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Valve's Big Picture Could Be a Linux Game Console
Penurious Penguin writes that "a hopeful article at The Verge persuasively suggests that through Valve, Linux could soon become a formidable contender in the gaming arena, capable of holding its own against such giants as Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the Wii. With 50 million users, a growing Linux team, a caboodle of interesting experiments ('Steam Box' hardware baselines, etc.) and a strong conviction that more-open platforms are the way, Valve may actually see it through."
"The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii are nearing their end. As powerful as they have been in the living room, gamers want more."
Quoted from TFA. Am I the only one who wants LESS? I don't really want my game system to do 9 million things. I just want it to play games.
Then again, when was the last time we were actually listened to? Draconian DRM, the removal of OtherOS, etc...
I became a bit of a valve fanboi when I read about their no-manager system. See Here.
To my credit though, they do seem to be doing cool stuff lately.
Okay, perfectly serious question, and one the game developers and studios are going to ask you: How are you going to protect against piracy if the platform is open? Explain how if it's made trivially-easy for people to download and pirate the games, how their revenue stream benefits from this... because open platforms encourage piracy. Or at least, that's the argument that's going to be made.
Please guys, serious answers only, not a giant flag of a penguin and patriotic music playing while you explain in great detail why open is better, etc. Pretend I'm a game developer and sell me on the concept. You can start by telling me how it'll be at least as profitable, if not more so, than the competitors. I don't care about linux, or the GPL, or open source: I want a business case made.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I was thinking the other day that the original Xbox was based off of PC tech, so the programmers had familiar ground for making the games (really not much different then windows games), but then they veered away from that with the Xbox 360. So, as i was thinking, I figured if someone had came in with a PC (intel/amd 64bit x86 procs), nvidia/amd GPU, a more then decent amount of memory, that they might have had a decent console during these lean years of outdated consoles.
Of course, the company would have to make it so you can run homebrew on it, ie. PS3 Other OS, but not locked down as much. Let peeps have access to the hardware.
Yes, software would probably get pirated, but software always gets pirated. That isn't going to change, unless they start streaming games to us, like Onlive or something.
Anyways, I hope Steam is smart enough to put in plenty of memory in the console. Since that has always been the problems with other consoles, and I hope they keep the system open enough for homebrew.
Going to be cool to see what happens here.
Be seeing you...
For years I dreamed about a Linux distro with all the fat out but the bare minimum to run games, so we can get all the power from the hardware. I really hope this can become real but I`m well aware of the hurdles they will face to get to that.
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
Didn't you get the memo? Microsoft is now hell bent on destroying PC as a platform, so consumer PC applications need another class of devices.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Agreed, it seems counter-intuitive to allow Microsoft to continue to dominate the PC Gaming OS when they already have vested interest in a completely different platform.
How is it trolling to ask a question that any developer who's going to give serious consideration to this platform is going to ask? The console market thrives mostly on store-bought purchases, many of which are recycled into the used-games market a year after their release, but 95% of the games aren't pirated. The PC gaming market, on the other hand, is almost the exact opposite: Most games, especially single-player games, sitting on PCs are pirated. So to get the same profit, you'd have to sell games for this console either at about 20 times the volume or 20 times the profit margin, to make up the difference.
This is math guys. It's business. I'm making no arguments as to technical feasibility of producing such a console, but one of the reasons for the success of the PS3 and one reason so many developed for it was because it had strong DRM: If you wanted to play a game on the PS3, you either had to buy it, or go through convoluted steps or modify the hardware in ways that often left you unable to use that console online for multiplayer games. Every console marketed in the last decade has tried to follow the same business model.
Now you have Valve coming along with a new, untested, business model. The burden of proving feasibility is on them; And I really, truly, and sincerely want to know what their argument is either for limiting piracy on their platform or describing how it won't affect sales or the profitability of games developed for the console. It is not trolling to point out a legitimate concern about an untested and unproven business model in an industry where game development costs many millions and the industry itself is prone to failure. Look at the (very) long list of failed games and gaming companies. Entertainment is a risky business.
