Gabe Newell see's Linux in the future and thinks Windows 8 is a "catastrophe"
posted:
7/26/2012 6:42:00 AM
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Gabe Newell of Valve is no stranger to controversial statements. He's the man that's ripped on the PlayStation 3 and then comes to put out a port of Portal 2 and Steamworks on that platform years later. Now for his next act, he's going to rip on Windows 8.
Before going to Valve, Gabe worked at Microsoft. He talked to me back in 1995 about working there for many years, but wanted to branch out and work on games. So, Gabe's familiar with Microsoft though it's changed a lot since he was there.
An appearance at Casual Connect brought about some new comments from Gabe that will be sure to have some folks in a tizzy. Valve has been working lately to get Steam and games running natively on Linux, which should bring another group of folks into the gaming fray. That's pretty cool. I've dabbled in various flavors of Linux over the years (Fedora, Ubuntu) besides my daytime job, the only other thing holding me back from installing the OS as a daily driver was the lack of games. Maybe this effort will lead to more games for the free OS.
But the one comment that will most certainly be the focus of everyone's attention will be calling Windows 8 a catastrophe and thinking some top PC/OEMs leaving the market. Yikes! Having used Windows 8, I can see where he's coming from. I'm not that much into it yet, but maybe it will grow on me. From my conversations with folks that have used it, it's a mixed bag on a desktop, but works well on a tablet or mobile product.
Gabe isn't the only PC game developer thinking this way. Stardock recently talked about their concerns as well with the new OS.
I do think Valve is smart to invest in other OS's like Linux and iOS so they aren't pigeon holed into one PC platform. From a business side of things, it makes sense and you want to get your products out to as wide of an array of audiences as you can. Calling out Windows 8 as a catastrophe, that's something else.
So, with an October 26th launch date, will Windows 8 be successful and will Gabe be wrong on this one? Time will tell, of course. But we all know what we really want Gabe to talk about. Not whether Windows 8 is good. Not about Linux as the next platform they are focusing on. Not where the next PC is headed to.
Where the hell is the next Half Life?
Before going to Valve, Gabe worked at Microsoft. He talked to me back in 1995 about working there for many years, but wanted to branch out and work on games. So, Gabe's familiar with Microsoft though it's changed a lot since he was there.
An appearance at Casual Connect brought about some new comments from Gabe that will be sure to have some folks in a tizzy. Valve has been working lately to get Steam and games running natively on Linux, which should bring another group of folks into the gaming fray. That's pretty cool. I've dabbled in various flavors of Linux over the years (Fedora, Ubuntu) besides my daytime job, the only other thing holding me back from installing the OS as a daily driver was the lack of games. Maybe this effort will lead to more games for the free OS.
But the one comment that will most certainly be the focus of everyone's attention will be calling Windows 8 a catastrophe and thinking some top PC/OEMs leaving the market. Yikes! Having used Windows 8, I can see where he's coming from. I'm not that much into it yet, but maybe it will grow on me. From my conversations with folks that have used it, it's a mixed bag on a desktop, but works well on a tablet or mobile product.
Gabe isn't the only PC game developer thinking this way. Stardock recently talked about their concerns as well with the new OS.
I do think Valve is smart to invest in other OS's like Linux and iOS so they aren't pigeon holed into one PC platform. From a business side of things, it makes sense and you want to get your products out to as wide of an array of audiences as you can. Calling out Windows 8 as a catastrophe, that's something else.
So, with an October 26th launch date, will Windows 8 be successful and will Gabe be wrong on this one? Time will tell, of course. But we all know what we really want Gabe to talk about. Not whether Windows 8 is good. Not about Linux as the next platform they are focusing on. Not where the next PC is headed to.
Where the hell is the next Half Life?
