You can count on Gabe Newell to say some bold things and he has done that once again by calling Windows 8 “a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space”. He didn’t give any reasons as to why he dislikes it, but he clearly views it as a threat to the PC market.
“I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space,” he told AllthingsD. “I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.”
He mentioned that he wants to get 2500 Steam games running on Linux, and one of the things that is holding the OS back is the lack of games, because ultimately games are something that drives consumer behavior.
Valve recently went on a hiring spree for Linux technicians, so it looks like Newell wants to see the entire Steam catalog on it as soon as possible.
He also puts a lot of emphasis on free-to-play games and said that “it’s about creating value” to users which results in more sales of digital goods.
“We think the future is very different [from] successes we’ve had in the past. When you are playing a game, you are trying to think about creating value for other players, so the line between content player and creator is really fuzzy. We have a kid in Kansas making $150,000 a year making [virtual] hats. But that’s just a starting point,” he revealed.
Generally the problem most users have with Windows 8 is the Metro UI, which isn’t suited (personally) for the desktop version. Windows 8 has a fast kernel and can be termed as something that is a significant improvement over Windows 7, but when Newell uses words such as “catastrophe”, you can be sure that he isn’t pleased with something. It could be Microsoft’s policies or the in-built store in the OS.
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