Steam's Linux Gaming Marketshare For April Comes In At Just Above 0.5%

[humbug]

Valve is working hard at improving the Linux gaming ecosystem and it is way better now than what it was. Now drivers are good, graphics API is good, distribution and release and updating is easy, more tools and better support is available etc and all these things continue to get better.

But for the raw numbers to go up as a percentage the average Linux usage amongst the general population also has to go up. Most people are not gamers. Valve addresses gaming infrastructure. Guys like Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora etc are doing a great job at providing a great Linux desktop experience (outside of gaming) but we need to see a uptick in market share and usage. That needs to happen in parallel and both the gamer numbers and general usage numbers to increase together feeding off each other's success. But one will not have success without the other.

Right now we are in a funny situation where valve is doing a great job on the gaming side, and other people are doing a great job on the general desktop side. But the raw user percentages aren't really jumping up. Probably because most people just use the OS that comes on their machine.

So we need more systems shipping with Linux. Honestly I believe something like Linux Mint for the average user out of the box is better setup and more fully featured with everything and easier to maintain than windows.

[TemplarGR]

I have a question. What is the ratio of the survey pop-up frequency on Windows and LInux desktop?

Also, these guys should really add new network speeds (since almost everyone is in the Unspecified category), and drop FCMOV and SSE2 from the survey.

Never have seen it myself.

[TemplarGR]

Guys, it is pretty clear that Valve is preparing a next gen console that will run Steam OS. Not a "steam machine", but a fully fledged console. You can expect it during the next 2-3 years. It will probably be using an AMD APU + Vulkan, like the coming PS5 and whatever MS makes. All their moves point to this fact.

It makes a lot of sense, they already have their own controller and their own OS. All they need is a custom AMD SoC solution, HBM3 ram to become viable, and voila! Steam console, with backwards compatibility with all* your Steam games! Full interoperability with Steam OS on the desktop!

This thing alonside some exclusives would sell like hotcakes and would make Linux support pretty much mandatory for next gen games. And Valve would have to make this move sooner or later because Microsoft is clearly moving towards an iOs type of walled garden, one little step at a time.

*Those who support Linux obviously

[dungeon]

But for the raw numbers to go up as a percentage the average Linux usage amongst the general population also has to go up. Most people are not gamers. Valve addresses gaming infrastructure. Guys like Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora etc are doing a great job at providing a great Linux desktop experience (outside of gaming) but we need to see a uptick in market share and usage. That needs to happen in parallel and both the gamer numbers and general usage numbers to increase together feeding off each other's success. But one will not have success without the other.

Debian year after year mostly did DebConfs in Europe and elsewhere in Europe and elsewhere and so on... so in Europe Linux usage is at its peaks. Did once in Africa and only this year is time for premiere for Asia

First DebConf in Asia


So Debian tries to improve lows, as these states and regions are couple times bellow average, historically known for lower then average Linux usage. Other then selling computers with preinstalled Linux, there is no other way to improve things in general other than to go on legs there and to talk about it

[dungeon]

Guys, it is pretty clear that Valve is preparing a next gen console that will run Steam OS. Not a "steam machine", but a fully fledged console. You can expect it during the next 2-3 years. It will probably be using an AMD APU + Vulkan, like the coming PS5 and whatever MS makes. All their moves point to this fact.

There is now some Atari VSC soon to be preorder, marketized also as "Linux-based living room PC"

https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/1/17306960/atari-vcs-console-ataribox-pc-linux-amd-indiegogo

Of course nothing else is so clear about it, which leads people to rumoring a lot

[cybertraveler]

Guys, it is pretty clear that Valve is preparing a next gen console that will run Steam OS. Not a "steam machine", but a fully fledged console. You can expect it during the next 2-3 years. It will probably be using an AMD APU + Vulkan, like the coming PS5 and whatever MS makes. All their moves point to this fact.

It makes a lot of sense, they already have their own controller and their own OS. All they need is a custom AMD SoC solution, HBM3 ram to become viable, and voila! Steam console, with backwards compatibility with all* your Steam games! Full interoperability with Steam OS on the desktop!

...

This would be awesome. I hope that if they do this, they focus on making it super simple and standardized. One of the benefits of consoles is that users don't need to think much about compatibility. Users simply buy a "Playstation 4" game for their Playstation 4 and it just works. It should be the same on the Steam console.

Valve will have some immediate advantages over the existing consoles:

• They can reduce the cost of their system by not including a CD or cartridge reader (it could be Steam only).
• They have a huge selection of GNU/Linux games that can be easily made to work on it.
• Building on and around the PC platform they can use a lot of existing hardware and software that's already out there to reduce development costs.
• Gordon Freeman > Mario

It would be awesome to see Valve successfully compete with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony in the console market.

