That Valve are working on a Steambox at all is pure speculation, it seems a bit of a jump to assume this all in service of a rumor. I think it's more likely Valve have been paying attention to stuff like the Humble Indie Bundle guys drawing about 1/4 of their revenue each time from Linux users. They may just be out to make money.
This is a fairly large and very long play. Right now, two years after launching, OS X accounts for 4.36% of Steam users [1]. In another two years time I can't imagine Linux users accounting for even 1/1000th of that.
Valve doesn't make business decisions out of kindness. They make them when it makes fiscal sense. Preparing Steam for Linux is a huge endeavor costing millions of dollars in salaries and an even larger opportunity cost.
This isn't just to make a few extra bucks from a handful of current Linux users. And don't be mistaken, the only extra money they'd see is from current Linux users who refuse to buy non-Linux games. If by some chance this converts large swaths of Windows users to Linux they wouldn't be new customers, just the same customers on a different platform.
> This is a fairly large and very long play. Right now, two years after launching, OS X accounts for 4.36% of Steam users [1]. In another two years time I can't imagine Linux users accounting for even 1/1000th of that.
1/1000? That's just plain ridiculous, at the very(!) most OS X has 10 times the number of users(probably a lot less). Also Apple plain doesn't care about desktop gaming, the only reason they care about ios gaming is that it became extremely popular without them and now it's such a big draw they have to care. I would assume most Apple users don't care too much. OTOH linux users are exactly the sort of geeky audience that tends to be gamers or potential gamers.
Your point about the users who simply use steam games on a windows box/vm/wine now that wouldn't add much to the bottom line hits much closer(Although the convenience/reliability of being able to buy games for their main computer could help existing users spend more freely) but I think that it is missing some like those who might use consoles less or those who aren't currently gamers but have decent potential to become gamers and customers thanks to the convenience of buying games on their main platform/pc.
Valve going into hardware is definitely one use of Linux support, however another is as an alternative to Windows 8 and OS X. Both Windows and OS X are moving towards an locked-down, app-store model and Gabe Newell recently expressed concern over that move. At the same time, Ubuntu is being sold pre-installed on computers worldwide (though less so in the US and UK, more in emerging markets). I'm not saying that Ubuntu will reach OS X's current level for Steam users straight away, but in 5 years or so, it's definitely possibly.
Yeah, I would rather believe that way of thinking. Who knows what Apple and Microsoft may do next to lock down their systems further, and extract more "tax" out of everyone publishing applications or games? The only way for a company like Valve to prevent a direct attack on their revenues is to develop a solution for an open system. It may very well be that it is not necessary in the end, but they are just planning for future scenarios like any other respectable company.
They are however Canonical is not moving towards locking down the OS which Apple and Microsoft are doing (though fans of either won't admit it). That's what Gabe is scared of.
> Valve doesn't make business decisions out of kindness.
Nobody every claimed that. Of course their support for Desktop Linux has nothing to do with kindness but is pure business.
Microsoft and Apple are forcing Appstores on their computers and naturally Valve sees this as a danger to Steam. That's why they want to support an alternative.
Remember that the idea of Steam on Linux was itself just a rumour mere months ago.
Regards the "Linux users pay more" meme on the humble bundle, bear in mind you are still talking about people only paying something like $10 for about 5 games. I assume that Steam prices will stay the same across OSs as well rather than charging more for a Linux version.
It's obvious that they are getting more interested in hardware such as the Oculus Rift, also with hardware getting cheaper there seems to be a growing market for people buying hardware/software integrated solutions.
Whatever it is they are planning to do, they want to become a first class player in the gaming market rather than being whim to Microsoft who look like they are wanting to produce their own hardware.
The best way to do that is to take an already proven kernel with good performance and no licensing and work on from there.
My guess is that porting Steam to Linux gives them an eager powerbase of vocal power users to use as a test market. It's the same principle Apple uses by marketing to the "fanboys" first and letting it trickle out from there.
Hopefully they will continue to support "normal" Linux distributions however, it would be nice to be able to hook up their controller and a headset to my PC and run everything that way if I don't want to buy a "steambox" or whatever.
While its possible that its for some yet unreleased Steam based console, the controller Valve patented is much more likely to be for their recently previewed Steam big picture mode that can turn any computer into a "steam box" that you can plug in your television. It's quite likely this same big picture mode would be used on their console, assuming one ever exists.
In addition Valve have been playing around with biometrics a lot for their internal playtesting, and have expressed interest in bringing that to the living room (for example, the "director" in Left4Dead is supposed to adjust the difficulty of the game dynamically to keep you on your toes - data on your current emotional state and stress levels would be a valuable input for that).
Gabe definitely mentioned at one point that there was a possibility of putting some basic biometric hardware into a controller, and they've also spoken about experimenting with new forms of input before (and have supported 3rd party novel input devices such as the Novint Falcon).
It's very clear they want to experiment in the controller space, and they have stated multiple times that they do not want to be in the console business, and would rather provide the software for other companies to build their own "Steam Boxes" - yet for some reason everyone fixates on the baseless rumour that they will be making a console, rather than the play that's right in front of them.
They may not do the manufacturing themselves, but it's clear that they see a future market for some form of Linux based games system for which they will be the main supplier of software.
It's either that or they are predicting a sharp upsurge in Linux usage after Windows 8 which seems like a very scary predication to make.
Gabe Newell has been publically denigrating Windows 8, but I think his real fear, and this idea would support the move to Linux, is the way Windows is moving towards a closed app store model, which brings it into direct competition with Steam.
Yes, I assume the idea is to integrate the Steambox and Ubuntu desktops together in the same way that Windows and Xbox go together although I would be surprised if they actually ditch Windows.
Assuming such a steambox does exist, what remains to be seen is whether they make it easy to turn it into a proper Linux PC.
That would effectively stealth install Linux desktops in millions of homes worldwide.
