Why SteamOS will challenge Windows for PC gaming supremacy

Why SteamOS will challenge Windows for PC gaming supremacy

Brad Chacos  @BradChacos

You have to give it to PC gamers. Throughout all the trials and tribulations of the past few years—plummeting PC sales, the mainstream shift to mobile, Windows RT, et cetera—gamers were one of the few bedrocks Microsoft could rely upon. Virtually all major PC games run on Windows, and many run only on Windows.

That’s a big deal. In August, Jon Peddie Research predicted that Bohemia’s ARMA III would drive more than $800 million in PC hardware sales all by itself, and JPR estimates the total market for PC gaming hardware to hit nearly $18 billion in 2013. That’s a lot of quarters, and it’s all funneled toward Windows machines.

But suddenly that domination seems imperiled.

On Monday, Valve launched an assault on one of Windows’ strongest bastions with the announcement of SteamOS, a free, Linux-based operating system built around Steam, the most popular PC-game service in the land. And if any company has the brawn to shift PC gaming to Linux, it’s Valve.

A slow rebellion

The good news for Microsoft: Windows is going to be the featured destination for PC gamers for a while yet.

The Xi3 Piston shown at CES was thought to be an early Steam Box machine, but Valve and Xi3 distanced themselves soon thereafter. The Piston's small form factor nevertheless holds to the Steam Box ethos.

SteamOS was built to power so-called Steam Boxes—small, living-room-friendly PCs designed to challenge the gaming consoles’ death grip on the big screen. They're not fire-breathing enthusiast gaming computers. SteamOS was built around gamepads and Steam’s Big Picture mode rather than keyboards and mice, and perhaps more importantly, it removes the cost of a Windows license—a big expense in the price-competitive living room.

“I think it is important to understand that the vast majority of gamers consider ‘PC gaming’ to be a situation where the display is a few feet away from the gamer,” says Ted Pollak, the senior game industry analyst at Jon Peddie Research. “...Couch-based gaming is ‘console gaming’ and that is what Valve is making a play toward with Steam Box.”

What’s more, native Linux gaming is still in its infancy and mostly involves using WINE to run Windows games on your machine. Steam for Linux itself only supports around 200 games currently. Most are Valve titles or indie games, and even fewer offer the full gamepad support SteamOS begs for. In fact, SteamOS will rely on a proprietary Wi-Fi technology to stream the nearly 3,000 games available for Steam for Windows to your Steam Box.


Steam for Linux is relatively new, but it still offers nearly 200 games.

“I think Valve’s challenge will be to get the games ported to its OS,” says Jon Peddie himself. “They can start of course with their own games, and as interesting as they are, that’s a small library.” (Beyond Steam, Valve has created legendary PC-game series such as Portal, Half-Life, Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, and Left 4 Dead.)

For now, Windows is still firmly entrenched. And yet…

A simmering threat

Though Steam Boxes aren’t an immediate danger to Microsoft’s supremacy, the love PC gamers hold for Steam is fierce, and if SteamOS picks up popularity, Valve’s love for Linux could encroach upon Windows’ gaming stronghold.

“Possibly more important than the ‘PC vs. console’ question is that Valve’s move toward Linux cuts Microsoft Windows out of the picture,” Pollak says. “This then circles back to PC gaming in its traditional form. Will developers make—and people play—Linux-optimized games on the desktop?”

That prospect just got a big boost. On Wednesday, AMD announced 'Mantle,' a low-level, cross-platform programming interface driver (read: DirectX replacement) designed to eek superb hardware-optimized performance out of GPUs based on AMD's GCN architecture across multiple platforms—including both next-gen consoles as well as Windows and SteamOS-based PCs using Radeon graphics.

That could reap immediate benefits for SteamOS if it becomes popular with developers, especially as Steam machines are a natural fit for console ports. EA is already on board with its Frostbite engine; Battlefield 4 will be the first major title to use Mantle.

Asus TS Mini: home NAS with Windows Home Server

Asus TS Mini: home NAS with Windows Home Server

The unit comes with two 1-terabyte hard drives. External drives can be connected via USB and eSATA. The Home Server will have to be from mid-March for 399 euros.

Asus has introduced the TS mini-one Home Server based on Microsoft operating system Windows Home Server. The device with 2 TB of disk space is to be had from mid-March for 399 euros.

The TS Mini is powered by an Intel Atom N280 processor of the type with a 1.66 GHz clock frequency. Asus calls a power consumption of 24.5 watts in idle mode and 79.9 watts in operation.

Inside the 24.5 times 9.6 times 20.4 centimeter housing two 1-terabyte hard disk with 7200 revolutions per minute are housed. This internal expansion possibilities are exhausted. Additional drives can be connected externally via six USB 2.0 or two eSATA ports.

Asus also provides for a year to 500 GB free web space. The connection to the network via a 1-GBit/s-Ethernet-Schnittstelle.

The Windows Home Server provides data storage on the server and makes them available on demand via the Internet. The OS also has a streaming and sophisticated backup solution that ensures the entire image tailed computer to save space. Extensions can be made via plug ins.

Windows Home Server takes all the hard disks of the TS Mini - whether internal or external - together into a coherent memory. To avoid data loss occurs when a drive breaks down, can reflect folder. RAID is not used.

Also Acer has the Aspire EasyStore H340 atombasierten a Home Server with Windows Home Server Portfolio. ZDNet has tested it. Unlike the Asus, it offers four instead of two 3.5-inch drive bays.

Asus TS Mini: The storage solution for home use based on Windows Home Server comes with two 1-terabyte hard drives (Image: Asus).

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