Recently, stories of Steam Machine Delisting occurring on the Steam Store have been popping up. Today, Valve has responded to these stories on the Steam Forums.
Valve employee Pierre-Loup wrote a detailed response regarding Steam Machines, SteamOS and Linux systems. The main takeaway is that Valve has not delisted Steam Machines, but simply removed from the main navigation bar due to low traffic.
Steam Machine Delisting
Valve’s statement admits that “Steam Machines aren’t exactly flying off the shelves” but that its dedication to an open, competitive gaming platform hasn’t changed.
Pierre-Loup writes;
We’re still working hard on making Linux operating systems a great place for gaming and applications.
We think it will ultimately result in a better experience for developers and customers alike, including those not on Steam.
While yesterday’s news was dominated by stories of Valve nailing shut the Steam Machine’s coffin, Valve doesn’t necessarily agree. The statement by Pierre-Loup says that Valve has learned a huge amount about Linux gaming systems from working on Steam Machines and has been addressing concerns raised by the feedback it has received.
We think an important part of that effort is our ongoing investment in making Vulkan a competitive and well-supported graphics API, as well as making sure it has first-class support on Linux platforms.
The Future of Steam Machines?
While the statement from Valve on the Steam Machine Delisting seems to focus on saying the machines remain relevant, the real focus is on SteamOS and the Linux ecosystem.
Pierre-Loup writes about Valves extension of Vulkan to macOS and iOS and the rollout of Steam-Shader pre-caching.
“Steam Shader Pre-Caching, which will let users of Vulkan-based applications skip shader compilation on their local machine, significantly improving initial load times and reducing overall runtime stuttering in comparison with other APIs,” writes Pierre-Loup.
He also writes that Valve has many Linux initiatives in development, but none which it is ready to announce.
SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large.
So there you have it. While the Steam Machine section of the Steam Store has been removed stories of Steam Machine delisting were premature. It does seem like the hardware will be less of a focus going forward, but Valve is stating its intention to continue to improve open platform gaming.
