Considering Gabe is ex-microsoft and wants to distance himself as much as possible from them, I highly doubt that’d work, he’d go down fighting at the very least.
Does he want to distance himself? Gabe said he learned more in his short months-long tenure at MS than he did in the rest of his academic career. He dropped out of Harvard, mind you.
He modeled his entire company off of MS. He even adopted their primary strategy, buy, polish and package. It's literally just embrace, extend, extinguish all over. Balmer taught him very well.
I really don't get why people think he's all that different from any other billionaire. He got there by buying out competition, and if they wouldn't sell, theft and litigation.
Not saying he’s different from other rich people, but Valve developing both SteamOS and Proton is a clear message they don’t want to rely on Microsoft and their software.
No not really. Way back during the days of valve releasing the steam machines and stuff it was made pretty clear to everyone that the intention for SteamOS was just a means of minimizing costs/streamlining design for their systems so that they could compete in the market against game consoles.
SteamOS gives them the ability to avoid the extra cost of Windows for each sale while also allowing them to build a more focused experience for their users that would allow them to minimize costs by exposing the user to fewer possible pitfalls and giving them personal control over things like updates.
It also allows for them to roll out a more streamlined, video game console-like experience that would be more welcoming to a market of users who feel threatened by the prospect of using a computer for gaming.
I’m sure if Microsoft said “sure valve, you guys can put Windows on your machines for free and have unlimited control over every aspect of the system to do whatever you want” Valve would drop SteamOS immediately and everything would be changed but obviously Microsoft couldn’t do that for so many obvious reasons
Microsoft doesn't want to rely on licensed software every time they install their programs either. Again, Valve taking a queue from MS. And that's fine BTW, the whole industry follows MS.
Moreover the real issue, the difference in computing cost between running Win10 with all the unnecessary boost vs Linux is massive. Had they used Windows it would've costed more to be able to run less.
As to being reliant on Windows, that's been their standard most of their history. Steam was Windows based. If Windows were to go ahead with making a stripped down Windows OS that was specific to gaming, such as the one demoed in a code jam earlier this year, you can bet steam would be selling that version of Windows direct from their store, and likely have a easy tool ready to use to install it to your deck. They would probably offer it as an installation option too. Why not? There's no good reason they shouldn't. The whole verified question goes out the window. That's huge. But again, MS controls that situation, not Valve. They're still reliant on MS in major ways.
He’s said that way before 2020, also. Publicly. It seems that has not changed. Most in that kind of position would come to the same conclusions of buying up the competition and making money off their products. It’s cheaper, it’s easier, you already get the infrastructure and customer base, etc. What capitalist wouldn’t try to go that route?
Honestly might not be such a bad idea. Unity is built on .Net, which Microsoft also owns. The teams could work together to get Unity modernized and cleaned up, and I bet developers would trust Microsoft more than Unity (Consider that Microsoft also owns VS Code, Github, npm and more that tons of devs frequently use)
Why do you think corporate consolidation should happen? Every time it does it benefits the corporations and never the consumer. Anti-trust is incredibly important to keep business from taking control of aspects of our culture and socialization.
This corporate consolidation helps more people than it hurts.
Corporate consolidation isn’t just always a bad thing. This would be a good thing for basically everyone that’s not exclusively a PlayStation-only player.
No corporate consolidation is how you end up with companies like Sony to begin with. And even then, they’re funding the creation of new pop culture while this is Microsoft wanting to grab up existing culture so they can profit from it. One is an example of something being created and the other is something being hoarded.
Any short term benefit a consumer sees from consolidation is simply a cost the corporation pays to achieve a scenario where they no longer have to provide those benefits. Microsoft is already very well know for the Embrace, Envelop, Extinguish strategy so assuming good will on their part is painfully naïve.
Corporations are not your friend and don’t care about your well-being, they just want your money.
I didn’t say corporations are my friend though. I know they’re not. What Microsoft are doing though benefits me as a consumer since I play games on Xbox and pc and subscribe to game pass. Them buying ABK is good for me as I will then get more games on game pass.
Sony are funding “keep that game off Xbox” left right and centre for the last 10 years, increasingly so, so Microsoft are just playing that same game but doing it their way.
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