Valve Is Running Apple's Playbook in Reverse

> They will not outcompete Sony/MS/Nintendo in consoles because price is king for the mass market

I don't follow the console market at all, but don't its players subsidize their hardware by keeping software (game) costs high? I didn't think they had anything like Steam's level of regular discounted sales. "Price is king" can cut both ways.

Steam doesn't need to lock down the Steam Machine to subsidize it with store purchases. The casual user could theoretically install another OS, but that doesn't matter because they won't (because they're casual users), and the dedicated user buys most of their games on Steam anyways because it's the dominant distribution platform.

In 2025 none of Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo sell their consoles at a loss. They're sold for very slim margins, which is what I assume Valve will do with the Steam machine. I expect the Steam Machine to be price competitive.

ish. Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo likely have contracts locking down RAM prices whereas Valve will have to negotiate theirs based on current prices.

Valve's products are 100% designed to punch a hole through Windows Store monopolization. It encourages developers to write for Linux.

Microsoft has been trying to corner Valve. Valve is finding clever ways out by getting developers to finally make their games Linux compatible.

If Valve's consoles become broadly successful, that's an added bonus. The real win is to outflank Microsoft.

One of Microsoft's biggest mistakes was to give up on Windows Phone. One of Meta's biggest mistakes was to give up on their phone (they gave in early due to technical choices, not just lack of user demand).

Owning a "pane of glass" lets you tax and control everything. Apple and Google have unprecedented leverage in two of the biggest markets in the world. Microsoft wants that for gaming, and since most gaming is on Windows, they have a shot at it.

Valve is doing everything they can to make sure developers start targeting other platforms so PC games remain multi-platform. It's healthy for the entire ecosystem.

If we had strong antitrust enforcement (which we haven't had in over 25 years), Apple and Google wouldn't have a stranglehold on mobile, and Microsoft would get real scrutiny for all of their stunts they've pulled with gaming, studio acquisitions, etc.

Antitrust enforcement is good for capitalism. It ensures that stupid at-scale hacks don't let the largest players become gluttons and take over the entire ecosystem. It keeps capitalism fiercely competitive and makes all players nimble.

The government's antitrust actions against Microsoft in the 1990s-2000s was what paved the way for Apple to become what it is today. If we had more of it, one wonders what other magnificent companies and products we might have.

> They are unwilling to pursue business models that require locking down hardware in order to subsidize it with store purchases

I mean.. it's pretty obvious such a thing would be immediately suicidal for them. If Steam stops being an open platform, it stops being a PC platform.

>> that this is actually Steam Machine 2.0. Valve already tried this a decade ago, and it flopped.

> I find this framing to be beyond maddening [...]

> It was also a thoughtful partnering with hardware vendors

As numerous post-mortems (some of which I quoted in the article) recount, the hardware partners themselves largely consider their experiment back then a flop as well.

> But it was a thoughtful, intelligent long-term commitment to an ecosystem

With respect, I think you're overselling it. It's hard to call a machine that basically didn't play any of the at-the-time hits well "a thoughtful, intelligent" move. If you read some of those linked post-mortems, I think you might agree as well.

> I think it's best understood as a return on investment that begun those many years ago

I think there's nuance here, which is that Valve made lemonade from the lemon that was the flop of the Steam Box. They turned that failed move into an initial investment through diligence and effort. In a sense, that's part of what I'm trying to bring attention to -- Valve didn't just write off the failure and abandon the market, but took signal from it and tried again.

Not just usable, better performant than Windows too.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/06/games-run-faster-on-s...

I tried to use Microsoft's Game Pass and the Xbox store on a Windows machine with multiple users.

It was astoundingly unusable for sharing Microsoft's own game within my own household with my own family members. Completely broken user experience.

It's not hard to believe that Steam was able to thrive because Microsoft has just done an amazingly bad job with this. I've been in software dev for 20 years and it still baffles me that companies with tens of thousands of engineers can produce such shitty software experiences.

> Well, Valve got seriously concerned about the Windows Store, like, a decade ago...

Yeah, I briefly addressed that concern in the article as a comparison to Facebook; probably could've expanded on it, but it was already quite long and didn't feel like it fit naturally into the topic at hand

I'm impressed they even managed to create a game subscription that works on both PC and Xbox. It felt too much like Xbox was made by a different company than Windows for a long time. Remember Games for Windows Live?