So the question has to be answered, solidly, how those risks are mitigated. Not. A. Troll.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Now is probably the best time that Valve could release a console: get first mover status in North America against MS & Sony and probably Europe as well. But valve is a software company. Their experience with manufacturing, shipping, retailers, etc is limited at best. The boxed copies of Valve games are published by one of the traditional large publishers. I love valve as much as the next fan boy but the massive operational organization that is needed to support a console launch is slightly outside of their reach. Valve could partner with a distribution/manufacturing partner but the people that have experience in the entertainment space and who would be able to accomplish the undertaking is a pretty short list. EA could probably swing it and would scare both MS & Sony as their consoles would lose EA's games but with origin vs steam on the PC side of things I see this as slightly unlikely. I'd love Sega to make a Steam box, but that's simply nostalgia talking. Sony is the most likely partner as steam is already on PS3 (for some definition of steam) and ps3 runs a version of unix, but it would probably be another wedge between Sony & retail stores.
More then likely this is probably valve's experimentation into console space. They'll probably stream line it so that it's trivial to get your home linux machine to output to hdmi at the push of a controller button. Once the home experience is as simple as it can get then they'll make a business case for releasing their own console or not based upon revenue. Look at what valve has done with micro-transactions, free to play games, crowd sourcing, and non-game software: they dip a toe into the water and then once they're confident they move into that space.
Funny how Valve's attitude has changed from "Linux, meh" to fully-committed boosters in less than 2 years.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Joel Spolsky coined the term "Commoditize your complements" ten years ago. Steam, who sells software, wants consoles (or PCs acting as consoles) to be as cheap as possible, so as many people as possible can afford to have hardware that will run their games.
Every product in the marketplace has substitutes and complements. A substitute is another product you might buy if the first product is too expensive. Chicken is a substitute for beef. If you're a chicken farmer and the price of beef goes up, the people will want more chicken, and you will sell more.
A complement is a product that you usually buy together with another product. Gas and cars are complements. Computer hardware is a classic complement of computer operating systems...
All else being equal, demand for a product increases when the prices of its complements decrease... why don't the video chip vendors of the world try to commoditize the games, somehow? That' s a lot harder. If the game Halo is selling like crazy, it doesn't really have any substitutes. You're not going to go to the movie theatre to see Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and decide instead that you would be satisfied with a Woody Allen movie. They may both be great movies, but they're not perfect substitutes. Now: who would you rather be, a game publisher or a video chip vendor?
Now that the cheapest hardware out there is ridiculously capable, of course Steam wants you to throw a free OS on there and turn it into a Steam appliance. Which can also browse the web, play videos, send emails, make Skype calls, etc etc etc.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I'm sure this is common knowledge to many of us, but Linux platforms (including game platforms) are not really all that uncommon. Many posts I'm reading on here--the general tone of the discussion--seems to regard a Linux console as an unusual or extraordinary thing.
OK, we well all know that gaming existed in some form on Linux since the beginning. In fact, I'm a little bit impressed by the number of computer games that have been commercially released for Linux in the past two decades, not to mention games that have been cloned, ported, or otherwise created in open source fashion. We've had commercial video card support for ever, and decent APIs to work with... but what about platforms?
We've had platforms too. In fact, my first Linux console was the GP2X, which I purchased upon release in 2005 (7 years ago!). Granted, it wasn't that great of a platform, but it was something. I played Cave Story on it from start to finish, and it was the best gaming experience I had had since I was an adolescent.
However, if you really want to talk about Linux gaming platforms, look no further than Android. We have scores of Android devices in the wild (probably hundreds by now), and they come with all the hardware and software support you can ask for. In fact, I was a little bit surprised just how many games--most of them commercial--have been written natively for Android, and they're not even all casual. I would take issue with anyone who doesn't consider Android to be one of the main gaming platforms today.
So, a Linux gaming console is really not that crazy of an idea. As other people have pointed out, it really doesn't matter that much what OS your console runs... games are not particularly OS-oriented applications. I'm all for free software--I use the stuff all the time, but I still play games on my PS3. Sure, I can't tinker with my PS3 games much or the platform they run on, but if developing open source games were really my thing, Linux is right here on my PC ready and waiting.
The expensive high-tech toy has to hit retail shelves no later then mid-October.
You must make your Black Friday targets because sales will tank after New Year's Day. That means the Steam console is at least a year off, if it materializes at all.
Steam has been a great success in PC gaming --- but console gaming is a very different world. More couch-casual and couch-social. You are most likely to be playing cooperatively or competitively with friends and family in your own living room then engaging with anonymous online partners or opponents.
