Valve is running Apple's playbook in reverse

https://www.garbagecollected.dev/p/valve-the-reverse-apple

by ee64a4a • 7 months ago

148 187 7 months ago

CuriouslyC5• 7 months ago

Valve has a spear lined up at so much of big tech right now it's honestly impressive they've done it in stealth for so long. Google, Microsoft and Apple are all in the crosshairs in a big way, and I don't think they can avoid the blow that's coming without cannibalizing their margins.

kemayo2• 7 months ago

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.

CuriouslyC5• 7 months ago

They've shown signs of moving on phone gaming if you know what to look for. https://www.pcmag.com/news/valve-has-quietly-backed-projects...

phantasmish• 7 months ago

They’d need to improve desktop Linux a lot to threaten Apple. It’s far more tolerable on their relatively tightly-controlled and stable hardware platforms than it is elsewhere, but it’s still a features-weak jankfest compared to macOS. I mean user facing features relevant to any desktop user, not “docker is native on it” or other developer-only stuff—and for the record Linux was my main desktop OS for about a decade, so I’m far from unfamiliar with it, and I do own a Steam Deck and have used it extensively in desktop mode (and in console-alike mode).

I’d love someone to actually compete with Apple at the specific kind of thing they do, but I don’t see it in the cards for Valve. Too much distance, with things they don’t have to solve to hit other (apparent) targets of theirs.

As for Microsoft, what is Valve threatening? Home no-business-use-case (mostly gaming and maybe light web browsing) PC owners, and I suppose x-box? The former has got to be negligible at this point, and the latter… I guess maybe, yeah, they could threaten that.

[edit] to soften this somewhat, I do love what Valve is doing and their micro-PC thing they’re releasing next year is likely going to be an instant purchase for me, provided supply issues don’t drive the price insanely high or otherwise mess with the release. I happen to be in the exact niche of people who are thrilled to have a good low-tinkering option that lets me ditch my last Windows machine, so this stuff’s my jam.

CharlesW2• 7 months ago

I'm not sure they've got Apple targeted so much, because Apple has been so thoroughly not-invested in gaming.

And yet, Apple controls the world's largest gaming economy (~$78B in 2025), dwarfing Sony's (~$31B) and Microsoft's (~$24B).

jijijijij• 7 months ago

because Apple has been so thoroughly not-invested in gaming

Is Apple invested in anything at all right now? Seems like they are only ever iterating over the same products in their idiotically domain separated legacy zoo of devices. Lately even fucking that up with UI "innovation" literally everyone hates. I mean, who's talking about Apple VR anymore? Apple AI is a meme. What are they cooking with all that cash?

I don't think Valve has to even consider Apple.

codeflo• 7 months ago

Apple cares a lot about phone gaming

The kind of gacha games that dominate the in-app sales charts, sure. Actual gaming, they don't care about or even understand.

pjmlp12• 7 months ago

If Android had half as supported SDK game stuff like Swift and Objective-C have on Apple platforms.

Apple cares about gaming on their iDevices and related Apple store profits, macOS not so much.

dartharva2• 7 months ago

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.

CuriouslyC5• 7 months ago

Valve is clearly using games as a wedge, the Steam Machine is (and will continue to be) pushed as a capable general purpose computing device, and as the Linux desktop experience improves they will lean harder into that angle, until they're selling sexy general purpose devices with a user experience comparable to Apple's. This includes phones, though the timeline for that will lag a few years.

pjmlp12• 7 months ago

The games console yes, however people forget that Xbox is also a brand under Microsoft Games Studios, which happens to be one of the biggest publishers due to the amount of studios that are owned by Microsoft.

lwkl2• 7 months ago

The work on Proton ends up in wine which is available for macOS and is part of Apples game porting toolkit. So part of the work Valve is doing to make games run on Linux helps games run better on macOS.

modeless2• 7 months ago

Valve's hardware products will be successful but remain niche. And that's ok. They are unwilling to pursue business models that require locking down hardware in order to subsidize it with software purchases, and I love that about them. As a result their hardware will always be more expensive. They will not outcompete Meta in VR or Sony/MS/Nintendo in consoles because price is king for the mass market.

