Originally Posted by Rosaline
Steam it must be remembered is actually more than just a shop. I find it's community features vital, and because of those (the ability to chat with friends when in game? Yes please!) I will always have it loaded. Unless games for windows can offer similar, it will not be quite the full competitor (aside from the MS monopoly abuse aspect).
As for being 'another nail in PC gaming', I really must disagree Lucio. Steam for me took PC gaming into proper competition with consoles at last. I want a game - I buy it. Download times, if left running overnight, are better than what you would get by mail ordering. Games seem generally to be priced fairly, thanks to the strong pound (all steam sales are in dollars). Installation is automagic, and there are no worries about it at all. I have purchased more new computer game releases since I stated using steam that I have in the two years previously (and without any change in my financial situation causing this difference).
Steam is still incomplete, and would like to see some radical changes in parts, but it has done wonders for PC gaming, and will continue to do so. If you want a perfect example of this sort of thing done properly, take a look at the Penny Arcade game on steam. At a few hundred Mb, it was a refreshingly small download for an amazingly fun game. The solution isn't to decry these online sales systems as the 'death' of PC gaming, but rather to admonish those developers that release 8Gb games over such services.
Good point. I think with MS though, we know they can create an excellent user friendly interface. I'm sure they'll be looking at turning it into a community. I think STEAM will continue to be strong, but it will interesting to see if the new service will take off.