The RAMpocalypse has bought Microsoft valuable time in the fight against SteamOS
The RAMpocalypse has bought Microsoft valuable time in the fight against SteamOS
“内存末日”为微软在对抗 SteamOS 的竞争中赢得了宝贵时间
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’ dominance in PC gaming. I mean, sure, according to Valve’s 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 just over 96 percent. Ten years ago, it was just under 96 percent. Fifteen years ago? It was 96 percent. Go back any further than that and Steam only runs on Windows in the first place, itself a testament to Microsoft’s ubiquity.
Valve 及其 SteamOS 操作系统已经做到了许多公司（包括苹果）几十年来一直试图做到的事情：撼动 Windows 在 PC 游戏领域的统治地位。当然，根据 Valve 自己的统计数据，微软依然占据主导地位。在 Steam 硬件调查中，超过 92% 的 PC 运行着某种版本的 Windows。但五年前，这个数字略高于 96%。十年前，略低于 96%。十五年前呢？是 96%。再往前追溯，Steam 最初只在 Windows 上运行，这本身就证明了微软的无处不在。
Between April 2021 and now, Linux’s share has climbed from under 1 percent to over 5 percent. This is a small number, and it’s not all SteamOS (Valve’s OS isn’t broken out, but Arch, the base distribution for SteamOS, accounts for about 0.33 of that just-over-5-percent). But it’s also more than these numbers have ever moved. By making Windows games run on Linux, rather than trying to push game developers to make Linux-native ports, Valve has done via organic word-of-mouth success what the company utterly failed to do in the early 2010s when it tried to take on Windows directly.
从 2021 年 4 月至今，Linux 的份额已从不足 1% 上升至超过 5%。虽然这个数字很小，且并非全部来自 SteamOS（Valve 的操作系统未被单独列出，但作为 SteamOS 基础发行版的 Arch 约占这 5% 多一点份额中的 0.33%），但这已是这些数据有史以来最大的变动。通过让 Windows 游戏在 Linux 上运行，而不是试图推动游戏开发者制作 Linux 原生移植版，Valve 凭借有机口碑的成功，做到了其在 2010 年代初试图直接挑战 Windows 时彻底失败的事情。
A year ago, Valve seemed poised to build on that success. SteamOS picked up official support for some third-party gaming handhelds and other hardware besides, and some manufacturers were beginning to ship models with SteamOS rather than Windows pre-installed. Games were being tested not just for Steam Deck compatibility, but general SteamOS compatibility. Late in 2025, Valve announced the Steam Machine, an effort to compete with game consoles and lower-end gaming PCs. And Microsoft seemed unable to respond. Windows handhelds usually relied on clunky third-party software to replicate the Deck’s handheld-optimized interface, and Microsoft’s first imperfect stab at a competing interface launched years after the Steam Deck on just two Xbox-branded systems.
一年前，Valve 似乎准备乘胜追击。SteamOS 获得了部分第三方游戏掌机及其他硬件的官方支持，一些制造商也开始出厂预装 SteamOS 而非 Windows。游戏测试不再仅限于 Steam Deck 的兼容性，而是转向了通用的 SteamOS 兼容性。2025 年末，Valve 发布了 Steam Machine，旨在与游戏主机和低端游戏 PC 竞争。而微软似乎无法应对。Windows 掌机通常依赖笨拙的第三方软件来复制 Deck 的掌机优化界面，而微软首次尝试推出的竞争界面不仅比 Steam Deck 晚了几年，且仅限于两款 Xbox 品牌的系统。
Valve’s timing also coincided with a tenuous time for Windows, when Microsoft was asking users to move from Windows 10 to Windows 11, an OS with a reputation for being irritating and having higher system requirements. If people are already being asked to switch to new software or upgrade their hardware, there’s always a chance that the software they switch to won’t be a newer version of the same thing.
Valve 的时机选择也恰逢 Windows 的尴尬期，当时微软正要求用户从 Windows 10 迁移到 Windows 11，而后者因令人烦恼且系统要求更高而声名狼藉。如果人们已经被要求更换新软件或升级硬件，那么他们转投的软件未必会是同一产品的更新版本。
But Valve’s push to compete directly with Microsoft and PC hardware makers has hit a wall, at least for now: huge cost increases and supply increases for all kinds of PC components, particularly memory and storage chips. Problems that started to affect the market for PC components in late 2025 are now being felt across the entire consumer tech industry. Chip manufacturers are all chasing the generative AI gold rush, which has an all-consuming need for memory, storage, GPUs, and (increasingly) even CPUs. This means less manufacturing capacity for the components that go into consumer-grade hardware, and more fighting over the supply that’s left.
但 Valve 直接与微软及 PC 硬件制造商竞争的努力目前碰壁了：各类 PC 组件（尤其是内存和存储芯片）的成本大幅上涨，供应却出现短缺。2025 年末开始影响 PC 组件市场的问题，现在已波及整个消费电子行业。芯片制造商都在追逐生成式 AI 的淘金热，这导致对内存、存储、GPU 甚至 CPU 的需求近乎疯狂。这意味着用于消费级硬件的组件制造产能减少，剩余供应的争夺也愈发激烈。
For Valve, these problems have not only indefinitely delayed the Steam Machine (“the first half of the year” is still the plan, giving Valve two months to figure it out), but have also rendered the 4-year-old Steam Deck largely unpurchasable. Third-party handheld makers have raised prices and indefinitely delayed products, taking away another potential source of first-time SteamOS users. It was always sort of hard to see how the Steam Machine would compete with consoles on price, and that’s still probably true even though consoles now cost a fair amount more than they did a couple of years ago.
对于 Valve 而言，这些问题不仅导致 Steam Machine 无限期推迟（目前的计划仍是“上半年”，留给 Valve 的时间只剩两个月），还使得 4 年前的 Steam Deck 几乎处于无法购买的状态。第三方掌机制造商纷纷涨价并无限期推迟产品发布，这又切断了 SteamOS 新用户的另一个潜在来源。Steam Machine 如何在价格上与游戏主机竞争一直是个难题，即便现在游戏主机的价格比几年前高出不少，这一结论依然成立。
The only hardware Valve has actually been able to ship this year has been the new Steam Controller, and executives were up front about why: The controller “doesn’t have RAM in it.”
Valve 今年唯一能够实际出货的硬件是新款 Steam Controller，高管们也直言不讳地说明了原因：这款手柄“不需要内存”。
Obviously, Valve and SteamOS are just a small piece of the Linux gaming pie, and most Windows PCs can be turned into Linux systems with a USB stick and some elbow grease. Progress on the software side hasn’t stopped. Within the past month, for example, Valve has apparently made significant progress toward improving performance on GPUs with 8GB (or even less) of memory. But it does seem as though Valve was ready to execute a strategy that has now been disrupted, giving Microsoft some time to get back on its feet at a potentially vulnerable moment.
显然，Valve 和 SteamOS 只是 Linux 游戏市场的一小部分，大多数 Windows PC 只要有一根 USB 闪存盘和一点动手能力，就能变成 Linux 系统。软件方面的进展并未停止。例如，在过去一个月里，Valve 在提升 8GB（甚至更少）显存 GPU 的性能方面显然取得了重大进展。但看起来 Valve 原本准备执行的战略现在被打乱了，这让微软在可能陷入困境的时刻获得了一些喘息和调整的机会。