Former Xbox Exec Believes Valve Should Free Up SteamOS For More Hardware Manufacturers

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Valve has said the Steam Machine will be priced competitively with other PCs, but hasn’t given specifics yet. Mike Ybarra, a former executive at Xbox and Blizzard, suggests Valve should make SteamOS more widely available. He believes that allowing other companies to include SteamOS on their machines would be a key step in getting more people to use it.

Ybarra urged Valve to allow third-party manufacturers to use SteamOS and create hardware with varied setups. He believes opening up SteamOS in this way would significantly boost its popularity and, consequently, increase revenue for the Steam Store. Ybarra also suggested that embracing this approach would benefit Xbox by moving away from a reliance on Windows.

He added that Xbox would be better off focusing on gaming, but Microsoft will probably prioritize promoting Windows features like AI, Copilot, and Teams. He believes Xbox could really succeed if they used SteamOS on their hardware.

Even now, SteamOS is fairly open because it’s built on Linux. Some users have even managed to install the Steam Deck’s recovery version on desktop PCs with AMD processors. However, Valve hasn’t released SteamOS separately for general use yet, and it currently works best with specific devices like the Steam Deck and Lenovo’s Legion Go S.

The choice to keep the operating system exclusive is probably due to technical challenges. It needs broader driver support to work with a wider range of computers and devices. Right now, the company is prioritizing support for its own products – the Steam Deck, the upcoming Steam Machine, and Steam Frame – and is collaborating with AMD to develop the necessary drivers. They likely want to allow other hardware companies to use the operating system, but they currently lack the resources to support the driver development needed for various hardware setups.

Although Valve’s SteamOS is officially designed for their own devices, the Linux community has created alternatives. Bazzite, a Linux distribution built on Fedora, is a popular choice that lets users configure their systems to closely resemble SteamOS, even starting up directly in Steam’s Big Picture mode.

According to Joost van Dreunen, a business professor at NYU Stern and expert on the gaming industry, Valve’s new Steam Machine could be a major problem for Microsoft and the Xbox.

According to van Dreunen, the Steam Machine poses a significant threat to Microsoft by prioritizing digital game access over traditional console hardware. He believes it accelerates Microsoft’s existing shift towards services like Game Pass and cloud gaming, where owning the physical console becomes less important.

Valve plans to release the Steam Machine in early 2026, along with a new Steam Controller and the Steam Frame VR headset.

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2025-11-24 19:11