Gabe Newell, the co-founder and managing director of Valve, has made a rare appearance at Casual Connect where he prophesized that Windows 8 will be a catastrophic failure for Microsoft.
Valve has already announced plans to port Steam and its games library to Linux; A decision now being justified by Newell as a precautionary move to protect the company’s business from the eminent Windows 8 failure.
"The big problem that is holding back Linux is games. People don’t realize how critical games are in driving consumer purchasing behavior," he said.
"We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. 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."