Valve's hardware products, aside from being awesome and setting a standard that others have to match, are really an insurance policy. They ensure Valve cannot be locked out of their own market by platform owners like Microsoft or Meta using their leverage to either take a cut of their revenue or outright ban Steam in favor of their own stores (as it looked like MS might try to do in the Win8 days). By owning a platform of their own Valve always has a fallback option.

dartharva2• 7 months ago

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.

bryanlarsen9• 7 months ago

The Steam you download from steampowered.com can be an open platform at the same time that the Steam that comes preinstalled on the Steam Machine is a closed platform.

Seems unlikely because we believe Valve has integrity. But it's possible they have less integrity than we think, and they pursue this strategy to make some of those games with kernel-level anti-cheat available on the Steam Machine.

echelon3• 7 months ago

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.

iwontberude2• 7 months ago

Microsoft and Nvidia (amongst many others) are happy to leave their gaming customers hanging for years in order to inflate the AI bubble further. They don’t care about gaming in any significant capacity. Valve is still a great gaming focused company and they will be successful.

debugnik• 7 months ago

It encourages developers to write for Linux.

Valve actually encourages devs to only provide Windows builds compatible with Proton, or at least it used to, to the disappointment of some professional porters. Mainly because several devs kept leaving their Linux builds abandoned while still maintaining their Windows ones.

mschuster914• 7 months ago

One of Microsoft's biggest mistakes was to give up on Windows Phone.

They had no other choice.

The technical foundation of the prior WP versions (aka, Windows CE) was just too dated and they didn't have a Windows kernel / userland capable of performantly dealing on ARM, x86 performance was and still is utter dogshit on battery powered devices, they didn't have a Windows userland actually usable on anything touch based, and most importantly they did not have developer tooling even close to usable.

At the same time, Apple had a stranglehold over the upper price class devices, Android ate up the low and mid range class - and unlike the old Ballmer "DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS" days, Microsoft didn't have tooling that enticed developers, while Apple had Xcode with emulators that people had been used to for years, and Android had a fully functioning Eclipse based toolchain.

rangestransform2• 7 months ago

Was antitrust enforcement necessary in this case, if Valve can break the "monopoly" with a superior value proposition for customers? Perhaps Valve would not feel the need to enter such a capital-intensive industry if it weren't for pressure from the behemoths. I happen to like that antitrust doctrine in the US is focused on good for consumers instead of some abstract ideal of a healthy market.

pjmlp12• 7 months ago

Not at all, developers will never stop targeting Windows as long as Proton is a thing.

mrec2• 7 months ago

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.

npinsker2• 7 months ago

"Steam" doesn't decide to have discounted sales -- games are heavily discounted because developers compete against one another for attention. Nintendo and Sony generally have less need to do this.

entropicdrifter3• 7 months ago

Likewise, the PS5 has absolutely dominated the Xbox's current generation in terms of sales in large part due to exclusives. Xbox Series S is far cheaper than a PS5, mind you.

What platform has more exclusives than PC?

a_shovel• 7 months ago

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.

entropicdrifter3• 7 months ago

and the dedicated user buys most of their games on Steam anyways because it's the dominant distribution platform.

It's also the most convenient by far, and the new Steam Family stuff lets you share all of your games with all of your siblings without any need for password sharing like you'd have to on e.g. GoG or Epic. I have 4 siblings and most of us are married. Our combined Steam library is well over 1000 games

modeless2• 7 months ago

The risk isn't that casual users all spontaneously decide to stop using Steam on their own. The risk is that businesses exploit the subsidy in various ways. For example, businesses could buy the Steam Machine in bulk as a workstation. Or a store competitor could produce an OS of their own that replaces SteamOS and promote it to users.

Narishma• 7 months ago

They do need to lock it down if they want to subside it with store purchases, otherwise it's too tempting for non-gaming uses where they don't get any money after the initial sale.

bryanlarsen9• 7 months ago

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.