[TemplarGR]

This would be awesome. I hope that if they do this, they focus on making it super simple and standardized. One of the benefits of consoles is that users don't need to think much about compatibility. Users simply buy a "Playstation 4" game for their Playstation 4 and it just works. It should be the same on the Steam console.

Valve will have some immediate advantages over the existing consoles:

• They can reduce the cost of their system by not including a CD or cartridge reader (it could be Steam only).
• They have a huge selection of GNU/Linux games that can be easily made to work on it.
• Building on and around the PC platform they can use a lot of existing hardware and software that's already out there to reduce development costs.
• Gordon Freeman > Mario

It would be awesome to see Valve successfully compete with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony in the console market.

They recently commented about Nintendo and how much they would love to be able to make games for their own hardware... They keep improving RADV and VR on Linux (what for if not for a new console, we are not exactly swimming in VR linux titles right now...). We are fast approaching the time for the next gen and reasonable rumours and leaks for PS5 have already surfaced. Obviously made possible by 7nm and HBM3/GDDR6 techs. PS4 is already almost 5 years old and will need a replacement in 2-3 years.

NOW it is the time for Valve to make a console. If they wait more, their console will be dead in the water because PS5/XboxNEXT will have established their market again. If Valve announces a new console launch around the time those successors appear, they could disrupt the market. It makes sense. Consoles are essentially small factor PCs with custom OS these days anyway...

And all of us who care about Linux and Linux gaming have every reason to hope for such a move and support it. I am really hyped about this. While technically Valve hasn't announced anything yet, i would bet a lot of money they are actually designing it right now. Or else they are just wasting money and opportunities and allow Microsoft room to close their market off...

[dungeon]

This would be awesome. I hope that if they do this, they focus on making it super simple and standardized. One of the benefits of consoles is that users don't need to think much about compatibility. Users simply buy a "Playstation 4" game for their Playstation 4 and it just works. It should be the same on the Steam console.

That like-Playstation thingy won't happen as that "just works" standardisation require a lot of quality control and various planned restrictions. Also you need to push game devs to provide extra settings aimed for that device. That also needs to be tested and optimized for that premium case... simply it won't happen without big separation of userbase

[cybertraveler]

That like-Playstation thingy won't happen as that "just works" standardisation require a lot of quality control and various planned restrictions. Also you need to push game devs to provide extra settings aimed for that device. That also needs to be tested and optimized for that premium case... simply it won't happen without big separation of userbase

That's a big part of what a console is and why they are so popular. If Valve make a "console" but don't standardize the hardware to make end user game selection super simple it wouldn't really be a console... it would be a shit PC.

It needs to be possible for Bob to ask Jack "does GTA 6 run on Steam Console 1?" And Jack needs to be able to respond with "yeah buddy; Dave plays it on one." However, if the only reasonable response Jack can give is "sort-of. It works if you have an AMD ZEN2+ chipset clocked at over 4ghz per core... or equivalent Intel. Ideally it should have one of the 8 core chips (not the 6 core). Also, make sure you've got at least 8 GB of RAM, ideally 12. I'm talking about RAM not video RAM by the way. 4GB of video RAM is fine. Oh! and it definitely doesn't work on the early Steam Console 1 systems that only have Vulkan 1.1 support. You need fully hardware accelerated Vulkan 2.0 support with over 500GB/s of memory bandwidth." If Jack has to say that to ensure that Bob can play GTA 6 then Bob is going to sell his Steam Console 1 to his "linux friend" and use the money to buy himself a Playstation 5 and a 6 pack of beers.

Because after all... "GTA 6 runs on the Playstation 5 mate".

[TemplarGR]

That like-Playstation thingy won't happen as that "just works" standardisation require a lot of quality control and various planned restrictions. Also you need to push game devs to provide extra settings aimed for that device. That also needs to be tested and optimized for that premium case... simply it won't happen without big separation of userbase

Like most of the things i noticed you post here, you are wrong...

Yes console gaming requires specific optimizations and tailoring but guess what, those can happen on top of existing Steam OS just fine. It is not like XBOX or Playstation are any different, Xbox uses the Windows NT kernel and DirectX libraries and Sony uses a BSD derivative. Just because you don't happen to know about them and you can't install them on your PC, does not mean they are not full fledged OSes. So what is there to prevent Valve to use their own Steam OS on their consoles and just apply a specific console-only layer on top if it for games designed for the console? Steam will be able to know if you are using Steam OS on their console or on your PC and should be able to stream to your PC/Console the correct game version....

There will be no separation of the playerbase at all. If they need things like tighter timings on console, specific device drivers, modyfied APIs, DRM, Steam can provide those for the console users. Still, it will be basically a modified Linux OS, like Android is, and porting from one to another will be a breeze.