Re: Re: Latest Valve's announcement
By: Arelor to Nightfox on Wed Nov 26 2025 08:28 am

Valve has invested a huge amount of resources in order to not become dependant on Microsoft.

Think about it. Steam has a 70% market share when it comes to PC games, but most of their games used to run only on Windows. This means Steam had a HUGE business going, but it all depended on a third party (Microsoft) for their customers to run their licensed games.

If Microsoft were to play a Google/Apple style scheme and make it so only official app stores were supported by their Operating Systems, Steam would be in trouble. If Microsoft released their own games store and actively tried to hinder third party stores, Steam would be in trouble. The people at Valve is smart and they know this. The best way to survive long term is to ensure they don't depend on Microsoft playing ball forever, therefore they NEED their product to run on different Operating Systems just in case.

That all makes sense, and I wouldn't argue against any of that. Even though Steam supports other operating systems, they're mainly an app store. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of games they sell aren't made by them (though I know Steam/Valve does make games), and many PC game makers target Windows. But having the Steam store on other operating systems definitely helps motivate game makers to support other operating systems. I currently dual-boot my main PC between Windows and Linux, and I've thought of fully using Linux; one of the main things keeping me using Windows is the games. But there are some other programs I use that don't have a Linux version yet too.

Nightfox
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They have been buying studios in spades for a while now in order to fuel their library and they are already experimenting by licensing the Xbox brand to third party hardware manufacturers. It is obvious they are extremely serious about their strategical change of pace.

Our they trying to take the same approach to Windows? Allow companies to build the hardware then use their software?

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Re: Latest Valve's announcement
By: niter3 to Arelor on Fri Nov 28 2025 06:20 am

Our they trying to take the same approach to Windows? Allow companies to build the hardware then use their software?

They recently gave a license to a hardware manufacturer to produce a "Xbox" handheld. Think of a Nintendo Switch, but in Xbox version.

You look under its hood and it is a Steam Deck-like computer running Windows and with Xbox software on it. I think that is what Microsoft is trying to pull out: Third party hardware manufacturers producing Xbox licensed hardware which runs the Xbox store, so they can sell games on them.

I could work if lots of people had massive Xbox libraries, which made them locked into the MS ecosystem, but as far as I am aware Xbox missed the train on the previous generation so the big mass of Xbox users necessary to move the idea forward is not there. Last time somebody tried something similar was with the 3DO and it crashed very badly.


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