Making your mark in hardware sales can burn through mountains of cash in no time flat with very little to show for it.
It takes guts to stay the course,
People still use Steam?
As of this second, three million, two hundred and fifty-four thousand, seven hundred and seventy-three Steam users are online. They've peaked over five million. So yes, a lot of people "still" use Steam.
Always late with patches.
Can you give a citation there? I've never noticed them be particularly late to patch a game - in fact, they seem to do so faster than PSN/XBox Live. It probably does vary quite a bit depending on the game, though.
Their wrapper often breaks games or adds instability.
Another citation, if you would, please? I've only noticed that (rarely) with the Steam Overlay, which is easily disabled (both globally and on a per-game basis). And even then, all it did for me was kick me off some BF2 servers as a "cheat".
Customer service is non-existent.
While I haven't personally ever needed to speak to them, the reputation of Steam's customer service seems to have improved greatly over the years. I know back around 2006 or so they had a horrible reputation, but it's been years since I heard any complaints (a sharp contrast to Origin or Blizzard, in particular).
Yeah no there are plenty of other options for buying/downloading legitimate games online.
And you're welcome to use them. But how many of them are even thinking about Linux support?
Good luck with the linux project. I want nothing to do with Steam.
And you felt the need to shout that out for everyone to hear? Makes me wonder if you ever actually used it.
Why do people care what the OS of a Valve game console
1) Microsoft - Because they hate gamers. Halo 4 on PC Nope, Backtracked on Over 18 Games.
2) Cross Platform - No more Direct X lock-in MAC; Linux; Android; iOS gamers rejoice, with more games
3) Linux [Android] Ecosystem benefits - Drivers; Developers; Optimised for Games...not servers...not phones.
4) Linux Development environment - Free; Massive Support; Massive software library.
why will major developers want to support it?
Why won't they want to support it? Seriously The constant stories of Microsoft treating developers like shit. Steam is a brand...and a developer in its own right. Hardware costs have dropped to disposable costs. Has developers contacts...and well Linux duh! The reality is Gaming has become cross platform...and not xbox - windows PC more Android - iOS and a Linux console is a better fit than any of the current consoles...ironically other than the Ouya ;)
In a perfect world Microsoft would not exist, or where a different company.
But the Microsoft that exist fight standards, and create propietery protocols or closed programs, and created huge dependencies for these, so people with one of his programs must buy the others. Microsoft fiery defend other companies, but not on quality, but on poisoning the well.
OpenGL was one of the key pieces to code a game once, and play it everywhere, and Microsoft succefully made it secondary with Direct3D. It has continued fighting all standards, to destroy them, and in games have a unmitigated success. Games are a world of Microsoft libraries, and game dev's don't know how to build games withouth these libraries, and the games created don't withouth these libraries (or libraries that emulated them).
At this point Microsoft is a cerebral parasite, and removing it would kill the host.
-Woof woof woof!
A lack of multitasking in 2012 is a bit of a drawback, and speed issues are a bit of a problem on even relatively fast hardware like the Jetbook Color. On something where response time is a selling point you don't want something that looks like it hasn't been updated since 1998.
net based games, theres udp traffic.
many players at once, theres bluetooth controller traffic.
background downloading = more os tasks
plus because its linux, you can develop your games on a real pc too with nvidia hardware i guess.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Technically, FreeBSD is a better choice than Linux in this case.
No No its not.
I'm not really sure what your post has to do with mine. I long since came to the conclusion that the only people left who support BSD, are Apple users, who profits from the one way take, and love the richest corporation on earth doing the same again. Having a quick scan of your posts confirms this sad fact again.
The reality is Linux is stellar product, technically brilliant, and has numerous contributions from its own mega corporations, with a great lead...regardless of the license its under. I see your trying to push some kind of OsX agenda!? which is kind of sad considering how Apple could have got behind cross platform gaming and OpenGL...and have done nothing.
I have no problem with Apple taking from BSD. Although Apple fanatics pretending to be BSD advocates I always find a little sickening, especially considering the reasons behind the BSD license.
Please, yes yes yes ! An EA console please! Oh my Dog, it would get all their titles as exclusives, so much easier not to buy from them that way.