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by huggyface 5070 days ago
I'm not sure of his reasoning, but he is not saying that Windows 8 is a catastrophe for users directly.

I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people.

Sounds more like all it is a problem for all of the many players in the Windows space. Now of course Microsoft can do what they want with their ball (subject to DOJ purview), but so can everyone else, including companies like Valve who have been a major influence in keeping the PC relevant for an entire market.

If Steam and 2,500 games were available on Linux, that would make a huge case for that platform in the home.
2 comments
zanny 5070 days ago
They won't be able to just jump 2,500 DirectX and DirectSound titles off the Windows API onto Wine. Maybe if they spend a few million dollars working on bringing Wine up to date with DX11, and then they have to deal with all the development houses not switching off Visual Studio and DX12 in the coming years, because they won't want to make the jump off the M$ platform.
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CrazedGeek 5070 days ago
There's already a pretty good amount of Steam games that have native Linux versions[1], at least one developer has already announced a port of an existing game to Linux through Steam[2], and the company that handles a lot of Mac "ports" (via a Wine-like layer) has a Linux version of said layer pretty much ready to go[3].

It's not gonna be a wasteland by any measure.

[1] http://steamlinux.flibitijibibo.com/index.php?title=Native_G...

[2] http://www.joystiq.com/2012/07/25/serious-sam-3-bfe-runs-scr...

[3] TransGaming makes Cider: http://transgaming.com/cider and Cedega/GameTree Linux: http://gametreelinux.com/

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learc83 5070 days ago
What would cause OEMs to leave the market, other than mass migration by users because of a bad user experience?
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fooey 5070 days ago
Win8 is targeting touch, which means it's targeting tablets. It's nearly impossible for a Win8 tablet to compete when it has licensing overhead that Apple and Android devices don't have.
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