ThrowawayR2• 7 months ago

If Valve sold the Steam Machine for any significant cost less than the Dell / HP / Lenovo equivalent, HNers would snap them up by the truckload to repurpose as home or work machines with guaranteed Linux compatibility.

vablings5• 7 months ago

If that's the case, then why are console games so damn expensive? I was shocked to see how much the latest AAA title costs on disk/store

Console users now

- Don't get a price subsidized console

- Have to pay an online membership

- Pay the premium for any games released on the platform

How could anyone ever justify getting triple taxed!

haunter• 7 months ago

As long as they don't sell the Steam Machine in retail stores it will always be a niche

ZeroConcerns3• 7 months ago

Well, Valve got seriously concerned about the Windows Store, like, a decade ago, since that could have reduced the stranglehold of Steam on the gaming marketplace.

Turns out that the usual Microsoft incompetence-and-ADHD have kind-of eliminated that threat all by itself.

Also: turns out that, if you put enough effort into it, Linux is actually a quite-usable gaming platform.

Still: are consumers better off today than in the PS2 era? I sort-of doubt it, but, yeah, alternate universes and everything...

hnuser123456• 7 months ago

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?

sand500• 7 months ago

Not just usable, better performant than Windows too.

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

agoodusername63• 7 months ago

It really depends on your GPU drivers.

If you're using nvidia like 75% of Steam's hardware survey reports, it's a mixed bag and 1% lows are fucking abysmal compared to windows.

But try getting nvidia to care about Linux beyond CUDA. They'd rather just stop selling GPUs to normal people before they do that.

tedunangst2• 7 months ago

Why do you link that article but not this one?

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/11/ars-benchmarks-show-s...

ryandvm• 7 months ago

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.

doublerabbit2• 7 months ago

It's not the engineers at fault here but C-suits. Those who are out of touch or stuck up their arse within their own world. Believing their own delusional vision is it based on that they have a toddler who's four.

ee64a4a9• 7 months ago

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

ZeroConcerns3• 7 months ago

That wasn't meant as a criticism, more like some additional context. With how irrelevant the Microsoft Store is these days, I can't blame anyone for skipping over it...

ThrowawayB72• 7 months ago

"Also: turns out that, if you put enough effort into it, Linux is actually a quite-usable gaming platform."

Valve is the one putting in the effort and paying for it at their own expense. If they ever lose interest in paying for it, like GabeN retiring and Ebenezer Scrooge replacing him, then it's game over for Linux gaming (literally).

omnimus• 7 months ago

That would make very little sense business wise. Steam “consoles” are not big break just for linux but also for valve. What could easily happen though is locking down their consoles once they get profitable.

chii2• 7 months ago

paying for it at their own expense

valve would recoup the cost from a bigger customer base, as well as paying it as insurance against windows/microsoft targeting them as an existential threat.

It's cheap for what they're getting. And iirc, it being open source means the foundation could be built upon by others if they do decide to call it quits.

nitwit005• 7 months ago

Outside of XBox, Minecraft, and journalists trying it out, I don't think I've heard of anyone using the Microsoft store.

The Wikipedia page has quite the description of the view from within Microsoft:

Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft's gaming division, has also opined that Microsoft Store "sucks". As a result, Office was removed as an installable app from the store, and made to redirect to its website.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Store

simulator5g• 7 months ago

I actually use the Microsoft store before looking elsewhere for software. It’s basically a package manager with a minimal jank. It’s there on a new install and it works. It sucks that they don’t let you add other sources though.

Having an app from an exe installer sucks because you have to update it manually, or, it uses resources while you’re using it to check for updates. With the windows store I can update everything at once and don’t need a million individual update checks on startup.

pjmlp12• 7 months ago

Because games are on the XBox app store, not Microsoft store.

hbn• 7 months ago

I'm all for MS bashing and laughing at their incompetence, but was there really any threat there? I don't know anyone on PC who was interested in buying a game anywhere other than Steam in 2015.

stackskipton• 7 months ago

Sure, if they pulled Apple and locked everyone into only installing from Microsoft Store, Steam would have been in serious trouble.

