The more competition the better (:
Is this gonna be another winshit handheld?
Big chance. But more competition is always a good thing in my opinion.
As long as they don’t interfere with, say, Bazzite, all’s good.
I heard somewhere Microsoft is making a gaming UI for Windows 11 for devices like the Steam Deck, but dunno if there’s any progress there.
Last time I heard that, it was that it was the object of a hackathon they ran amongst employees. So not sure if they are actually still working on that.
I remember them saying it was shelved.
Not surprised, in my experience, like 99% of hackathon projects never get picked up as actual priorities
I would be thrilled if they sponsored Bazzite and used it with a non-deck skin. Win-win-win situation (funding for Bazzite, better device and FOSS competition)
In general, yes, but I’m largely against giv8ng MSI money for the shady shit they’ve pulled
Right?! Like Value is giving away so much work for competitors to make good competing devices using FOSS and no one has really jumped on it yet.
Windows is a selling point for these companies. Never mind the absolute shithole that is Windows UX without a keyboard and mouse, little Timmy can use it to play Roblox and Forkknife!
For sure, and tbh to really take advantage of FOSS they would need to be tech companies in the first place (i.e. know how to hire developers and manage software projects). The next company that can actually value add on software to the product will have a real contender, till then it’s just hardware manufacturers filling in the shrinking niche of games that don’t run on the steam deck yet.
Valve: Oh hey another thing you can buy games from us on 🤣
It’s the only company I’m OK with having a sort of monopoly.
Man, people like you will end up regretting their opinion once Gabe retires/dies.
I mean, worse thing that can happen is that valve becomes a public traded company with greedy stockholders… Like basically all their current competitors. I’m happy that a lot of what they did with Proton is FOSS. Even if they stop tomorrow, all that work will remain and continue. That’s a lasting contribution. Not sure I can say the same for the rest.
Sure but if you treat them like a monopoly and your library depends on them, they can turn around and make things go bad for everyone real quick. The tools used to run the games on Linux might be open source, Steam is still a form of DRM that you depend on to play your games! They could easily start charging a monthly subscription to not have ads pop-ups in game!
They could easily start charging a monthly subscription to not have ads pop-ups in game!
No, they could not. Regulators would stop that very quickly. Steam is large enough that would be noticed.
Now, tell me what the other stores have to offer? Epic has the same issues, but with less games and more crappy launcher. Gog is DRM free… But those games you can get DRM free elsewhere too. The rest have very limited catalog and little features.
In the end Steam is big because they are doing things better by most players standards. I will be extremely happy the day the competition starts doing something aside from “being the underdog”.
Just like they’re stopping streaming services from doing it?
What streaming service is adding pop up adds on movies or shows you have purchased?
Well they don’t make the games so they couldn’t really do that nor would game developers be very appreciative of that. But I see your point. There’s nothing stopping you buying all your games on steam then making a copy of them elsewhere to play with a steam emulator if it goes tits up
“We’re reducing our cut from 30% to 15% and introducing ads for players that don’t want to pay.”
Tada! Most devs would fall in line just like they don’t mind releasing on Steam instead of other platforms that take a smaller cut just to have access to a bigger player pool.
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The more we have similar form factor competitors means more publishers will push to support them.
