[uponcoffee]

To add to some good answers...

Succinctly, it's easier and cheaper to port games wholesale than it is to: build out yet another platform for developers to target, on board them, and on board consumers to this new console.

What steam has that consoles don't, are is massive preexisting library. The problem is it mainly targets windows. Their options for bringing this to the console market are either pay for windows licenses (which on top of hardware, would make them more expensive than the alternatives), or port in wholesale. Most console games get a pc (windows) port eventually.

So if they can get proton to a mature point, they'll be the defacto winner of the console wars.

[bitwize]

APIs are copyrightable within the United States. So they may end up having to pay for a license anyway.

I know the issue isn't settled yet, but does anybody expect the SCOTUS to do anything besides rule for Oracle?

[uponcoffee]

There are many different ways that ruling could go, some of which could decide the google vs oracle by itself while not universally ruling on wether APIs can be copyrighted.

[bitwize]

But the way it is likely to go is to affirm the CAFC's copyright rulings, which will become precedent nationwide, if the justices' lines of questioning are any indication. To do otherwise would be to completely undermine the copyrightability of software, if not copyright in general.