5 Laws That’ll Help the steam shows linux marketshare hitting Industry
I’m so excited to see Linux marketshare surpass Windows as the fastest-growing technology market.
The two most important factors that will determine the success of Linux (or any other platform) are the number of users and how much money they’re willing to pay. That’s why I’m very happy to see that Linux marketshare is now nearly as high as Windows in the last week. We’re also getting some fantastic press that the Linux developers are trying to get us all excited about what is about to happen. I’ve never seen such a big jump in Linux market share be so quickly.
In the last month, Linux developers have launched more than 20 new desktop apps and the number of Linux apps downloaded is up more than 300% in March alone. All of these new Linux apps are being developed and built by people who are already using a version of Linux, and many of these apps are designed to be used on their current Linux-based computers.
It’s not a matter of if Linux will continue to have its lead in app downloads, it is a matter of when Linux developers will be willing to make a change. Linux developers are becoming more selective about which apps they support, and more willing to build apps that are designed to run on Linux’s current version of Windows. A lot of the new Linux apps are designed to run on a specific version of Windows and will only work on Windows Vista.
In the early days of the Steam platform, Linux was often perceived as a less powerful platform than Windows, mostly because of the need to run the Linux kernel directly. So while Valve was building Linux into their game engine, they really weren’t a whole lot more open about their plans. That changed with the launch of Linux 4.0, which is more open about their plans.
Steam’s Linux market share has actually been increasing over time. At the beginning of the year, Linux held 4.2% of the PC market, but it’s now at 8.4%. The Linux market share is still much lower than the Xbox market share, which is currently around 15%.
I think the Linux market share has pretty much hit the sweet spot. It’s just that we have the luxury of being able to watch as Steam has made Linux a household name. Steam’s Linux support has been growing slowly for a few years now but has only really been expanding in the last year.
I’m still not sure whether Steam is a Windows-only game, or if it’s a Mac-only game, but it is slowly but steadily growing in Linux support.
Steam is not a Windows only game, but Linux support is currently a major concern. Because Steam uses SteamOS 2.0 which is based on Linux. This means that players on Linux can expect to see Steam games being played on Linux, but only by people who are aware that it is Steam that is running them. In order to maintain Linux support, Steam is only able to support Linux, and not for other Operating Systems.
The latest Steam Survey shows that Linux is the most used OS on Steam games. This is a huge shift from the last survey conducted and shows that Valve is doing everything in its power to make Steam’s Linux support a priority moving forward.