Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#471

Post by galleywest200 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:44 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #411

cromka wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they'd target businesses. I think they could totally ride the current gamers "Switching to Linux instead migrating to Windows 11" wave. Those users would definitely appreciate better compatibility with Windows apps.

> I think they could totally ride the current gamers "Switching to Linux instead migrating to Windows 11" wave. Those users would definitely appreciate better compatibility with Windows apps. Sure, but how much are they realistically going to pay for it? I guess improving compatibility with general-purpose Windows apps might help them sell a few more Steam Machines, but it's hard to think that it's really going to mo…

> Sure, but how much are they realistically going to pay for it?

Nothing? Valve makes it money selling the games on the store. SteamOS is presumably free to install on your own hardware once it has a general release.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#472

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:45 AM UTC

sznio wrote: post #297

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why would they care? Not even Microsoft really cares about Windows licensing for consumers and businesses are never going to use computers running fake Windows. There is no real business case.

>businesses are never going to use computers running fake Windows. why not? If it's cheaper and compatible, why not?

The value in software at that scale isn't the product. It's the support. And Valve's support as is is really shaky.

Businesses will happily throw a few million to make tech support another businesses' problem. Cheaper than maintaining a team in-house.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#473

Post by harrall » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:47 AM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #447

TulliusCicero wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're doing things that are simultaneously good for business and good for consumers. That contrasts against the companies doing things that are good for business (at least short term) and bad for consumers.

Sure but it's just being morally lucky. They found themself in a situation where there was temporary and situational alignment, why give them any credit for that? They didn't create that situation. It's like AMD open sourcing FSR or Meta open sourcing Llama. The outcome itself is good, but if they ever become leaders in these verticals, they will pivot to closed source quicker than you can blink, because the reason t…

I strongly disagree with this approach in life.

I am “morally lucky” because every decision I make is to ensure I can always be morally lucky, 10 years later. I take certain kinds of jobs in certain kinds of industries.

It’s my same approach to reducing stress or getting things done. I never get a parking ticket not because I’m amazing — it’s because I know if I have to go out later and move my car, I’ll forget, so I’ll just park right the first time. 10 years later and no parking tickets and no stress — if someone tells me “oh you’re just lucky,” I can only chuckle.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#474

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:48 AM UTC

galleywest200 wrote: post #471

lmm wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think they could totally ride the current gamers "Switching to Linux instead migrating to Windows 11" wave. Those users would definitely appreciate better compatibility with Windows apps. Sure, but how much are they realistically going to pay for it? I guess improving compatibility with general-purpose Windows apps might help them sell a few more Steam Machines, but it's hard to think that it's really going to mo…

> Sure, but how much are they realistically going to pay for it? Nothing? Valve makes it money selling the games on the store. SteamOS is presumably free to install on your own hardware once it has a general release.

The big thing is that the current SteamOS image is incomplete and missing a lot of key features that the Steam products have, since it's optimized for that. That's been the one big sticking point for it as of now.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#475

Post by positron26 » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:48 AM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #458

ghurtado wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not unique to AI though. That's very common for tech startups. If they keep doing it, it must be because sometimes it works.

Ponzi schemes work* too. *At a specific point in time and for certain investors

Please just talk about capital and leverage like an adult. Do you expect a CFO and their team to look at the math and say, "Well, we figured out that we can speed up adoption and bring forward billions of dollars of revenue by spending fewer billions from capital injection and debt deals this year" and then not do it?

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#476

Post by enedil » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #156

levocardia wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve is one of the few companies regularly seen on HN where the headline is something like "[company] is secretly doing something really great" as opposed to "[company] is secretly doing something evil"

People complain about the gambling/loot box stuff, and yeah there's legit ethical concerns there. But overall Valve just seems straightforwardly less shitty towards the consumer than other major companies in their space, by a long shot.

Don't forget GoG which is an alternative game store with a strong anti-DRM stance (all the games there are DRM free).

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#477

Post by bfg_9k » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

wilg wrote: post #384

cromka wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point was about publicly traded companies becoming inevitably evil due to shareholder expectations, not about private companies being inherently ethical.

This is a pretty serious problem, since we would like lots of companies to participate in public markets so that regular people can gain some of the upside and so there is transparency and increased oversight.

I find it so weird that you say public companies being 'evil' (which is to turn a profit) is a problem, yet you also say you'd like for companies to exist on the public market so that the public can access some of the upside.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#478

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

cedws wrote: post #354

The best thing Valve could do is nuke Wayland/X11/Xwayland from orbit. Wayland is a mess that apps still don't support and doesn't work with NVIDIA GPUs. X11 is ancient and screen tears. Xwayland is the worst of both worlds.

Is the problem in this relationship Wayland of Nvidia? It is a shame that GPU's are pretty much the one big part of your computer that doesn't really conform to the general "ownership" model.

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#479

Post by TulliusCicero » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:57 AM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #362

TulliusCicero wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an argument that loot boxes that give you cosmetics just aren't that big of a deal, at least if we're talking about adults. Especially since Magic the Gathering and similar card games are very normalized, and have a straightforwardly more evil monetization strategy, since you need to do gambling there to even play the game, it's not cosmetic. There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are peopl…

>There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?" Aren't people upset about both? The whole "gamble for features" is pretty much why the mobile market and console market are divorced in audiences (or at least, community). People are "more" upset about Valve here because this is in the console space. They…

> Aren't people upset about both?

I'm sure a few people are, but typically no. People are aware that trading card games can be a monetary black hole, but Magic and similar games usually don't take the same heat for the business model that Valve does for loot boxes, even though they're actually worse on paper.

> They've long dismissed the mobile scene as lost.

I'm not talking about the mobile market. Are you not aware that Magic the Gathering is a physical card game? (though it does have some digital implementations too)

Re: Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm

#480

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 1:58 AM UTC

mhast wrote: post #337

charcircuit wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are forcing developers to be the one to pay for it if they do it because there is no other player in the space that would financially benefit from games having SteamOS support. Practically every other company with an game platform, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo, iOS, Android, etc have programs to fund bringing content to their platform. Also developers can't avoid supporting SteamOS because there is no way for the…

It is typically neither free nor open to develop on consoles. As in, you pay to access developer tools. iOS and Android less so (even if there is a one time charge for Android and a yearly charge on Apple). OTOH I have not heard of them usually reaching out to more than a handful of devs for promotion purposes.

You pay, but you get actual support from console makers. They kind of need to given how closed off it is otherwise. The competition also means larger profile studios (indie and AAA) will usually get some good deals to work with.

The one time model from Apple/Android really is just a tax that gets you nothing but access in comparison. It's a full advert model where the biggest players throw millions at Apple/Android for visibility.

Valve's somewhere in the middle of the two. No "p2w" adverts but it's not doing too much to draw devs (except reducing the tax for AAA devs). It doesn't need to. A lot of its community models are "we're having a party, you bring the food and drinks".