| only777 said: Ahoy! I do love a good future prediction thread, especially one that seems completely nuts when I post it! Anyway, it appears that Steam is going to start including pre-loaded Steam OS on third party devices; probably ROG Ally style handhelds. After this I do think they'll make a console version of the Steamdeck which will be the end for Xbox. You'll buy Switch 2 for those sweet Nintendo games, PS5 Pro for a premium optimised console experience and a Steam Machine because, well Steam is great! There will be no room left in the market for the Xbox consoles. ------ Anyway, I don't think Steam will stop there. Considering the amount of PC's being made and sold for purely just gaming, in these cases why wouldn't you forego the awful nightmare that is Windows 11 and just use Steam OS for a Desktop PC gaming rig? I can see people buying pre-built "Gaming PC's" coming with Steam OS installed instead of Windows 11 as standard. Once people start talking about the performance benefit of not having Windows 11 hogging up system resources (even if its very little difference, you know how hyperbolé spreads online), I can see a large chunk of users abandon Windows 11 in their gaming PC's. Now obviously most Windows users are actually office users so I'm not trying to say this is the death of Windows or anything. But for adult users, who maybe have a Mac/Work machine as well as a Gaming PC, as well as users who ONLY use their PC exclusivly for gaming (younger users), I think there is an argument to say that Steam OS could quite easily take the place of Windows 11. |
Highly doubt that Valve will make a console version for Steam Deck. Steam Deck's already niche as it is but more popular than the Steam machines because its portable and a alternative to the portable PC market which doesnt have as much competition as the laptop or desktop markets.
On top of that, SteamOS is a linux based OS which isnt being used as widely as Windows is nor does it have as much support for all the games compared to Windows.
Windows 11 isnt that bad to be honest, been using it for a while now and havent had any issues aside from the S-mode which came with early Windows 11 systems which I had to disable (which they dont implement anymore thankfully).
I'm sticking with Windows instead of Linux, mainly because the applications I use all work fine on Windows regardless of whether its Windows 7, 10 or 11.
I've used Linux at work before and not a fan of the UI.
On top of that, there's still a ton of games which dont run on Linux yet and therefore are not "Deck Verified" for Steam Deck.
I dont see SteamOS overtaking Windows as far as gaming as whole, the number of users will go up for sure when they announce something (likely at CES this year) but I doubt it'll move the needle much.
Essay Pro