SteamOS Holo" 64-bit is the most popular reported, at just over 42 percent of the Linux slice of pie.
If Population = poor And Mac = expensive And Pc = cheap Then Developers = pc
No, it’s simpler than that.
- most gamers use Windows
- macOS requires special support (Metal + 64-bit)
- most Windows games work on Linux through Proton
Developers go where the money is, and that is Windows. To support Linux, they don’t need to do anything. To support Steam Deck, they usually don’t need to do anything, except maybe adjust text size based on screen resolution. That’s it. To support macOS, they need to support a completely different rendering pipeline, ensure all of their dependencies support 64-bit, and now potentially target ARM (Rosetta, the x86 -> ARM layer can have a big performance penalty). Also, Macs don’t have very powerful GPUs, so even if they do support macOS, the bigger titles will probably run poorly anyway.
So what are they going to do, put a ton of dev resources to properly support macOS, or put one guy for a couple weeks to support Steam Deck/Linux?
It has absolutely nothing to do with cost of hardware and everything to do with cost of supporting the platform vs number of potential customers.