0x4573• 7 months ago

People feared that MS will make installing things not from the store harder. Like what apple is doing. It posed a serious potential threat. Given that MS had complete control over the Windows, DirectX and many other tools developers were using.

AlexandrB• 7 months ago

I buy games on GoG when I can, Steam when I have to. I have nothing against Steam, but they do have a near monopoly position on PC. Unfortunately the non-GoG alternatives are from even worse actors.

sfRattan2• 7 months ago

It was specifically the release of Windows RT (Windows 8 on ARM) in 2012 that had people nervous that Microsoft wanted to lock Windows down long-term in the manner of iOS and Apple. Windows RT only ran code signed by Microsoft and only installed programs from Microsoft's store. It failed, and Microsoft let off the gas locking down Windows, but that moment was probably the specific impetus for Gabe Newell to set Valve on a decade long course of building support for Steam and the games in its storefront on Linux. Windows being locked down to the degree of iOS was an existential risk to Valve as a company and Steam as a platform in 2012. It isn't anymore.

Windows RT also drew ire from people other than Newell at the time IIRC. It was widely perceived as a trial balloon for closing down Windows almost completely. The first Steam Machines a decade ago were Valve's answering trial balloon. Both failed, but Valve learned and Microsoft largely did not... They haven't locked down Windows 11 to the point of Windows RT, but they're abusing their users to the point of potentially sabotaging their own market dominance for consumer PCs.

pjmlp12• 7 months ago

I never installed Steam, nor I intend to.

NuclearPM• 7 months ago

ADHD? What do you mean?

chihuahua• 7 months ago

They probably mean that with some projects, Microsoft builds something half-assed and then moves on to something else. Instead of sticking with the project, evaluating it critically, and committing to fixing whatever sucks about it until it's high quality.

One could get that impression from the Windows Store/Microsoft Store. And also the state of the Settings UI for at least the past 13 years - Windows 8 moved a small fraction of Settings to Metro design, but 13 years later there are still some pieces of Windows 7 UI left.

Or the Edge browser fiasco - how can a company as large as Microsoft conclude "eh, I guess we just can't have a browser that works well enough for enough of the web to be competitive, let's just give up and do a Chrome branch"

Or the Kin phone: "we launched this 4 weeks ago and I guess it sucks, let's just pull the plug and never mention this again"

Or Windows features like home group, libraries, and Windows Home Server - they're around for a few years, then someone decides "we don't really care about this" and dump them.

overfeed• 7 months ago

Well, Valve got seriously concerned about the Windows Store, like, a decade ago, since that could have reduced the stranglehold of Steam on the gaming marketplace

Microsoft telegraphed its intention to kill Steam. The plan was a hermetically sealed ecosystem where only cryptographically signed code could run on Windows computers, from UEFI boot to application launch. This meant users would only run software Microsoft let them, and there was no room for the Steam store in Microsoft's vision of the future then.

pjmlp12• 7 months ago

It is clearly not, as long as it depends on running Windows games, developed on Windows, running on Proton.

It is like arguing Windows is a quite-usable UNIX platform thanks to WSL 2.0.

The right way to push for Linux gaming is how Loki Entertainment was doing it.

quadruple• 7 months ago

I believe Valve's concerns went(or maybe go?) beyond just the Windows Store, and into "We believe Microsoft may become unable to ship a good Operating System in the future".

In a 2013 interview with Gabe Newell: "Windows 8 was like this giant sadness. It just hurts everybody in the PC business. Rather than everybody being all excited to go buy a new PC, buying new software to run on it, we’ve had a 20+ percent decline in PC sales — it’s like 'holy cow that’s not what the new generation of the operating system is supposed to do.' There’s supposed to be a 40 percent uptake, not a 20 percent decline, so that’s what really scares me. When I started using it I was like 'oh my god...' I find [Windows 8] unusable." [0]

The Windows Store probably was a part of it, sure, but looking at that quote from 2025, after having your SSD broken, your recovery unusable and your explorer laggy? It's quite bitter-sweet.

