Except every time

It also is very serviceable as a TV connected console. That’s how I play on my deck most.

If they sell the hardware at a loss, then miners or AI companies would 100% have reason to pick them up to plug into their farms since they would be cheaper than other market alternatives.

The last steam machines were 3rd party and not sold at a loss.

We just need the killer app, and valve is holding open the space for someone to make it, for now.

The killer app is already there and it’s Steam and it’s massive library.

Sure, previously Steam has had Steam Link or having a computer connected to your TV, but frankly it just was never going to be a mainstream option. Too much finickiness, it locks up your PC in the other room, sound and controllers are wonky, etc. Local compute on the hardware under your TV is what console gamers are comfortable with and having a PC that isn’t giant and butt-ugly in the living room is a huge hurdle. This hardware, assuming it delivers, is priced right, is a potential console killer.

I guess my question is why pay people to solve a problem two ways?

We have an increasingly functional way to play on two platforms with a single build. I’d love to have both for completeness, but as long as Proton is actively being worked on, I feel like that’s good enough and will certainly not hold back gaming on Linux for years to come.

Performance and playability on Linux are effectively solved by Proton; therefore, the effort required to maintain a native Linux build is an unnecessary and inefficient use of development resources, especially for smaller studios. “Holding games back” on Linux feels like a semantic distinction if we’re moving to a world where every PC game is playable on Linux.

(this assumption relies on Linux marketshare growing and the remaining games that don’t support Proton due to anti-cheat software eventually are pressured to support playing on Linux, even if they don’t build a native linux port. I think we’re well on our way to that future and it’s probably just a matter of time.)