jediyoshi
Member
Not that your original comment was pointing out the distinction, given their direction with SteamPlay, they're essentially one in the same.
Valve announces SteamOS
- Thread starter PartTimeWarrior
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Not that your original comment was pointing out the distinction, given their direction with SteamPlay, they're essentially one in the same.
IAmRandom31
Banned
lol, yeah .. sounds like the steambox is simply going to be a mini-ATX PC specifically designed to run in the living room, using the SteamOS which is specifically designed for the Television.
a console PC .. just open and can be upgraded ...
how is it possible this type of thing has not been made before? Wow ... now that I think about it ...
Just make sure it is DS4 compatible please
DryvBy
Member
Nothing at all. But I just don't see the time and effort spent on this being a worthwhile investment.
family_guy
Member
Not really seeing the benefit of this on the software side. It would only save me from running an HDMI cable from my PC to my big screen, which the trade-off in performance would not be worth it. On the hardware side, I am looking forward to a better controller than the 360 one that I use.
Vestal
Junior Member
so you are saying that Valve expects that PC gaming accessibility will take a leap back 20 years?? What trend or hint of anything like that have we seen??
Last time I checked I didn't need to edit my autoexec.bat to make a game run. If anything games are becoming easier and easier to develop for and to support in the PC.
Syphon Filter
Member
Hmm you could be on to something ; )
You can thank Apple for that (and maybe Xbox Live a little). It's all walled garden and proprietary product talk at Microsoft nowadays because Apple has become so successful with it. The PC is becoming a much better platform because of the Internet, not because of Microsoft. If anything, they're heading in the other direction and if they could have it their way, they'd get a cut out of everything that's making the PC a better platform.
Watch Gabe's talk from Linuxcon last week if you want to hear it from his mouth. It's only 20 minutes and overall a very good speech.
Eaten By A Grue
Member
Windows cost money and is not tailored to games like SteamOS will be. Windows has a lot of overhead that is not necessary for a dedicated gaming machine.
Gaben is taking us out if the gaming ghetto and into the promised land.
outunderthestars
Banned
Really confused about the level of excitement about this announcement. Honest questions: if you're already in the Steam ecosystem, don't you already have a gaming rig? Why get excited for a version of big picture mode than removes compatibility with 99% of your existing Steam Library?
Or you just install SteamOS on a PC designed for gaming that's dedicated to your living room and you're good to go.
In my case, because I'm also somebody who wants a VitaTV, aka I want a cheap streaming box so that I can keep my console/PC in my room but run my games on my TV downstairs.
outunderthestars
Banned
Why would anyone do that? There is already a functional big picture mode that doesn't break compatibility with almost all of his/her games and applications.
Felix Lighter
Member
I'm personally excited for what this could mean for the future. Currently, I will only be dual booting SteamOS out of curiosity but this is an exciting first necessary step to freeing PC gaming's fate from a company that seems to have very little interest in PC gaming.
The Cowboy
Member
Gaben is dressing up the ghetto and trying to entice people out of the promised land.
jediyoshi
Member
This isn't intended to be a direct transition of people transferring over from desktop gaming. This has more to do with taping into the market of people who get their entertainment from the living room TV . A lot of the actual excitement is them laying the groundwork for a migration away from Microsoft/Windows reliance.
People who are already heavily invested in the Steam ecosystem and build their own computers will have little interest in the Steambox. We are just not the target demographic, they are looking to expand their market to other people.
We will have an interest in the cheaper streaming Steambox, the controller, and the dualbooting the OS though.
By and large, this week isn't really for us.
illustri0us
Banned
what about origin etc?
Sentenza
Member
Well, it is. Anything pushing Linux, rock-solid, open source free OS, while making it more streamlined and efficient for gaming is mighty welcome in my book.
On a side note, ironically I don't care much for the "living room gaming experience", which is supposed to be the main point here, so one of my minor but persistent concerns is how good this OS would eventually be as a standard desktop experience.
Will the interface be flexible enough?
