Posted December 26, 2021
Gersen: Exactly Stadia is just "another-console" that happen to run on a Linux'ish OS rather than Linux, it's a controlled environment, with controlled hardware and controlled OS and you don't have any first or second level support to provide as it is handled by Google. So the cost of porting and support are much lower.
Check what actual developers say about it. Controlled or not, they simply make a Linux port. Amount of testing is limited for sure, but still. Same port can be used for running on regular Linux, granted they test more. Porting costs are going into enabling Vulkan, after they were stuck with DX12. Going forward they might be smarter and will have Vulkan support from the beginning.
Gersen: Yes, I know it's probably not representative but I know plenty of peoples who are interested into buying a Steam Deck (me included)... but none of them plan to run Steam on it or do "Linux" gaming. They are interested by it as a rather cheap emulation platform able to emulate modern console games.
It doesn't matter what they are interested in it for. Install base is what matters and Valve estimates demand in millions for it. I bet it will be way higher than Stadia. Next marketing step for Valve is to nudge the likes of CDPR to release native games for it.
Post edited December 26, 2021 by shmerl