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Gabe Newell Reveals More About Steam Boxes, New Input Devices
adeelarshad82 writes "Valve's presence at CES this year isn't to show off some new games, it's all about meeting with hardware manufacturers behind closed doors to talk about Steam Box. In an interview at CES which highlights Valve's plans for the console, Gabe Newell describes Steam Box as two projects. The first, codenamed Bigfoot, focuses on the hardware for use in the home with a TV. The second, codenamed Littlefoot, is investigating mobile gaming. Gabe goes on to discuss Valve plans on having three levels of Steam Box described as 'Good, Better, or Best' and expectations for the controller where the company wants something that's more high precision than anything else out there at the moment."
The interview at the Verge is pretty extensive.
Trust valve to be the first to be putting thought into this. If it’s truly a steam based console, I expect console players to be mixed in with pc players online. If that minor leap of gestimation is correct, they will need high precision controllers to stand any chance of not getting destroyed by much more proficient and accurate pc gamers with keyboards and mice. I will look forward to seeing how this developes.
Presumably that means higher precision than the current console controllers..
Dream come true: Half-Life 3 with a real crowbar controller!
A keyboard has no precision at all, it's either 1 or 0.
I can understand the approach.
A "good" console for casual gamers that want to play something like worms or farmville would be dirt cheap, a "Better" console for some single player RPG players that require a bit more power, or just can't afford/justify the high end, and a "best" console for the MMO(RPG/FPS) for people that need the best performance and think squeezing 5 FPS out of the hardware justifies a $200 difference. Each console would be priced for their respective group, a casual gamer isn't going to lay down $800 for a machine to play word games with their friends and someone in the MMO genera wouldn't even bother with something basically as powerful as a phone.
Others may just buy what they can afford.
... is the universal prognostication from producers and technical directors where I work. I'd personally love to see a Linux console succeed, but I just don't know if this is gonna work. I'd heard that the consoles are going to be priced in the neighborhood of $500 or more, and I fear they may price themselves out of the market for all but people who were planning on getting the console anyways simply for the sake of owning one. As an even worse side effect, if their device does not succeed, it might even have the consequence of steering future people away from the idea of trying to use Linux as a viable gaming platform ever again.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's nice to watch a company in that phase of its existence where it's still essentially "good", i.e. doing interesting things in a better way, just ramping up, and morally fairly neutral. If they get anywhere they'll inevitably metamorphose into rapacious consumer-o-phobes, but for the moment I wish them godspeed.
At the risk of feeding the troll...
First off it won't be competing against PCs. It's going to be competing against consoles.
Secondly... why not? You realize that under the hood most consoles are just small form factor PCs right? Have a look at the hardware in an XBox 360 or a Playstation 3 and things will look familiar.
Then add in the fact that console gaming isn't necessarily about just horsepower (look at the Wii). This product will be jumping into the arena with a tried and true digital distribution system already in place, which is one of the bigger remaining speed bumps in the console market. From TFA they're also looking at having tiered hardware, which is going to appeal to a lot of people.
I'm not saying you're wrong to be skeptical, but saying that it's because it can't compete with something it's not really competing with... well to use the old car analogy it's like saying, "That Nissan Leaf has some great innovation, but I remain skeptical that it can really rival the advantage of the raw horsepower and versatility of the F-150."
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
From the Verge article: "For example, Valve intends to make Steam Box a server, which can serve games on multiple TVs around the home simultaneously. So you could purchase a single Steam Box and use it with multiple controllers for playing games on the different TVs around your home." I'd like this very much please, thank you. If I could share games in a steam account within a household that would be awesome. Currently, when I'm logged in and playing Game X from the account then no one can play Game Y. That's not any different than with consoles but you can buy multiple consoles. Buying multiple consoles solves the problem completely. Having multiple steam accounts with games split across them doesn't. You aren't going to have a separate steam account for each game. And then you still can have the issue of two desired-at-the-moment games being on the same account. And constant account switching. This is not a major issue, but it would be a very-nice-to-have.