It's not even close to be "99% of the Steam library" and it will eventually shrink a lot if enough developers support it.
Syphon Filter
Member
yea valve has gotten lazy and has not done anything for the steam client in years. The client needs a massive overhaul and they are just sitting there resting on their laurels.
chixdiggit
Member
So will I be able to play Team Fortress 2 on my monitor while my wife plays scribblenauts on the TV all from one Steam account?
KojiKnight
Member
Why Epic and iD failed at the linux market can be broken down into 2 things.
1. Linux wasn't ready. While linux still often lags behind windows when it comes to drivers, the vast majority of things now work "out of the box" or with only a little bit of configuring. I remember the days of spending hours trying to debug a linux install from a command prompt. While you CAN still do that, there are much better tools available now.
2. Epic and iD were never willing to risk not selling their products on windows. Valve is huge, if Valve wants to release HL3 exclusively onto SteamOS (timed or not) they could.
3. Valve has set itself up to have a turn key solution for all of this. Make steamOS be bootable off of a thumb drive (hell, make Steam on windows able to make such a bootable drive/disc) have the disc auto install to be dual boot. Hell hell, there are already solutions for installing linux completely WITHIN windows that Steam could use to setup a dual boot system.
Combine those three things... Exclusive Half Life 3, Steam OS, easy install and you have a serious means of contending. Also keep in mind that Steam mindshare in PC gaming... A simple prompt "want to try steamOS? It's free!" before or after loading a game on steam and you could get a LOT of biters. Eventually press into the mobile/tablet segment and it could be very effective.
1. Linux wasn't ready. While linux still often lags behind windows when it comes to drivers, the vast majority of things now work "out of the box" or with only a little bit of configuring. I remember the days of spending hours trying to debug a linux install from a command prompt. While you CAN still do that, there are much better tools available now.
2. Epic and iD were never willing to risk not selling their products on windows. Valve is huge, if Valve wants to release HL3 exclusively onto SteamOS (timed or not) they could.
3. Valve has set itself up to have a turn key solution for all of this. Make steamOS be bootable off of a thumb drive (hell, make Steam on windows able to make such a bootable drive/disc) have the disc auto install to be dual boot. Hell hell, there are already solutions for installing linux completely WITHIN windows that Steam could use to setup a dual boot system.
Combine those three things... Exclusive Half Life 3, Steam OS, easy install and you have a serious means of contending. Also keep in mind that Steam mindshare in PC gaming... A simple prompt "want to try steamOS? It's free!" before or after loading a game on steam and you could get a LOT of biters. Eventually press into the mobile/tablet segment and it could be very effective.
The Cowboy
Member
Not at the same time.
Felix Lighter
Member
EA would not make the investment until it was already proven. They could never convince shareholders to accept such a very forward thinking investment.
BabySlayer
Banned
So no new Half-Life or Portal?
How disappointing. Why should I care about an OS
edit- just read about it and it does seem pretty interesting, but still... why no Half Lyfe?
How disappointing. Why should I care about an OS
edit- just read about it and it does seem pretty interesting, but still... why no Half Lyfe?
chixdiggit
Member
Well dang.
jediyoshi
Member
Likewise, they push out client updates of one sort or another basically weekly.
No game announcements this week.
Your other statement is very short sighted. Connect the dots.
DryvBy
Member
Uh, I guess if you like "indie" games then yeah, sure. It's amazing.
But I don't.
Gotta be fair though - Windows PC became so good because of Microsoft and their decisions in past 15 years.
Maybe they have some idiots running the place these days but that doesnt change the above.
family_guy
Member
But this doesn't make much sense to me because that market already has a Roku or Apple TV device for their entertainment needs. If they are really gamers and want to play in their living rooms then they probably have a console also.
Its not about converting pc gamers.. its about getting the non pc gamers.
Basically what can spring up is a bunch of hardware options by different manufactures all using the same platform that is more like a console+ experience.
jediyoshi
Member
Consolidating devices and open platforms are always nice.
