Steamy Penguin
Well this is interesting... Valve may soon be fielding a Linux Steam client. Gabe Newell is personally spearheading the effort, including actively courting developers for Linux ports and new games native to Linux.
Native Linux games + wide exposure = Bad News for the boys at Redmond. Windows 8 is already looking like a disaster of Microsoft Bob proportions. Could we finally be seeing the beginning of the end for Microsoft's dominance in the PC market?
Mind you, there are still some problems with many Linux builds. Even relatively streamlined releases like Ubuntu still require a pretty solid foundation in technical skills to install drivers and utilities, and even today many applications require compilation. But if the market can be proven to exist, the money will become available to clean up those little niggling problems and make it more friendly to the average user. Nothing motivates people like the potential to fatten their bank accounts dramatically.
If anything can prove the viability of a market, Steam download numbers can: Steam has made more than one indie programmer into an instant millionaire, due simply to the exposure to a huge, pre-installed user base. One of the first things I do every Saturday morning is bring up Steam to see what they have on sale in an attempt to tease a few more ducats out of my wallet. They are successful more often than not. The sales numbers say I'm not alone in that habit, either...
Go little Penguin! Take a dump on Ballmer's chrome dome and remind him that even giants don't live forever.
Native Linux games + wide exposure = Bad News for the boys at Redmond. Windows 8 is already looking like a disaster of Microsoft Bob proportions. Could we finally be seeing the beginning of the end for Microsoft's dominance in the PC market?
Mind you, there are still some problems with many Linux builds. Even relatively streamlined releases like Ubuntu still require a pretty solid foundation in technical skills to install drivers and utilities, and even today many applications require compilation. But if the market can be proven to exist, the money will become available to clean up those little niggling problems and make it more friendly to the average user. Nothing motivates people like the potential to fatten their bank accounts dramatically.
If anything can prove the viability of a market, Steam download numbers can: Steam has made more than one indie programmer into an instant millionaire, due simply to the exposure to a huge, pre-installed user base. One of the first things I do every Saturday morning is bring up Steam to see what they have on sale in an attempt to tease a few more ducats out of my wallet. They are successful more often than not. The sales numbers say I'm not alone in that habit, either...
Go little Penguin! Take a dump on Ballmer's chrome dome and remind him that even giants don't live forever.
posted by Jar(egg)head at 15:25
1 Comments:
Been hacking around with Linux since Slackware 1.0, downloading it onto floppies and sitting for hours installing it onto 386 boards. What a wonderful, fun ride it's been, and I'm happy to see it gaining more and more mainstream acceptance and support. I'd say it's just on the verge of primetime ready.
Of course, it may be too late since we'll all be dead on Dec 22.
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