Yes, that's really is its name. It has AI in the title, because clearly that's how you sell things now, everything needs to somehow mention AI.

To be fair, the previous one's full name was "MSI Claw A1M," but no one said that because it was stupid. So it's not adding the "AI" bit, just making an existing bit into "AI." Likely for that sweet, sweet Intel marketing money, almost certainly to go with the Microsoft marketing money for making a Windows handheld.

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Quoting: MalIt's all nice and good but far from the tipping point.

Does anyone have some kind of research/analisys that tries to identify the % at which point the "network effect" will trigger?

So it's not a scientific analysis, but we were chatting about it on the Discord this morning.

and we got to

Thinking about the dynamics of that bump in the Steam Machines era, Mac was ~3.5% and Liam says Linux was briefly ~2% because of the Tux giveaway, so let's say ~5% combined. Avoiding single-platform traps and having an OpenGL render path got you both, essentially (with it actually being harder then than now), and Steam Machines meant that multiplatform was The Future.
Mac no longer uses the same rendering API as Linux, and its gaming market share has collapsed, so we'd need to be able to do it solo for Linux/Vulkan. So ~5% with publicly-known scope for big future growth seems like it might capture that similar ~40% motivation.
If Sony and/or Nintendo also embraced the use of Vulkan, that would increase the size of the target relative to the work done.

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after previously releasing the positively received Full Void.

Ooh, I really liked that one! Played through it on the Deck recently.

Guess I ought to check out their new one, then.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyYes and no. The difference, sure, at any particular snapshot in time. But that's not what I was wondering about. Linux's 4% on the web was 2% not so long ago--the Linux desktop web share has apparently doubled, while its Steam share has inched upwards, I dunno, maybe 10%. This during a time when using the Linux desktop to game has rapidly gotten more workable, so if anything I would have expected the ratio to shrink, not grow. Still seems odd to me.

Since September 2018 (the start of the GOL data) Linux in the web browser has grown from 1.68% to 3.77%, while Linux on Steam has grown from 0.78% to 2.32%. There just hasn't been the meteoric rise that you're imagining. Linux usage on the desktop has just had slow, steady, boring growth whichever way you measure. With slightly faster growth for gaming specifically once a high-profile company releases a high-profile gaming device with Linux pre-installed.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyGood news! I'm still wondering what's up with the increasingly strong difference between the apparent growth speed of desktop Linux on the web (as noted here ), and the relatively slow growth of desktop Linux on Steam.

Do you wonder about the difference between Mac's 14.9% on browser stats and 1.5% on Steam stats? It's the same thing.

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Quoting: denyasis(to be fair, I've had a steam deck for a year and have barely used it, still can't figure out a use case for it for me)

(psst... You play games on it...)

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Quoting: WorMzyI don't think I've ever seen the survey pop up on Steam Deck. Does it appear in Big Picture mode or does it only show up if you switch to Desktop mode?

In gaming mode it pops up a notification. You need to interact with that to send off your sample.

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Quoting: CorbenMore than Mac... impressive!

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/08/linux-overtakes-macos-users-on-steam-thanks-to-steam-deck/

Linux has been higher than Mac since.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, yeah, they call it the 'Game porting toolkit' and I put that in quotes because it's not really porting the game, but is more like how Wine works... literally being based on Crossover/Wine. Though I'm assuming it mixes Rosetta in there for some of the CPU translation layer. I'm not sure how much of that is the open source stuff from Wine, or how much is just Apple code though...

It also can't be used for any actual released games; it's for internal demonstration purposes only.

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It is, of course, entirely expected that Sony would want to leverage their own infrastructure, and to funnel PC gamers into PlayStation gamers.

With their network working on the Deck - make sure it works, and make sure it keeps working - they get the virtuous cycle marketing boost that's hugely more significant than just the ~5 million units sold. The two biggest questions the games media have with every high profile PC release are "is it coming to Steam?" and "will it work on the Steam Deck?" Boosting non-Microsoft gaming should be an easy mood for Sony, and people gushing over how talented Sony's devs are is no bad thing.

Without it working on the Deck the coverage is only about how terrible PSN is, and how much everyone hates it, as demonstrated by EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar and Epic. Except actually slightly worse, because they're years late behind a half-dozen others, and the things people are already aware of with PSN are the bad download speeds, the pretty rubbish store interface, and the massive data breach that took the network down for months and meant Sony had to fork out to millions of people.

"Not actually worse than EA & Ubisoft" is an achievable goal for Sony, but it would be pretty sad if that were all they could muster. There are some pretty straightforward things Sony can do to better achieve their objectives.

Internet requirement for single-player is bullshit. Cut that out. Cut that right out.

PSN linking can be optional. When the player links their Steam account to their PSN account - boom! - populate their achievements list on each with achievements earned in the other. Steam has adequate means to uniquely identify a Steam user in the meantime for cross-platform play.

Eat the cost of double-dipping DLC. I haven't yet worked out whether it makes sense to eat the cost of all double-dipping, but single-digit percentages buy DLC at all - you don't want those purchases locking people out of your platform, so if people buy DLC on Steam they also get the DLC on PlayStation, and vice versa. For the base game, something like "buy the game on Steam, with a linked account, get it half price on PlayStation" might end up making sense. Possibly the other way, too. Should they ever get round to having a PSN PC store, having "buy on PSN anywhere, have it apply to PSN anywhere" should be a no-brainer. Also ensure that cross-platform saves work both ways. If you do persuade someone to switch from PC to PlayStation, they've already got an account, they've already got a library, with their saves, and they've already got some bragging rights on their profile - those are the kinds of thing that can keep them active on your platform.

Doing these things might not be enough for Sony to succeed, but it would definitely be better for them than not doing those things. I hope they choose wisely.

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