Surely it would make sense to at least offer a dual boot option?
I can't really think of a solid reason for buying this, Steam on Linux is great and all but when your marketing is saying "With over 25 gaming titles available"..
I can't really think of a solid reason for buying this, Steam on Linux is great and all but when your marketing is saying "With over 25 gaming titles available"..
This is gen.1 for Linux gaming, and I think consumers have the right to be apprehensive about the future growth of the platform. Catch 22 I guess.
Another thing is that Linux is a significant contender in the developer workstation market. I'm typing this right now on a Linux machine that I use for just about everything, including as a development server and a television. The only reason I haven't played any games from Steam on it is they haven't released Portal yet.
Linux has far, far, far more developers than it has "game development studios", currently writing software for it. The Independent Gaming scene is ripe with great stuff that will run on Linux from day one - and it doesn't just need 'mainstream studios' to get the industry kicked off.
This is a ripe as any other boom market.
As an Open Pandora user, I'm amused at this whole fuss about whether "its acceptable" for mainstream companies to produce stuff for the Linux market. Of course its wonderful, there is no downside whatsoever to the rising star of Linux gaming, whether it comes from Steam or somewhere else (http://repo.openpandora.org/).
The only possible downside is that an expanding and flourishing Linux gaming market will reveal the fragility of Microsoft in this scene. You don't need Windows technology to game awesome; you only need Windows technology because you've been told you need it by higher powers. Technologically: no.
So why the apprehension, really? Is it really something you've got concern about, or is this some sort of groupthink/kneejerk thing going on?
There are only 141 applications in Wine's 'platinum' list, and a heap of those are multiple entries for variants or DLC of the one game. Things not on the 'platinum' list require further configuration.
I've been running games in WINE for years and years, and I can now say that as of today, with my WINE setup being maintained entirely by my distribution (Ubuntu), I don't even think about WINE when I use it. So I don't really think its as difficult as you infer; this is a huge generality, like saying "MS Word requires knowledge of what you're doing and a fair amount of fiddling for most things". Its true, but fascetious, because obviously, in spite of the massive investment required, users are able to produce documents ..
>There are only 141 applications in Wine's 'platinum' list, and a heap of those are multiple entries for variants or DLC of the one game. Things not on the 'platinum' list require further configuration.
This only means that the list is incomplete. It doesn't mean there are 'only 141 applications'. Those are just the ones that have made it to the list so far .. but it doesn't, in any way, reflect the current state of the art. Lists get stale.
Not really something you can sell as an easy games experience.
In fact, it runs better than it does under Windows 7, probably because Lubuntu uses 2GB less RAM and considerably less CPU than Windows 7.
Do most of the recent games (Need for Speed, Counter Strike : Source, Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed 3) run well, or is it mostly older games?
Not sure about NFS, guess it depends which one.
CS:S on Linux is definitely awesome news, and makes me more confident of Linux gaming becoming viable in the near-term. I think the Steambox/Steam Linux, Ouya and other such systems are definitely helping improve adoption.
To be honest, I wouldn't spend much time trying to get something running under Wine unless it had a very high probability of success, and a moderate number of (easy) steps. After all, I already have the game running under Windows, and gaming's meant to be a casual activity I undertake after work :)
It's awesome that the option is available for Linux enthusiasts, however!
Edit: Ah, damn it, I meant CS:GO, not CS:S! I see that it's running fine under Wine, however!