[0] https://archive.is/eBP6q#selection-3645.0-3645.729

glenstein3• 7 months ago

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. Sure, it wasn't an iPod, and if you measure it against that kind of expectation, of course it's a flop, because it wasn't an overnight success.

But I think it's more appropriately understood as a soft launch of an ecosystem, to strategically rebalance Valve away from the potential risk of being locked into Windows. It was also a thoughtful partnering with hardware vendors, so they weren't shipping hundreds of thousands of units to Walmart shelves was just sat there and lost them tens of millions of dollars, which is also what I think of when something's considered a flop.

But it was a thoughtful, intelligent long-term commitment to an ecosystem that bore fruit in large part due to the credible long-term commitment as the library of steamos compatible games grew and set up the Steam Deck for success. And now it looks like the wind is at their back with the new line of hardware, but I think it's best understood as a return on investment that begun those many years ago.

I think it reflects a kind of intelligence and long-term thinking that Google is pathologically incapable of, by contrast.

ee64a4a9• 7 months ago

> 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.

glenstein3• 7 months ago

Fair point on the vendors - surely they hoped to make $$ from it. But I think you're underestimating the significance of standing up Proton and the critical experience working through bugs and getting experience with hardware, and gradually growing the inventory of compatible games. Simply put, there's no Steam Deck without the Steam Machine, which says everything about the value of the Steam Machine.

HumblyTossed• 7 months ago

I find this framing to be beyond maddening.

Yeah, it's like the people who say, oh, the iPhone mini was a flop. That was a BILLION DOLLAR product. How many companies would LOVE to have a billion dollar product???

PeterHolzwarth2• 7 months ago

It will be interesting to see if they can answer a question better now than with the original Steam Machines ten years ago: what problem do consumers have that Steam Machines solve?

Their original answer was a resounding "nothing" - Steam Machines solved a problem for Valve (fear of an impending "Windows Store" being added by Microsoft that would steal the battlefield from Valve), but very little for the customer.

I guess that same question needs to be asked again here: are there sufficient problems that the average game-player at home has that are better answered by a Steam Machine than a Windows 11 box? Are those real problems experienced by the broader market of people, or are those just tangential issues cared about by a more vocal few?

coldpie• 7 months ago

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.

pelotron• 7 months ago

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.

PeterHolzwarth2• 7 months ago

I understand what you mean, but that is more of a "Hacker News user" problem than a "young guy who does drywall for a living in Lawrence, Kansas" problem.

littlecranky673• 7 months ago

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.

viktorcode2• 7 months ago

But nowadays consoles have the same issues: Giant downloads

At least for PS5 the opposite is true: if a game uses kraken texture compression, and many do, PS5 variant will be the smallest.

atrus• 7 months ago

Convienence. Consoles are popular because you just plop down, hit the on button and play (in theory).

And while people don't care how much spy/adware their computer is, they do care when frequent notifications, popups and updates interfere with what you're doing. Nothing more annoying that having a windows notif steal focus from a game you're playing through steam link in the other room (personal experience).

I'm so glad that they've improved steam and link on linux so much, having to run it on my s/o windows computer was a pain.

AndrewDucker• 7 months ago

My Windows 10 box needs to be replaced before October (when patches end).

I want a new computer that just works, and plays my games. This looks like it will be designed to do exactly that.

happymellon2• 7 months ago

are there sufficient problems that the average game-player at home has that are better answered by a Steam Machine than a Windows 11 box?

Absolutely. The UI on Windows 11 is not designed for couch gaming, and Microsoft licencing rules mean that you are not allowed to hide Windows.

throwaway3141552• 7 months ago

Microsoft licensing rules mean that you are not allowed to hide Windows.

What do you mean? As in - manufacturers can't create an overlay similar to Steam Deck's "Gaming Mode"?

cHaOs667• 7 months ago

"ProtonDB tracks compatibility, and counts 7000+ games that are verified to work as well or almost as well as on Windows" - I always laugh when a media outlet uses ProtonDB as an example as the reality is something different. I have a ~1500 games big Steam Library and I'm also a Linux User for 20+ years - yes, I do use Windows only for gaming and on my work pc.