> I always laugh when a media outlet uses ProtonDB as an example

I'm not a media outlet! Just some dope who noticed a thing and wanted to get the thought that wouldn't leave out into the world so I could use my brain for other things.

> as the reality is something different

That's fair. My anecdotal experience (as outlined in another comment) is that platinum has generally just worked for me. That's probably because I'm on Steam Deck rather than a "generic" Linux install (I also use Windows for my desktop gaming).

That said, do you think a parenthetical note is necessary for accuracy? I figured it might be getting too into the weeds since the article is primarily about the platform/ecosystem/hardware comparison between Apple and Valve...

gamer!==gamer. These are your own choices. For me Assetto Corsa + other racing games + CS2 work perfectly. And with sway/i3, unlike in Windows, I can throw the game around in whichever way I wish. No laggy alt-tab or random crashes that my Windows user friends often have.

ProtonDB is a great resource for tweaks like you suggested and I find proton works OOTB quite often. But I agree, they seem to be operating under an alternate definition of what "platinum" means which is setting everyone's expectations to high.

[dead]

I'm not sure they've got Apple targeted so much, because Apple has been so thoroughly not-invested in gaming. The place they're closest to colliding is VR, but Apple's Vision headset is doing something really different from Valve's VR products, which are far more directly lined up against Meta's Oculus.

Valve could branch into Apple's areas, but they don't seem particularly interested in doing so yet.

EDIT: rather, Apple cares a lot about phone gaming, but that's an area that Valve has shown few signs of moving in on.

How are Google and Apple in its crosshairs (article's framing notwithstanding)?

From what I see, Microsoft is the only one they have been gunning for, and even that behemoth is looking to get out of the way. Their Xbox platform has practically imploded, and they have specifically designed Windows 11 to be less of a PC operating system and more of an ads platform and a cross-selling channel for their AI/cloud offerings indicating that they've lost interest in the consumer market as a whole.

Speaking only for myself, I'm very excited for the Steam Machine. A console I can plug into my TV and it just works and gives me access to all* of the Steam library is an amazing proposition. A Windows 11 box doesn't do that**.

* Almost. Anti-cheat remains a big hole.

** No, I'm not going to use a keyboard or do Windows admin crap from my couch.

> what problem do consumers have that Steam Machines solve?

It fixes a lot of issues for me (I will buy a steam machine upon release):

I used to prefer consoles for the living room - put the disk in, and go. But nowadays consoles have the same issues: Giant downloads, patches, tweaking GUI settings and fear of not getting the best performance (PS5 Pro variants, Xbox S/X etc., performance vs. quality mode settings). PC games are now not only more price competetive through the sales, but consoles use now downloads at high prices to undermine the second hand market, or account-lock your game even when purchased as disk. Plus, I need a subscription to play online.

Game controller support has become superb on ALL OSes (I use a PS5 controller on macOS as well as Linux, and it is pretty much flawless.

Windows is annoying. I used Windows 10 for a long time as a glorified bootloader into Steam (on a dualboot Linux machine), but it become full annoyances and win11 worsens that ("You need a Onedrive account" - "oh, did you try Edge yet?" - "Your computer is at risk" - "We installed copilot for you!" etc.). I basically want a computer that boots into steam BigPicture and is quiet the rest of the time.

Can I build my own living room PC? Yes, but then without proper SteamOS installation, or finicky linux setups. With the Steam Machine I just buy the package, put it next to my TV and lets go. I will re-use my PS5 dualshock controller and be done with it.

A system that plays the vast majority of the Steam library with an operating system that isn't full of ad/spy/bloatware out of the box would be a good one. I think mass awareness of Win11 shittiness does exist.

Thanks for turning that up; edited into the article with credit to you!

You can do that right now on almost any Android handset with Vulkan 1.2 compliance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kflIp1rBJgw

The "in reverse" framing was largely in reference to the fact that Apple built the software ecosystem after getting loyal hardware consumers, whereas Valve got loyal software users first and is now selling hardware to them.

Otherwise, I do think a lot of what you say is true, and some of it is in the article (e.g. the software "just works").