{"id":85,"date":"2026-05-01T22:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/the-rampocalypse-has-bought-microsoft-valuable-time-in-the-fight-against-steamos\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T22:00:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:00:59","slug":"the-rampocalypse-has-bought-microsoft-valuable-time-in-the-fight-against-steamos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/the-rampocalypse-has-bought-microsoft-valuable-time-in-the-fight-against-steamos\/","title":{"rendered":"The RAMpocalypse has bought Microsoft valuable time in the fight against SteamOS"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Valve and its SteamOS operating system have already done what a bunch of companies (including Apple) have been trying to do for decades: make a dent in Windows\u2019 dominance in PC gaming.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, sure, according to Valve\u2019s own statistics, Microsoft remains dominant. Over 92 percent of PCs in the Steam Hardware Survey run some version of Windows. But five years ago, this number was <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210428140632\/https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/hwsurvey\">just over 96 percent<\/a>. Ten years ago, it was <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20160427051012\/https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/hwsurvey\">just under 96 percent<\/a>. Fifteen years ago? <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110515095236\/http:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/hwsurvey\/\">It was 96 percent<\/a>. Go back any further than that and Steam only runs on Windows in the first place, itself a testament to Microsoft&#8217;s ubiquity.<\/p>\n<p>Between April 2021 and now, Linux\u2019s share has climbed from under 1 percent to over 5 percent. This is a small number, and it&#8217;s not all SteamOS (Valve&#8217;s OS isn&#8217;t broken out, but Arch, the base distribution for SteamOS, accounts for about 0.33 of that just-over-5-percent). But it\u2019s also more than these numbers have ever moved. By <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/ValveSoftware\/Proton\">making Windows games run on Linux<\/a>, rather than trying to push game developers to make Linux-native ports, Valve has done via organic word-of-mouth success what the company <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/2016\/06\/its-time-to-declare-valves-steam-machines-doa\/\">utterly failed to do in the early 2010s<\/a> when it <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/2013\/09\/valve-announces-linux-based-steamos-as-basis-for-living-room-gaming\/\">tried to take on Windows directly<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/2026\/05\/the-rampocalypse-has-bought-microsoft-valuable-time-in-the-fight-against-steamos\/\">Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/2026\/05\/the-rampocalypse-has-bought-microsoft-valuable-time-in-the-fight-against-steamos\/#comments\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Valve and its SteamOS operating system have already done what a bunch of companies (including Apple) have been trying to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[112,5,41,113,114,115,17,116,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asus-rog-ally","category-gadgets","category-gaming","category-steam-deck","category-steam-machine","category-steamos","category-tech","category-windows-11-24h2","category-windows-11-25h2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paltechnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}