Valve, please, make a "companion cube"-styled Steam Box and take all our monies
Signed, the Internets
"So... Netflix on the Steam Box?" "Oh absolutely. You can fire up a web browser, you can do whatever you want."
Until Netflix runs in something other than silverlight, this isn't going to work the way Gabe seems to think it is.
Also, you can get "more horsepower" out of the same hardware in a console sense than a PC sense, because you can more readily optimize for that hardware.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Hopefully Ep3 will be worth the weight.
So if it's distributed digitally, it'll be worthless?
Considering a bit is the limit for how fine grained you can get on a computer
Actually, no. A bit is the smallest logical unit a modern computer can handle, but the more bits you use the more fine-grained you get, ie. a 1bit register can only represent on or off, whereas an 8bit register can register 256 different values. Ergo, your assessment is incorrect.
the keyboard is the most precise input device you could create....
Incorrect, see above.
Imagine gaming in binary.
That doesn't even make sense. Binary literally means a representation of two different values -- how do you game in a representation of two different values? Well, the answer is easy: you can't play a logical, numerical representation of a system with only two possible values. That's like saying "imagine gaming in biodiversity."
Depends on keyboard. PS/2 interface limitations are long gone in the age of USB keyboards, and this is mainly limited by the microcontroller used in the keyboard itself as well as how keys are linked to it.
For example, my G15 handles six simultaneous key presses. In some combinations it can handle even more, but six is what it's advertised for.
Not if you get a gaming keyboard. Most of the Razer models register 5+ key presses at a time.
just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand!
Where is my watch? My Alarm Clock? Oh, that's right, I don't use one. I use the general purpose computer in my pocket: A "Smart" Phone...
Once, not so long ago, Game machines were purely mechanical. Levers, knobs, gears, buttons and contractors shot balls through hoops or pucks into goals, etc. This meant that each Arcade Game's hardware was custom fit to the game itself. With the advent of digital games with integrated circuits it got cheaper to mass produce the games because you could install multiple different games onto the hardware, but memory constraints and controller configurations meant that the arcade cabinets only supported one game at a time.
As hardware got cheap enough the demand for digital games resulted in home gaming consoles. These early consoles weren't as powerful as the arcade machines, but they allowed one piece of hardware to run many different games. The console hardware was necessarily dedicated to gaming because it needed to be designed for speed: Consoles favored read-only cartridges for near instant data access speed vs slow magnetic media, and dedicated graphics systems with hardware collision detection over general purpose computing logic. The game consoles were less powerful than the arcade machines, but eventually they closed the gap.
As before with single game Arcade Cabinet hardware vs multi-game supporting hardware, the more general purpose game hardware became dominant; Thus, Consoles destroyed the Arcade market. PCs were even more general purpose that consoles, but as with the more powerful dedicated Arcade Cabinets vs weaker Consoles, the consoles held dominion in the game market. The circuitry in game consoles had become so generalized it was nearly indistinguishable from PCs. Some consoles even flirted with being both a Console and a general purpose PC (Atari PC), but their hardware optimizations for sprite collisions and scrolling kept them in in first place.
As the gap closed between PC and Game Console, the game consoles themselves became the exact same as a PC in hardware terms, even to the point of running PC OSs like a modified version of Windows, and Linux. At this point the PCs had eclipsed Game Consoles in terms of raw power. The PC's more general purpose design had been eroding all dedicated electronics, not just the game industry. Everything from, Televisions, set-top cable boxes, TV remotes, phones, had been installed with general purpose computing components. The future looked bleak for any dedicated circuitry, especially dedicated gaming hardware, as phones and tablet computers quickly approached and even surpassed the power of some gaming hardware (Wii).
