating).

I’m not saying all this to voice my personal issues with Linux (lots have already spoken about it). I’m saying this because I seriously doubt the general public would be able to use Linux as easily as windows unless they only use chrome all day long (which, to be fair, is a lot of people). When it’s easier to root an android phone than understand which version of files Fedora uses to edit the GRUB menu, it’s disappointing if you were rooting for Fedora, pun partially intended.

If screwing around with Proton and the different versions of it weren’t a thing, I’d move away from Windows like ten times by now. Well, that, and I’m not entirely sure how supported or unsupported VR (Meta specifically) is on Linux.

> I'm a power user that games... so Windows it is. For now. The moment I don't need Windows to game, and Wine can run all my legacy apps, then I'm jumping ship to Linux.

As a power user that games on Linux, and has been for a decade -- what's stopping you right now? Which apps specifically tie you to Windows?

Sorry but no,

Linux simply isn't ready. Not now, not ever. The year of the "Linux desktop" is always 10 years from now. This is the way it has been the past decades and this is the way it will be because the process (bazaar) can't produce anything better.

I'm a long time Linux user. Been using Linux since Red Hat 7.2, Red Hat, Slackware, Ubuntu and now ArchLinux. Have tried KDE, Gnome, XFCE, Fluxbox and various window managers and environments and the thing is: Linux is always broken somewhere.

Graphics glitches, audio glitches, kernel hangs, suspend/resume being broken etc. Yeah and you can claim "it's not the developers fault when they have no specs". Maybe, but that's just the blame game and doesn't change the fact that it's barely beyond alpha quality after +30 years in development.

Every upgrade that fixes something breaks something else.

This produces a feedback loop where problems like these keep the (desktop) Linux in the marginal users group which means it isn't really a viable target product for developers (talking about drivers etc) which means that it's in the marginal group.

You really need at minimum a stable driver ecosystem with stable driver ABIs but Linus refuses to have that. I understand his reasoning and the benefits but one must ask, has it succeeded in producing a viable operating system that is robust and that works and can support various devices including proper graphics? Is this really the best strategy?

Building a product is HARD and BORING work that has a long tail. When you're "90% done you still need to take care of the other 90%".

Taking a hobbyist weekend project and turning it into a PRODUCT means spending long boring nights fixing those sharp edges and fixing bugs and looking for issues etc. This is work that very few people do in the open source world (due to lack of skills or motivation or whatever), but without this grind the product isn't a product yet but just an alpha demo.

Just have a look at the Wayland debacle and all the various implementations. Everything is "alpha this" "alpha that".

</rant>

You literally skipped the part of the sentence making it not absurd - "in terms of single-device volume".

windows isnt a 'gaming pc' though

youre mixing up a computer (brand) with the OS that runs it

How many of the 96% windows PC's are 'alienware'?

how many are 'Acer' of some sort, and so on?

thats what the article is trying to say.

its not saying windows isnt the most widely used OS for gaming devices.

> PC gaming is a very small market... and PC game pass

I think you're very much wrong. The game pass market is said to have ~30 million users. Having them be able to play on PC is probably quite important as not everyone can afford an extra Xbox if they already have a computer.

Knowing 9 person doing that would be a lot, right ? Or was it double digits before ?

For me it is about having the option to sit at my desk or on the couch with a controller. Saves are synced, there is no an annual subscription, and I don't have a full PC next to my TV. It just sits on a shelf next to the Switch that hasn't been touched in years.

Unfortunately, the potential popularity of Linux is closely tied fo gaming and to some professional and creative software suites.

If SteamOS devices become popular enough, Linux for gaming becomes popular enough, therefore more games will be made for Linux and more people will finally find a way to abandon Windows forever.

I keep wondering what the market for general purpose devices actually entails nowadays. We see more and more applications move to the web, which means your OS doesn't actually lock users in. The only things for which your OS really matters nowadays that I can think of are games, some productivity tooling like Adobe stuff, and legacy enterprise software.

The compatibility stack Steam has set up to run games also allows stuff like Photoshop to run, so that's also becoming less and less of a reason to remain on Windows.

It appears so.

Steam OS, at least in the form that exists on my Deck, is not suitable for general purpose. True, it has a desktop environment, but it's "jailed" - of course with an option to jail break it, but anything you do outside of the user space is subject to being wiped the next time you get an OTA update.

Then again, OTA updates are necessarily only a thing on the Deck and I suppose this wouldn't be a problem on the Steam OS distribution available for installing on other hardware.

The "desktop" (which includes laptops and enterprise desktop) is the last remaining bastion of windows. Servers, database, cloud computing, AI, supercomputers, tablets, smart phones, TV's... all that was taken by Linux. Every small dent on the desktop should be a cause of concern.

There is a reason azure is their cash cow nowadays.

Seems more like a competitor to the Nintendo Switch than to anything that would run Windows.

It's a very interesting observation. IMO people who just use want to use their computer for browser and email stuff are the easiest to migrate to Linux.

The funny thing with wine is that as the market grows for Linux, more and more bugs will be fixed. I could see a tipping point where even the elusive Adobe Creative Cloud runs on Linux.

