: I'm not seeing the huge market for this. Console gamers clearly don't want
: Steam--witness the whole Xbox One debacle for having always online--and PC
: gamers clearly enjoy mouse superiority plus the tinkering benefits of
: having your own box.

: SteamOS might be based on Linux, but somehow I doubt it's going to do much
: beyond play only Steam games. So they're trying to get Linux on board by
: creating perhaps the most closed and locked down piece of hardware I've
: seen next to Apple.

: Or maybe their goal is by freely licensing the system someone else will
: actually make a Steambox that has some real tangible benefits over the
: other consoles. Right now though I'm not seeing it.

It's still premature to speculate but........

Unless Valve has somehow gotten all the hardware makers to support Linux I can't help but see this as anything but hype for what "could be". Linux gaming media drivers are terrible. Nvidia refuses to open source their video drivers and Linus Torvalds has been in a running battle with them for years. The Nvidia Linux drivers are awful and the various distro developers drivers written for Nvidia are even worse.

As a long time Linux user and supporter, I'm going to keep a wait and see attitude.