We are at the end of the dedicated gaming hardware history, having caught up with the present. Vendor lock-in, DRM, and dedicated controllers have become the only differentiating features between general purpose computing and dedicated gaming hardware -- And console like controllers are now available for PCs (but the more general purpose keyboard and mouse aren't on consoles...), leaving only anti-features as "pros" in the console's corner. Console hardware cycles have slowed, unable to keep pace with the more rapidly improving mobile and desktop computing markets, they need to take more time to make the next leap because they know the console hardware is sub-par vs PCs even before the console is released (this wasn't always true in the past, however), and they can milk the console for the most money possible -- Much to the chagrin of hardcore gamers and developers alike who both want to play and make better games if only the hardware were better... Gamers continue to buy games for dedicated hardware made by entrenched publishers due to nostalgia, ease of install and availability only, everything else from exclusivity to DRM being ant-features. Meanwhile developers try ever harder to make cross platform titles so that all gamers can play their games. AAA studios, being forced to dumb down games because of the lowest common denominator (consoles
Where's the (-5 : Whiny shit) mod option?
Mass-market computer keyboards have binary keys. The microcontroller in the keyboard sends one code when a key is pressed and another when it is released. Unlike musical keyboards, and unlike PS2 and PS3 controllers, computer keyboards aren't sensitive to strike velocity or key pressure ("aftertouch"). To switch between W walking forward and running forward requires a "run button", just like on the NES and Super NES.
A bit is the smallest logical unit a modern computer can handle, but the more bits you use the more fine-grained you get, ie. a 1bit register can only represent on or off, whereas an 8bit register can register 256 different values. Ergo, your assessment is incorrect.
Alan Turing says I'm correct. Any 8bit register for example can be represented by a string of single bits. Your computer is a subset of a Turing machine, the fine grain control of which is a series of zeros and ones. Anything else is just an abstraction of this.
That doesn't even make sense. Binary literally means a representation of two different values
I'm sorry this confused you, I was using the computer scientist shorthand "binary" meaning "binary code." Since absolutely everything on a computer is just binary code, by typing in a string of binary commands you could be as precise as the processor's architecture can handle. This is about as pure CS as you can get.
There are no sales on console that come anywhere near Steam Sales. Its not even close. Rage for $5 on Xbox360, never happening.
Super Mario Bros. 3 for $5 on Wii, happening.
Sleeping Dogs for $16, forget it
"Player's Choice" series for $20 each, remember it
Weird, is this a Linux advocate whining about a device that lets users install a different OS on it?
And console like controllers are now available for PCs
But PC game developers can't depend on people owning controllers. One reason is that almost nobody appears to want to connect a PC to a television. The monitors that users end up connecting to PCs tend to be far smaller than, say, a living room TV, and they're not exactly big enough for two to four people to comfortably fit around.
(but the more general purpose keyboard and mouse aren't on consoles...)
Wii came with a Wii Remote, and Wii U comes with a Wii U GamePad. Both fulfill the same positional input role as a mouse.
leaving only anti-features as "pros" in the console's corner.
The other "pro" is that mass-produced consoles, unlike mass-produced PCs, come in cases designed to sit next to a TV monitor.
indie games can once again compete with them because they take more risks, run on more platforms (everyone with a console has a home PC, most have smart phones)
Just because someone has a home PC doesn't mean it's a gaming PC. Someone might have bought a PC with no video card, instead relying on Intel GMA (which, it is joked, stands for Graphics My Behind). Smartphones have the additional distinction of lacking physical buttons, putting them at a disadvantage for genres that involve making a character move, jump, and use a weapon, rather than selecting items on the screen.
I already HAVE a PC. Why would I buy another device just to play games?
Because your PC is tied to your desk, and you have one to three friends visiting who want to play a fighting game, party game, or cooperative platformer with you. Granted, this doesn't apply as much to loners who only play online with strangers.
Driver issues? They'll be ironed out by the market place if you stop babying the hardware MFGs and working around their bugs.
How can an indie PC game developer gain enough clout to pressure hardware manufacturers into fixing their bugs?
I could still load up Doom or Commander Keen, on my 368, 486, Pentium, Pentium 2/3/4 PC.
Would it run with sound on the operating system that shipped with Pentium III PCs (Windows 2000 or Windows Me) and Pentium 4 PCs (Windows XP)?
...why all the Linux talk when you are just going to enable people to Install Windows, which they will.
Hang on a cotton picking moment. One of the key principals of FOSS is that - it's your device and your software, and you should be free to do what you like to them. Locking down a person's device so that they can't install their own software on it is plain wrong, and Valve are sensible not to go that route. Would you prefer that their console was the new Tivo?
