If Microsoft is able to nail this, then Valve can essentially kiss their SteamOS ambitions goodbye lol. Betting on Linux was always a risky proposition. The Proton compatibility layer was a great middle ground, but the long-term solution was always going to be getting game companies to make Linux-native games.

Even now, a lot of major games won't work on SteamOS, primarily due to anti-cheat measures. And a lot of other storefronts are simply cumbersome to deal with, or don't work at all either. Microsoft taking what Valve was trying to do, but with Windows, that's GG's.

Not that it really matters though. Valve would still mutually benefit, and the last thing they've historically been known for is being cutthroat. I'm sure Gabe would be happy to have just some adoption of SteamOS, even if it's a minority.

With Xbox becoming a Windows based PC going forward, that could bring more console players into PC gaming as well since the biggest barrier was always price and user experience. Even if you bought a pre-built PC, you still had to fiddle with settings and drivers, and troubleshooting, because it was still Windows.

If the next premium Xbox is priced somewhere around $700-$800 with an Xbox UI, that's still far cheaper than most gaming PCs, and you'll be able to access all the PC storefronts available.

I wouldn't be super shocked if the new console just releases at the end of next year tbh

I was thinking that. We're still looking at nearly a year and a half down the road. Entirely plausible. Otherwise, this would've been a kind of a pointlessly timed announcement lol.

We'll most likely get a sense of how close it is when the Ally X comes out this holiday. How smoothly (or not) Windows is harmonizing with what they're doing there in cooperation with ASUS should give us some idea of how much work may yet be ahead of them. 

That would be amazing but I actually think it wouldn't be the hardware that won't be ready but the software, if it all matches likely speculation then the first major hurdle would be full emulation on Windows PCs for Xbox titles, the next major hurdle would be license negotiations and the final major hurdle would be a custom gaming focused Windows with Xbox UI/UX on Desktop PCs.

I don't know if we'll get all 3 of those things within a year and a bit. You could probably have hardware ready for 2026 but there's going to have to be major changes and updates to the software side of things, so I'm leaning more towards 2027.

The Next Generation of Xbox is Windows

Lads... Between the line-up this year, and next year, Xbox Game Pass drops, Xbox Games Showcase, promising hardware plans plus backward compatibility ... I slowly start to feel that energy again 🥹

— Klobrille (@klobrille.bsky.social) 17 June 2025 at 19:52

"I slowly start to feel that energy again"

Yea, it's certainly a fair bit of work, and I'm by no means saying that I fully expect it by the end of next year, just that it wouldn't surprise me too much either. 

I think one thing that the Xbox team has demonstrated over the years is that they're a lot more competent than the Windows team could ever dream of being, so I think with them working on Windows, it's gonna move in the right direction a lot more quickly than some might expect

@Ryuu96 I already know what kind of choices you'll be making