[mmarks]

While the theory sounds good, the Steambox never evolved to a list of supported configs. Valve stated that Nvidia, AMD, and Intel would all be supported and Valve displayed great hesitancy in providing any specifics. Rich's earlier post on the state of Graphics Drivers remains mostly valid.

In addition, the release of a few Linux games such as Civ5 & Borderlands, have provided sales figures to those companies on whether the investment was worthwhile.

Many companies considered Linux primarily because SteamBox was an interesting market. While some companies were taking a wait-and-see audience, the slow play of SteamBox only makes more people take a wait-and-see attitude.

The OpenGL mess of "4.4 is good enough", while both AMD & Intel failed to deliver good drivers, is further muddled by OpenGL Next. Basically, accepting the OpenGL API needs a re-write and will become more Mantle/Metal/DX12 like. So will Intel & AMD deliver good-enough 4.4 drivers, or do we all wait for OpenGL-Next. Don't forget that AMD just did a 7% layoff, limited resources.

[aaron-lebo]

Do you consider the Steambox dead? Why do you write of it in the paste tense?

[mmarks]

In Rich's source article, he questions the future of SteamOS and the partners involved in some of the ports are also questioning. Some people have started using past tense. I have no idea what Valve is planning, but my guess is that it's a long term play with limited resources. I'm guessing some of the interest inside Valve has waned.

Remember SteamOS was born before Win8 was announced and Valve was scared where MS was going. Steam on Windows seems pretty safe, the pressure is off.

[ekianjo]

> Remember SteamOS was born before Win8 was announced and Valve was scared where MS was going. Steam on Windows seems pretty safe, the pressure is off.

It may be off, but Microsoft may become more of a games distributor in the future through their own app store, so it may eat up some of Valve's revenue because MS app store is included by default while Steam is not.