If I buy one, I'll relish that it has Linux on it. But one day, I may decide to wipe the Valve-selected version of Linux and put something else on there- my own version of Linux, or Android, or BSD, or whatever. And why shouldn't I be allowed to put Windows on it if I so choose? It is my device, right?
Valve selling consoles pre-loaded with Linux is still a huge deal, and a huge victory for the Linux community. Don't miss out on the potential party because you're bitter they're not leading some quixotic attack on Microsoft while they're at it.
A keyboard has no precision at all, it's either 1 or 0.
Dude. You need a new keyboard. Morse clickers went out a long time ago.
My keyboard has what - about 40 keys? And I know I can do combinations of at least 3 keys at once - but I don't know the full limit. Let's say it's 3, and any 3 at that.
That means my keyboard is capable of about 40^3 combinations. Hey - that looks like 64,000, which is closer to 2^16 than it is to 2^1.
Funny you mention 3 :)
3 just happens to be the number Valve is missing from all their keyboards.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Assuming a 30 percent retailer margin, the same that Apple currently takes in its App Store, a game might have sold for $26.95, or $61.82 in 2011 dollars. That's release-day AAA pricing, and I can understand how people would react to having bought absolute crap for that much money.
I was alive then you know, the minimum price of 2600 games before the crash was 29.95, most games at 39.95 with some being 49.95. So yes, games cost MORE back then and had less content and gameplay.
I imagine that gamers feel far less burned by a free trial than by what Atari 2600 games cost.
That's why demo discs and eventually demo downloads via PSN became commonplace.
That's why I contend that the entry barrier familiar from PlayStation and Nintendo consoles is no longer necessary to avoid another 1984.
You're wrong. They simply don't want every basement dweller who thinks he's the next Shigeru Miyamoto putting his unimaginative crap without a graphics person or music composer on their system. They want pro-level stuff. Sure in some cases these days it's small low budget phone games ported from phones by pro phone devs but it aint one guy in a basement. Sure IOS/Androidand XBLIG have lower barriers but have you SEEN the games....most of them aren't even up to PSone or PSP standards. It's a haven for two guys in a garage to release a ton of derivative me-too crap. And piracy is rampant!
Frankly I don't want you developing for Nintendo and Sony, unless you're part of a team, you're not ready. You may never be ready. You're too literalist, and you're stuck in the past.
While I want you to acheive your dream the barriers are there for a reason. that I mostly agree with.
What exactly caused the NES to beat the C64? Was it the price of the 1541 floppy disk drive?
Not specifically. When the crash of 84 hit, those who could afford it jumped ot the C64 (and other computers) but there were plenty who couldn't. (Remember, a full c64 system cost the dquivalent of a few thousand dollars) Those who couldn't either stopped playing or kept playing their what games they had.
Then the NES hit and it was cheaper than the C64, was easy to use, had controls with more than one button, and had sound and graphics either equal to or better than the C64. It also didn't have 2 minute and 45 second load times. NES cartridges could hold FAR more data than a 1541 disk and access it quicker.
That meant a bunch of C64 owners jumped back to consoles, leaving only those gamers who liked games that didn't exist on consoles at that time (mostly RPG's and strategy games. Those gamers eventually jumped to DOS because devlopers stopped doing C64 (and later on Amiga) ports of their games because of the EXTREMELY high piracy rate among C64 owners (especially in Europe where most of the big C64 pirate groups were based), who having spent a LOT of money for those days, didn't have much for games.
SSI, Origin, Micropose and others stopped doing C64 games because of piracy. DOS gamers, obviously having more money than 2600 gamers turned C64 gamers, didn't pirate so much back then. They were willing to pay $50 bucks for whatever flight sim or lets-fight-stalingrad/gettysburg-on-a-hex-map-again-for-the-bajillionth-time game came out. Course the PC gamer market isn't just bearded jane's book owning engineers playing flightsims and hex-wargames anymore, so there's more piracy from the more casual doom-boys and those that followed them
Yes, a keyboard for real programmers