> Why do developers choose a closed platform like PS4 vs the Steam Machine?
Several reasons, in order of significance:
* Console manufacturers will often subsidize your development for platform exclusivity, in order to attract users.
* Large userbase.
* Single hardware target. While consoles (intentionally) have no software portability, you are also targeting a single set of hardware so the QA is easier and the dev process requires less testing.
So basically, in reverse order, if you want Steam Machines to win:
* You need APIs that are perfectly portable, so your SDL + Vulkan game can run everywhere without having to manually fix everything.
* You need users buying your platform.
* You need current manufacturers to lose their profit margins enough to stop buying off exclusivity deals.
Note that with consoles, exclusives attract users which attract exclusives. Its a positive feedback loop that, at least in this console generation when you can build a PC of comparable power to a PS4 / Xbone for the same price, there is no barrier to entry cost on the user besides the preassembly costs, and the fact Steam Machine vendors are selling at profit where Sony / MS care less about margins because they make per-sale revenue in the same way Steam does. But Valve isn't making the consoles, so Alienware needs to keep the lights on exclusively through sales.
That means there is both, A. no incentive for platform exclusivity on Steam Machines, because you aren't getting lockin to your Steam Machine, you would buy exclusivity to the ecosystem and B. no Steam Machine competitive with PS4 / Xbone in price / performance unless you are buying a lot of games to make up the gap between console used prices vs Steam sales.
> Is there a future with an open gaming platform like the Steam Machine?
Yes, but not without Valve biting the bullet to force enough user adoption to get the feedback loop going. They launched it last month without any compelling reason to buy one, and thus sales were underwhelming. And the only way to make them a compelling buy requires Valve to spend money on it - either through subsidizing sales with huge amounts of free games, or directly by making Steam Machines more cost effective up front than current consoles. And then on top of that, you need a critical mass of users to get developers releasing all cross platform releases for it, while also having the games to attract users. Usually, you get that through exclusives, but as I said, nobody has a motivation to release exclusives on SteamOS except Valve, and that would only be if they value adoption of their platform over raw sales figures, and I bet they don't.