When I fire up my linux workstation or steam deck and browse my library, there are countless games, marked as "platinum" in ProtonDB, but do not work OOTB. Sometimes it's a later Proton version that broke the compatibility, sometimes you still need to tinker in the settings in addition to choose the correct proton version. All in all, I've spent quite some time getting games to run I just wanted to play a single afternoon as nostaliga hitted hard.

As long as issues like this are not resolved, I don't believe in Steam Machines as alternatives for consoles in the living room space.

And yes, I'm still considering a steam machine for my living room, even though I will need to support my wife and kids in getting games to run on the TV.

deltoidmaximus2• 7 months ago

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.

ee64a4a9• 7 months ago

I'm happy to edit to correct, but my own experience on Steam Deck has been that anything that's platinum (or native, but that goes without saying) basically just works, minor UI issues and the like notwithstanding. Considering that even Windows versions can have those kinds of issues depending on drivers and hardware, I figured it was a fair comparison.

k4rli• 7 months ago

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.

rhesa• 7 months ago

Simracing is the only reason my gaming rig runs windows. I never even thought my hardware would work on linux (especially my motion hardware). And stuff like crewchief and race telemetry. How do you deal with all that on linux?

ee64a4a9• 7 months ago

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...

attendant3446• 7 months ago

To be honest, I've never had any issues with 'Platinum' games on Proton. But I somewhat agree, starting with 'Gold' and below, it was a hit-or-miss situation.

graynk• 7 months ago

as nostalgia hit hard

in my experience the older games are more of a pain to get running, as a lot more tweaks are needed

it's the case on Windows too, but on Linux there's an additional need to mess with DLL overrides DXVK settings and the like

bargainbin• 7 months ago

If they used the learning of the Steam Machines ARM translation layer to ship a Steam Phone, I’d jump on it day one even if all it had was basic phone apps and games.

bigyabai5• 7 months ago

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

__aru• 7 months ago

caveat being that GPU drivers on Android are kind of a mess.

Open source Mesa Turnip drivers fixes a lot of problems with Snapdragon GPUs, but the drivers don't cover every available chipset from Qualcomm.

The GPU driver issues leads to situations like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (released in 2022) + Mesa drivers often getting better gaming compatibility/performance than the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite (released in 2025)

teddyh• 7 months ago

(2011, proxied quote from The Cambridge Student via The Escapist; the link in that article is dead, and a search on the site for “Newell” turns up no results)

Here’s the latest copy of the original article in The Cambridge Student:

<https://web.archive.org/web/20220924191721/https://www.tcs.c...>

ee64a4a9• 7 months ago

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

potatolicious• 7 months ago

Are they actually running the Apple playbook in reverse? It seems to me that they're actually running Apple's playbook pretty squarely, just in another domain.

First-gen product that seemed to not know where it's going? Check.

Continued quiet iteration behind closed doors despite first-gen being a flop? Check.

Sticking with the product line over many years, where most other companies would have written off and thrown in the towel? Check.

Multi-pronged GTM strategy where other products prove out key bits of next product? Check. (see: SteamOS and Proton setting the stage for Steam Deck, which in turn sets the stage for Steam Machine 2)

Deep software-hardware integration in ways that are highly salient to users? Check (see: foviated streaming for Steam Frame, Steam Deck "just works")

ee64a4a9• 7 months ago

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").

thenthenthen• 7 months ago

Thanks for the in reverse explainer, i did not really get this from the article. That said I havent had my coffee yet.

mschuster914• 7 months ago

Competition is difficult once a big aggregator has emerged, even for deep-pocketed incumbents.

And sometimes, the competition is just plain brain dead. Just take EA Origin, which my wife sadly requires because her entire Sims 4 library has been purchased through that and its predecessor.

With Steam, she can easily have the Steam Client open on both her laptop and her user account on my gaming rig simultaneously. No big deal, in fact it is required for Steam Remote Play - the only thing that keeps annoying us is that you can only have one Steam client open on one machine which is annoying on a multi-user machine.