Try Jetbrains Rider. I use it almost daily for work. Miles ahead compared to VSCode. There is no free version though.

The Steam Deck is HUGE. I thought my Nintendo Switch was big until I got it, but it appears so tiny now in comparison.

It's a bit big for my hands as well, but the huge touch screen is amazing for programs like sunvox so I don't even mind.

I think it's hard to genuinely appreciate how big the thing is until you hold it. Today I realized it's exactly the same size as my keyboard. And almost as wide as a 12-inch macbook.

The size opinion varies dramatically by person, apparently, because everyone I’ve personally talked to (including women) prefers the Steam Deck’s larger size over the Switch. (The Switch is so tiny!)

> You still can't stream video >720p from any major streaming service, for example

Say what? I'm playing 1080p fine. Sounds like you could be bit by drm ("that's not a bug, it's a feature"). If so the issue lies with your streaming service - some withhold bitrates unless they detect a "trusted" browser and OS (ie you'd have to fake Edge on Windows User-Agent at least).

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1700815

You can, though the supported combinations of browsers and operating systems depends on the service. Netflix will do 1080p on Linux, but only in Opera for whatever reason. Other browsers, even other Chromium-based, are limited to 720p.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081

I think there's a few things to consider though:

1. Not all gamers use the features that may be annoying to use on Linux. Anecdotally, only a handful of friends use streaming and most of the time it's to play party games.

2. I think you're understating the impact of the growth of game playability now versus 2013. While the Wine developers deserve unbound praise for their impressive work, I would not say Wine in 2013 was truly viable for gaming. There were wikis with compatibility information but it was a mixed bag. Sometimes newer versions would break what was already working and it's unreasonable to expect volunteers to test every game on every version of Wine. Sometimes you had to copy DLLs from a Windows box and do all sorts of kludges to get things working.

3. Steam puts compatibilty information right next to the game before you buy. It sounds like you can request a refund if it won't run. To me, this gives a lot more confidence in Valve's vision as they're putting their money where their mouth is.

4. Most importantly, the Steam Deck now exists as something you can hold in your hands to see the viability of certain games on SteamOS. Many gamers have heard of the Steam Deck or even know someone who owns one. In 2013 there could be all sorts of hardware compatibility reasons why SteamOS wouldn't work or wouldn't be viable. It was too easy to dismiss before you'd even start touching a game. Now? The Steam Deck standardized the hardware side of the equation so the feasibility conversation starts with game compatibility.

You're right in the short term, but in the long term (decade+), the home and corporate markets are symbiotic. People buy for the office the tools they expect employees to be comfortable and familiar with. It's not the only factor in consideration, but it's a significant one. Any meaningful erosion in employees' understanding of how to use Windows, in the long term (definitely not the short term), poses a threat.

Microsoft has a very long time to respond, tho, and that assumes Valve even prioritizes a general use OS. This problem is not urgent, if it is real at all.

I assume selling Windows to consumers at the retail price is a loss maker to Microsoft and they make up for it via the ads and product monetization or subsidized from enterprise subscriptions.

Looking at the data, in 1995 Microsoft charge consumers $210 for a retail copy of Windows 95. That's $434 in today's money adjusted for inflation. Windows XP Home retailed for $200 at launch, which is $356 in today's money. Meanwhile Windows 11 Home today retails for significantly cheaper at $140 for a product that's hugely more complex than Win 95 or Win XP were, while requiring way more staff and dev effort to build and support.

The finances just don't work out for me to see how the sale of a Windows 11 copy alone for $140 could make a profit at price given the 10 year lifecycle dev and support of a major Windows version.

I would guess a copy of Windows today would have to be sold for probably $500+ in order to be remotely profitable for Microsoft without ads or promotions, which no consumer would ever pay so I assume Microsoft is subsidizing it with ads/data collection or even taking a loss just to keep the retail price low to avoid loosing market share to Linux.

I think they make a bunch of money having Windows being the default installed OS on prebuilt PCs and laptops. Gaming PCs and laptops are a pretty large market included in that. There's a chance vendors/builders might start to sell cheaper options which don't include Windows installed, savings for both them and the customers.

Will have to see if that actually happens though, even as a power user myself there are still a bunch of pain points with SteamOS/steam deck that are harder to deal with than similar issues in Windows.

You don't always make money because you sell to a specific customer. Sometimes it's about support and network effect. Devices (Scanners, Printers, ...) are compatible with Windows and sometimes only Windows because that's what people use, NVIDIA drivers used to be Windows only because that's where customers were. Does Microsoft make money from these sales? No. Do they make money from having an ecosystem that everyone is supporting? Most definitely.

They make money from lots of random stuff that they advertise in Windows.

The Edge browser for instance, which pushes Bing.

Also, office applications like Word, OneNote, and OneDrive.

They’ve got an app store as well, which is not much used, though probably does bring them some money.

I think they show ads by default in the start menu. Pretty sure it even comes with certain third party applications, like Netflix, which they are no doubt paid for.