21–30 of 62 posts
Steam Survey is never very reliable. They often have weird OS/Hardware stats, like GPU model etc. This specific issue, "the dramatic change of Chinese user" also has happened multiple times in recent years. I just had a glance at this newest report, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... In the very first item, it shows "Windows 11 64 bit 22.41% (change: -9.65%)" This obviously doesn't make a…
Why isn't the Steam Deck selling more? It seems like a strictly better version of Switch
It’s better in many ways which many people care about, but it’s not strictly better.
Why isn't the Steam Deck selling more? It seems like a strictly better version of Switch
I haven't run Arch Linux, but what I've heard is that you have to know what you're doing in order to run it. So I'm surprised it's the most popular Linux OS after SteamOS. Is it actually less difficult than I heard?
Also you don’t technically have to know what you are doing. Their guide is very helpful at guiding you, but it’s all commands you have to type out on the command line until you get to a more GUI environment.
I reckon this analysis would benefit from absolute figures. A drop in market share doesn't necessarily mean less users if said market is experiencing a massive growth.
A constant market share as the pie grows is great - it means your attractiveness as a platform is keeping up with overall growth. If someone needs a 2% growth to edge out competition, targeting Linux could be valuable. A shrinking market share means I should invest elsewhere. Linux has remained niche because you need to get about 5-10% to warrant commercial interests because there’s a non 0 cost porting to Linux and providing some level of support. Also your potential customers have to spend money which is less clear from these numbers who the Linux community fares vs others. For example iOS customers tend to be more valuable than android because they are typically higher income, there’s a lot of them in terms of market share and absolute numbers and spend more money on the App Store / in app than the typical android user.
I haven't run Arch Linux, but what I've heard is that you have to know what you're doing in order to run it. So I'm surprised it's the most popular Linux OS after SteamOS. Is it actually less difficult than I heard?
It was much rougher in the early days, as there were massive fundamental changes - adopting systemd, /lib becoming symlinks, etc.
But now I wouldn't use anything else. I have my configurations synced with a Gitlab repo via chezmoi, and have a bootable customised USB stick built with ALMA - so I can easily set up the same system on different machines. In that time I've used different set-ups - dwm on an 11" netbook (could only have one app per workspace and they had to be full-screen), xmonad and awesome-wm for a bit, and now i3.
One issue to note on the Steam Deck though is that it's immutable by default. So atm to install the xone drivers for example, you have to enable system mutability and reinstall them after every system update.
But it's so nice having something that is up-to-date - e.g. for kernel hardware support, bug fixes, etc. but also won't change much unless you want it to. I even use it on my work computer now since my company allows it, and it's so much better than losing hours to intrusive updates on Mac (or Windows).
I have a strong doubt that the same author calls the numbers “questionable” when the numbers go up…
I don't know what else you'd call chinese jumping from 27% to 51% of all steam users in one month.
Why isn't the Steam Deck selling more? It seems like a strictly better version of Switch
Why isn't the Steam Deck selling more? It seems like a strictly better version of Switch
The cheapest Steam Deck costs £349, which is almost double the Lite's RRP. Price matters a lot, especially when these things are often bought for kids.