Collabora are contracted to do the SteamOS base and they either do upstream development directly or (in case of preparation for unreleased hardware) upstream as soon as possible.

Nice, they are finally updating the kernel and Plasma to recent releases. Hope that also includes some upstreaming efforts.

Fuck Tim Sweeney and his shenanigans

Unreal Engine is decently supported on Linux, at least in the era of UE4. I made a few hobbyist games on and for Linux with UE4 back in the day. They're stupid, but they're not stupid enough to not support Linux when it comes to technical stuff like game development and VFX.

Ah yes, the company that bought Rocket League and then discontinued the Linux client and with a CEO vocally hates Linux.

He likes RHEL because that's what film studios use when they use Unreal Engine for VFX. It's a small but very lucrative market (and I think it's the main reason why Disney is exploring taking over Epic).

What's so strange is that they were at the forefront of Linux gaming with Unreal Tournament 2003. The game came with a bootable disc that would launch the game automatically through a Linux environment.

Maybe he's salty that it didn't pan out.

Ah yes, the company that bought Rocket League and then discontinued the Linux client and with a CEO vocally hates Linux.

Still not a good reason to support Epic Games.

The problem is with kernel level anticheat, and games that think it is required, not Linux.

Meh, EAC has been Linux and Proton compatible for years now. This changes nothing when it's not being used.

I don’t have that information

Then don't make such a claim.

Honestly, it just sounds like you’re mad at GabeN for having money.

No, I'm not. Just pointing out that others are subsidizing hardware cost and that the money to do so would be there but it was decided to sell a "Beginner's Gaming PC... At an Enthusiast Price" as Giant Bomb described the SM in their review.

I don't have that information, but I almost bought a Deck to use in such a manner. Figured it would be easier to carry around than my laptop since I pretty much just move from a docking station in my office to the docking station in my den (my org is BYOD since pretty much everything is through Citrix). Ultimately decided to just buy a smaller laptop (yay X1 Carbon).

Honestly, it just sounds like you're mad at GabeN for having money.

Subsidization pretty much requires that the hardware be locked down and walled-gardened so the subsidy they put into it eventually pays off. The Steam Machine, currently, lets you install whatever OS you want and use it like a regular PC without locking you into the Steam ecosystem at all.

For this to be true, you'd need to have some data that a significant portion of Steam Deck (to name the hardware that's out for years) users wipe SteamOS and not use it for Steam.

Have did that because he built several industry leading video games, then built the largest online video game store front, and a hardware company the size most companies have for web dev.

The video game industry is larger than Hollywood and the music industry combined. Steam generated over 17 billion USD in revenue over 2025, with a team of around 350 full time employees.

I don't mind if you want to throw Gabe in with the AI trash bubble

Why would we want a subsidized Steam Machine?

Subsidization pretty much requires that the hardware be locked down and walled-gardened so the subsidy they put into it eventually pays off. The Steam Machine, currently, lets you install whatever OS you want and use it like a regular PC without locking you into the Steam ecosystem at all.

"Okay, so they should make a locked-down subsidized one and an unlocked full price one" someone might ask. That's extra development and support work they have to put into it, and it would only be a matter of time before someone jailbreaks the subsidized one to work like the unlocked one.

Plus, you can make any capable PC a "Steam Machine" since they also give away Steam OS. My DIY Steam Machine runs Bazzite, but I was close to putting SteamOS on it. The only thing that made me choose Bazzite was that pretty much all of the patches and special module to support this former AMD crypto-mining card were already baked into Bazzite.

It's AI, babe.

I disagree. It is not why the steam machine has an inflated price.

I have to find out how they did that as I could use it on my non-SteamOS Deck as well.

What is the other post this is a duplicate of?

Duplicate post mate?

I would love to know more on the work needed to make it work on these cards. Without knowing what they have to do everyone just assumes they withheld this feature from cards that could absolutely run it. This is showing us that is mostly true, but i really do wonder how much work it takes for them to make it happen on them or is it just something they enable and call it a day.

So launch within first half of 2026, probably not early 2026

I hope so! Waydroid works on linux and on handsets, but since its still a container the android OS/apps still don't have full hardware access like direct Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. They pass internet, audio, and GPU acceleration to the waydroid container, but Bluetooth, WiFi, USB peripherals, etc are still locked to the host linux system. So having an android translation layer instead seems like it would be great for exposing all the hardware capabilities of the host system, to the android apps.

Here's to hoping postmarketOS gets audio, camera and VoLTE support added for the Fairphone 5, and Valve releases its android translation layer. That would make the Fairphone 5 a daily driver for basically anyone.