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Comment by InsideOutSanta | Hacker News Reader

There's a good chance that if that if Microsoft doesn't act soon enough, and a lot more devices running Steam OS are released, Proton might become the de-facto platform against which many new games are developed, and which engines target.

At that point, there is nothing Microsoft can do.

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Agreed. I actually think it might be too late at this point since it takes so long to turn the aircraft carrier.

Microsoft can't realistically deprecate/remove Win32, so all they could do is entice with new APIs. That will work for some games, but especially with the frameworks in place, they'll have to be really good to get people to abandon Steam Deck compatibility to use them.

They already control enough studios, PC and XBox market.

SteckDeck compatibility relies on "emulating" Windows ecosystem.

Remember DR-DOS, OS/2 and EEE PC.

EEE PC was tiny, IBM (OS/2) were full of hubris, what happened to DR-DOS ?

Valve is neither tiny, nor does seem to be under the thrall of hubris. Also Microsoft seems complacent so far, though that might change.

Originally Windows was designed to detect and not run if using DR-DOS.

They bought a lot of companies and are doing their level best at running them into the ground. Xbox is a dying platform. They may try some things that they've tried before (GFWL) but they're not going to succeed this time either.

Kernel-level anti-cheat is a bigger threat to gaming on Linux than anything Microsoft has directly done, but even that is fixable.

> Kernel-level anti-cheat is a bigger threat to gaming on Linux than anything Microsoft has directly done, but even that is fixable.

I can see companies sending out hardened Linux distros to hardcore Valorant players for official tournaments and such.

> Kernel-level anti-cheat is a bigger threat to gaming on Linux than anything Microsoft has directly done, but even that is fixable.

Agreed. Valve providing some service that gives local games less info, so they literally don't know where players are until they need to, might spell an end to wall hacking at least.

Sure, MS could purposefully try and make their first party games not run on Linux.

However.. why? It would be the same as purposefully losing money but not selling on Steam.

Besides that what could they do? Within getting into all types of legal trouble?

Microsoft controls Windows and DirectX, Valve only gets to play until Windows landlord allows it.

DR-DOS, OS/2 and EEE PC.

Lets see if SteamOS makes the list as well, this is after all round two, Steam Machines didn't go that well.

Microsoft tried to put their games on their own store but they crawled back to Steam.

Honestly Windows is more open than MS haters give it credit for.

Yeah, GFWL was a debacle that has thankfully been largely forgotten. If Microsoft couldn't pull it off back then, they're not going to today.

They now own Activision-Blizzard-King, which even now (new Battle.net) is still better than GFWD ever was.

They did, does mean they will let Valve screw SteamOS on their face.

And what exactly would they do?

The Steam Deck is basically the successor to the Steam Machines. The actual hardware didn't go that well, but they laid the foundation in software for what we have now.

So, in a way, the Steam Machines were a great success.

Also, Valve has (for better and worse) far more power and control in the gaming ecosystem than most companies Microsoft has to deal with.

Depends on how many key AAA studios are part of Microsoft Game Studios portfolio.

> Microsoft controls Windows and DirectX, Valve only gets to play until Windows landlord allows it.

DirectX has to stay reasonably close to Vulkan. And Vulkan is not an afterthought for graphics card manufacturers, quite unlike OpenGL of yore.

And Win32 (sans Vulkan/DX) is mostly feature-complete for gaming purposes. Manufacturers can just target the current state of Win32 for a decade more, if not even longer.

It certainly is, in what concerns NVidia, they keep innovating first with Microsoft on DirectX, and then eventually come up with Vulkan extensions.

Last example, AI shaders announced at CEBIT.

Vulkan has turned into the same extension spaghetti as OpenGL.

> It certainly is, in what concerns NVidia, they keep innovating first with Microsoft on DirectX, and then eventually come up with Vulkan extensions.

I don't get that impression. I can't remember the last significant feature that was present in DX first, and not immediately or shortly available in Vulkan.

So any more “native” alternative to Proton would do even worse because at least not it’s at least keep Linux in sync with the real world?

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