sure it isn't

Oh, a Steam Machine?

Steam Machines ran Linux so you were limited to Steam and couple of odd ports pretty much. It was definitely too early and most just installed Windows I think. Mine’s a home server to this day, I love that little gamer coffin (Asus GR6). There’s much more variety on Windows so this is pretty cool. I think the biggest unanswered question is whether Microsoft pulls off running Xbox games on those.

Called it.

No one: Says Nadella summer 2026: Introducing Microsoft Surface Xbox With Microsoft Co-Pilot laptop and Microsoft Surface Xbox With Microsoft Co-pilot+ X.

If you can install SteamOS on it, it'll probably run better

DirectX was always about displacing consoles. Alex St. John was talking about it in 1994. The task is mostly complete. Software has won. The surprise is that Microsoft really hasn't. They assumed they'd dominate whatever computer-ified market emerged... and that assumption is getting shakier every year. Windows suuucks. Linux is already a better way to run most programs and games. Even x86 is not a sure bet, and whatever ARM does to unseat it, that'll transfer smoothly to RISC-V. Everything old is new again. "The best Macintosh is an Amiga." The best WinTel box might be your phone.

The big problem with windows handhelds is battery, there is a huge difference in consumption. I highly doubt that "most steam deck purchasers installed windows" (if that's what you meant), you need a high technical level to do so and people are used to being limited to a single store in a console anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine_(computer)

Oh, sure. Agreed that at the time the proton Linux ecosystem was pretty under developed. But to be excited **now** about a windows handheld is a whole other story, specially because of the battery as stated.

Microsoft is likely to develop a stripped down version of Windows for those handhelds. Windows isn’t fundamentally incapable of low overhead and Xbox runs something similar. As to why you’d want to use Windows even if you’re tech savvy there are loads of reasons: * Native access to other digital storefronts (Valve wants to lock you with Steam Deck) * Microsoft treats backwards compatibility and long term support seriously, unlike Valve that has a history of abandoning things when they no longer found them immediately profitable * There are plenty of games with kernel-level anti-cheat that won’t work with Wine/Proton ever * Wine/Proton compatibility isn’t good enough to replace Windows * Valve pushes Proton so heavily that developers stopped creating native Linux ports so the above is unlikely to change anytime soon But there are also good reasons to go with SD like very very good VRR screen utilisation (Xbox is also good at this so maybe there’s hope for Windows).

It's kinda funny you mention all those points to me, when I've been gaming on Linux for about 3 years now. I play on steam, use heroic for gog games, play a lot of modded D2.... All in Linux. Saying that Microsoft treats backwards compatibility and support when they are forcing everyone to either pay for win10 support or join the win11 spyware mafia is a ludicrous statement btw. Games with kernel-level anticheat do work on Linux, if the anticheat provider has done the work. Right now, most don't and actively stopped supporting Linux so saying that won't work ever is kind of a stretch. "Isn't good enough to replace windows" - here I am playing Modded games, path of exile, ffxiv, other FF games, cyberpunk, all PC monster Hunter games.... Your statement is false. I see nothing wrong with using a compatibility layer, it does the work of retrocompatibility alongside separating game environments, which is good for security.

> Saying that Microsoft treats backwards compatibility and support when they are forcing everyone to either pay for win10 support or join the win11 spyware mafia is a ludicrous statement btw. What are you using as a benchmark? Is there any OS that supports hardware or software this long? Not sure what spyware has to do with that. > Games with kernel-level anticheat do work on Linux, if the anticheat provider has done the work. Right now, most don't and actively stopped supporting Linux so saying that won't work ever is kind of a stretch. To an end user this is a Linux problem. Like, „Haiku OS can run all the games except developers don’t support it” won’t cut it as an explanation for why your games don’t work. > "Isn't good enough to replace windows" - here I am playing Modded games, path of exile, ffxiv, other FF games, cyberpunk, all PC monster Hunter games.... Your statement is false. You’re playing _some_ games. Same can be said about Switch yet everybody here acts like it is some huge failure. > I see nothing wrong with using a compatibility layer, it does the work of retrocompatibility alongside separating game environments, which is good for security. It is reverse engineered and with the level of complexity of Windows and Windows being a moving target it will never get there 100%. You have to make a conscious choice to lose access to some of your games when moving from Windows, and possibly lose access to some games that worked on Linux previously after you moved.

Broadly speaking, what are Xbox looking to do here? They optimise Windows for gaming and open up the console for other storefronts, then is it just a Steam device? They won't make money from Steam sales. Is this a cloud streaming device? Can you cloud stream games from other storefronts?

My guess is that this device will upsell you on GamePass constantly by making everything else possible but slightly annoying. MS might be the biggest video game publisher these days so there’s still plenty of leverage they have (buying ActiBlizz was huge and EA could be in trouble because FC 25 is not selling as well as FIFA). MS „lost” console war but this allows them to keep foot in the door and still exert some power over the platform.

Yeah, maybe. The OS will be built around Game Pass like how SteamOS heavily incentivises you to use Steam.

We are headed for singularity.

You said that the kernel anticheat problem will **never** be solved, I challenged that, not that this is seen as a Linux problem for the end user or not. I play all the games I want to play, no one wants to play **all** the games, there's no physical time to do so. Also, all of this is in the context of a tech savvy person. A tech savvy person can tweak almost all games to run properly nowadays... I do and I'm not THAT savvy.

You know that I use Linux too and I know being able to run anything is just bs?

Funny with ARM finally starting to rise beyond just mobile devices, accurate but very early