But Origin? That piece of shit software doesn't just log you out on one machine when you log in on another - no, it opens a fucking modal window telling you "you're in offline mode". Yeah no shit, my wife knows that, she just turned on the other machine!

That's utterly fucking basic user experience stuff and yet EA doesn't seem to be able to fathom that people might want to own more than one machine. As long as they can be sold FIFA lootboxes, eh?!

throwaway3141552• 7 months ago

Playing two Steam games simultaneously typically results in a logout from the second (offending) PC.

bryanlarsen9• 7 months ago

with current-gen consoles (which are sold at a loss, and so would be expected to be cheaper)

This is not true. It was true in 2019 when the PS5 was initially announced, but PS5 has been sold at a (slim) profit since 2021. Xbox probably sold at a loss for longer, but it definitely isn't sold at a loss in 2025.

The Switch & Switch 2 have always been profitable.

The BOM cost of the Steam Machine has been estimated at $450. They could sell for $500 and still be nominally profitable and still undercut XBox & PS5.

(That BOM cost estimate was before RAM price silliness so you have to adjust upwards a little bit).

ee64a4a9• 7 months ago

Hi, thanks for pointing this out! Two questions:

1. Do you think that inaccuracy undercuts the point? If so, I'll correct the article; if not, I'll include it as a note in my planned follow-up. 2. Do you have the link(s) handy for those figures? If not, I can try to find them myself, but I figured it would be easier to ask first.

bryanlarsen9• 7 months ago

If you Google you'll find links of varying quality. Direct statements from Sony, but Nintendo and Microsoft not so much. It's all third party analysis which I find compelling.

Does your analysis still hold if the Steam Box base model sells for $600? Analysts estimated the BOM at $425 - $450. Add a little bit for RAM inflation, and Valve can still sell for $600 and technically be selling without subsidies as promised. They also promised to price it "like a PC". Lots of PC's sell for $300, so that also doesn't really constrain them.

I don't think your analysis depends on the Steam Box selling for higher than $600, but you're a better judge of that than I am.

deadbabe2• 7 months ago

Valve should really make something like a Steamphone.

No iOS, no Android, just raw SteamOS with gaming and privacy focus, and fully customizable by users if they want.

Make it look really sleek and cool, and dockable.

bigyabai5• 7 months ago

Valve will not do this. First off, there's zero value proposition. Steam Deck, Frame and Machine all make sense as complimentary products to the Steam Storefront. Smartphones are not complimentary to Steam, Steam is complimentary to smartphones.

Secondly, the AOSP already ticks all these boxes while also supporting the apps users expect. Valve is not going to waste money tailoring SteamOS to fill a gap that an APK file could do equally as well. I understand the general disappointment with Google and Apple as smartphone vendors, but you're ignoring Valve's strategy if you're convinced that a Steam Phone is in the cards.

deadbabe2• 7 months ago

A company as rich and as private as Valve could literally just make whatever it wants, for no reason. They made a VR headset, a phone is not too far off.

lunar_rover• 7 months ago

I don't see this happening in the foreseeable future.

Making competitive phones is even harder than making a desktop, and they aren't investing in Linux desktop itself either, just the components they need. SteamOS works by not running a desktop in its default mode.

everforward2• 7 months ago

The threat profile feels scarily different too. SteamOS doesn’t feel like something I’d install a banking app on.

I don’t think they want to wander further into malware arms races. They don’t seem to really want to maintain their anti-cheat currently, it’s notoriously poor. I love Valve but I’m not sure I’d trust them with a platform I log into my bank with.

gorfian_robot• 7 months ago

in 10 years it will be Steam and Nintendo. everything else will be a dim memory.

RunSet• 7 months ago

Steam came in 2003, created for easy management of updates for their games over the Internet (what today would be called a “proprietary launcher”).

I call it that today and I also called it one in 2003, when it suddenly demanded to be installed and kept running to continue playing Half-Life (what today would be called "vendor lock-in").

denimnerd42• 7 months ago

people on the internet were pissed about steam in 2003

gverrilla• 7 months ago

not cs playerbase, which was it's foundation.

vablings5• 7 months ago

Its even better now!

