“All of this work is broadly applicable to the PC platform, and it’s going to continue to expand over time. Supporting multiple platforms, multiple chipsets, controllers for different machines that are out there and even ones that aren’t out yet.”
[…] Valve’s goal with the OS is to have it compatible with traditional PCs, laptops, portable consoles and any other formats.
Everybody here is debating whether Valve is trying to crush windows.
I took it more to mean that Valve realizes that Windows is the dominant PC OS and so they’re trying not to appear as if their goal is to crush Windows, on account of how if that’s their goal Microsoft could just make Steam inaccessable on Windows.
Now you could argue that there will be a patch, and a hack and blah blah blah the average user ain’t got time fo none-a-dat!
User installs steam. Windows blocks installation. 70% of users just give up. “Oh, I guess this only runs on steamdeck. Oh well.”
And just like that Valve loses 100% of potential purchases from that average windows user who hasn’t even done so much to their system as changing the theme.
So order-66
Personally, I think Valave has no reason to try to compete with Windows right now, regardless. Steam has a market capture that the Xbox store could only dream of, even with gamepass, and SteamOS expands their market into new areas outside of the Windows PC group.
I could also see a Streisand effect/TikTok to Red Note if Microsoft tried to prevent people from installing Steam where they draw more attention to SteamOS and people start jumping ship for other options - whether that’s SteamOS or not.