Willy Wanka
my god this avatar owns
Steam on Windows isn't a particularly great piece of software so a Valve developed OS doesn't fill me full of confidence. Either way I'm not the target market anyway as I already have a gaming PC connected to my main television.
Freeman
Banned
Please explain. From what I remember MS did all they could to make the life of a PC gamer more difficult, from tying DirectX version to OS versions, making time exclusive deals to keep games away from PC, stopped publishing their main games on PC, killed PC exclusive studios like Ensemble, released windows 8, made a pathetic pushed for GFWL, didn't allow for xbox kinect to connect to PC (unless you paid for a more expensive device), etc.
The one good thing they did for PC was the xbox controller, but I bet that was mostly unintended.
Not having Indies in my life would leave gaming in such a shallow and streamlined place.
No thank you.
The success of Windows on the gaming side has really been despite Microsoft's best efforts.
family_guy
Member
True, but the SteamOS by itself can't do this. You need a box powerful enough to run those games natively.
andthebeatgoeson
Junior Member
Amazon is listing a comfy couch as climbing up their rankings.
There will be multiple versions of the Steambox, probably from multiple manufacturing partners as well.
There will be the streaming version, rumored to be priced cheapily at around $100. Just used for streaming from the main PC through SteamOS, with music, video streaming, and browser services as well.
Then there is the Steambox aimed at gaining more marketshare. This will use SteamOS as well, contain all of the previously mentioned features, but have a solid GPU/CPU in order to play games on its own. Pricing from $400 on up.
I can almost guarantee you will be able to dualboot Windows on both machines if you so desire.
Well obviously Valve is trying to grow the amount of software playable on Linux Steam. In the announcement right there they state that they're already working with other developers to even start bringing AAA games over to Steam OS next year.
That's probably what they're competing against, but I guess that's another bridge to cross.
We still don't know how they plan to be price competitive with consoles. But considering this OS can be used by any hardware manufacturer for free, you'll see a lot of different "Steam consoles" which means a lot more choices in terms of price/performance. It's kind of like Android but for console gaming. If you ask me I think it's always good to have an open software platform (or at least close to open) as an alternative.
Portugeezer
Member
Hoping the Steambox is real, would be sweet to have some sort of standardised PC gaming hardware.
BurnOutBrighter
Banned
Doesn't really make much sense without a Steambox. If you're a gamer who wants to hook up your PC to your TV, you've already done it.
The streaming is nice though.
The streaming is nice though.
Mr.Squirrel
Tom
Same thing I thought. It'd be one thing if your machine, for whatever reason can't be plugged into the living room, but other than that.....I'm kinda confused by this.
I'm guessing all answers will be revealed by the end of the week.
Which decisions? In the gaming space, at least. I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm legitimately curious.
The first thing that pops to my mind is GFWL, and I don't think we need to talk about how much of a bomb that was. Other than that, I feel like their biggest movements in the gaming ecosystem have all come through XBL, where they don't want you to get the Internet, they want you to get the Internet via Microsoft. Gold paywall for apps like Netflix, a high-cost patching process, content and monetization model revenue disputes where producers have no leverage, plenty of room for them to sell advertising space, etc.
The stuff that makes the PC so awesome (DD, pricing, mods, user created content, etc.) has all been facilitated by third parties. It seems like Microsoft just reaped the benefits of having the greatest market share as these things exploded. Most of these forward strides run counter to everything Microsoft has done with XBL, which I think they've been using as a test bed for a unified Windows experience. Have they done a lot of technical stuff behind the scenes, or am I forgetting something here?
Vestal
Junior Member
holy shit really? Do you even know how we got games to run 15-20 years ago??
Yeah the same DirectX that has pushed PC gaming ahead. The man that was the face of OpenGL and pure hate of DirectX doing a 180 and embracing it as the superior API.
You say all this and yet PC Gaming is bigger than it ever has, it no longer is a niche market.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I have multiple TVs. Do you expect I've hooked up my PC to all of them?
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