Launch a steam game to open another game launcher platform that you then create an account for and play on that game. A launcher launcher!

MassEffect5784• 7 months ago

Valve is one of the good companies out there. Love my steam deck. It just works.

etempleton• 7 months ago

It has always been curious to me that Apple hasn’t put more effort into gaming. The AppleTV could easily be positioned as a game console if they put more effort into supporting developers and providing more dedicated infrastructure for games.

petterroea• 7 months ago

Contrary to what the article claims, the market being open and sloppy isn't enshittification. Jacking up prices and removing features users were using in the name of extracting profit is. But what I strongly agree with the author about is the uncertainty of Valve's fate after GabeN. Any company is able to enshittify, we are just one change of owners away. It's almost like potential energy vs kinetic energy - a company like Valve has saved up a _lot_ of enshittification potential waiting for the "right" condition to be realized.

I'd love to believe Steam will keep being the market leader because they haven't really enshittified yet. I'd love to believe that Tim Sweeney and Epic games are so unable to read the room and so blinded by being a public company that consumers just aren't interested. But considering their biggest game is Fortnite, they are practically selling to kids, who lack any sort of market opinion of that regard. Regardless, consumers don't really buy with their wallet unless there are immediate, solvable problems in front of them.

Regarding metaverse, I believe anyone who has been on VRChat instinctively understands why metaverse was doomed to fail from the get-go. I wrote some notes about my experiences which I released while doing winter-cleaning of my notes recently: https://petterroea.com/blogs/2025/living-a-second-life-in-vr.... There just simply isn't a market for what Meta are trying to sell.

mrandish• 7 months ago

Unlike Apple hardware, the Steam Deck does not need to be jailbroken in any way, and Valve explicitly provides a guide for how to go outside their ecosystem

And this is why I'll always trust and prefer Valve over Apple.

deafpolygon• 7 months ago

So Valve started out rich and now is getting poorer with each passing year?!

dzonga• 7 months ago

more telling is how zuck fucked up the metaverse initiative.

they could've totally owned the casual gaming market -- but if all you're used to is ads / engagement. you miss the rest.

Bluescreenbuddy• 7 months ago

This article is peak “acksheully”.

ranger207• 7 months ago

IMO Apple and Valve are taking the opposite approaches but on a different axis than the article discusses: Apple is continuing to increase their lock in and remove choice, while Valve continues to add choice. You can argue that Steam being a nigh-monopoly means there isn't a lot of choice, but I'd argue that's not correct. For one, Steam rarely censors games (it does happen! A notable case happened this month! But it happens rarely) and doesn't have requirements for games to use Steam's platform technology to be on the market. In fact, you're allowed to offer direct competitors to Steam features in your game without penalty (some games I play have both Steam Workshop support and the game dev's own mod platform support). For another Steam doesn't try to nudge you towards their solutions constantly either (eg like in the recent article on passkeys where the user had to click half a dozen times to not use Touch ID with the Touch ID option being on every page of those clicks). And of course, there's the "Add a non-Steam game or app" button in Steam that just asks you "where's the executable" and then it gets all the non-platform features Steam offers, like the overlay, screenshots, Steam Input (I think it even supports community input profiles for non-Steam games; I'm pretty sure I've seen community profiles for Primehack on my Steam Deck), etc. Of course the Steam Deck (and now Steam Machine and Steam Frame) are constantly advertised as "it's just a PC and you can do whatever you want with it". There's no lock in; you can install competitors' stores on those devices easily.

The reverse playbook then is that Apple is trying to make every option other than staying in the Apple ecosystem a bad choice, while Valve is trying to make Steam the best option in every scenario. The difference in base philosophy is the important part.

(Of course as a profit-seeking corporation there's no guarantee they'll stay this way, particularly after gaben leaves, but I'll appreciate it while it's here at least.)

johndoh42• 7 months ago

They are just better at exploiting developers. All hail to Gabe, god of the game developer slave market.

Valve is running Apple's playbook in reverse

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