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Valve Announces Hardware Beta Test For 'Steam Machine'
Valve's second major living-room-gaming announcement landed today: they have produced a prototype model of their first "Steam Machine." They've made 300 units, and they'll be sending the machines to users in a very limited beta test. Valve hastens to add that this device isn't the only Steam-focused hardware: "Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS." They haven't released specs, but they guaranteed the prototypes will ship this year. They explicitly permit using it in any way — swapping parts, changing the OS, installing any software, etc. "The specific machine we're testing is designed for users who want the most control possible over their hardware. Other boxes will optimize for size, price, quietness, or other factors."
From the Questions section, they say you can hack it as you like, change the OS, change the hardware, and that the SteamOS source code will be available.
It'll only steam, not vacuum.
The OS is open source. If you want Netfix, you can add it yourself if you're motivated enough.
Otherwise, just make a large enough demand and the company themselves will put one out im sure. I view this thing as a gamechanger, a console system that is upgradeable like a PC? Geez I might even consider one.
Netflix is not opensource. So porting it is not possible. I could use the wine stuff, but that has performance issues.
Neflix is owned by someone who sat/sits on MS's board and seems to have no interest in proper linux support.
Valve's second major living-room-gaming announcement...
...so we're done now, I guess. Next they'll move on to a pair of kitchen-gaming announcements, and maybe a hallway-outside-the-living-room-gaming announcement just to keep the hype up, but interest will wane, anyway... until the upstairs-bedroom-by-the-window-gaming announcement, which will bring back hopes for a third living-room-gaming announcement, and Valve will see the pressure, and release a backyard-gaming announcement.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Why is this a gamechanger? We already had a videogame playing system that was upgradeable like a PC. It's called "A PC."
I do trust Valve, but the parent brings up an important point.
The difference between a PC and a console isn't hardware, it's about control. The hardware and interfaces will all change over time, but the real distinction is who gets to say what happens on the platform. For PCs, users control the environment. For consoles, a company is controlling the environment. There are benefits to users owning the environment, and benefits to a company controlling the environment.
The SteamMachine appears to be a weird hybrid between the two ends of the spectrum, and seems to be giving up the most significant advantages of both ends unless this starts to drive some major changes in game development.
The thing about discussing good vs evil, even "lesser of evils" is it necessarily separates things into black and white. This is not really useful for me in a world of greys. Is there a "good" alternative you know of? Because if not, then "the least of evils" should just be redefined as "good."
GOG and other DRM free sites are fine, but they're not really in the same category for most games.
Give me a gaming kernel replacement (kind of like the real time kernel) in a general purpose OS that I remain in control of and that doesn't spy on me and I'll be a cheerleader. But this thing will do all the same old same old such as spy on me, try to control what I can and can't do on my own machine, try to lock my content, impose artificial limits that I have to buy back etc. etc. etc.
I don't see how any of the complaints you have apply to SteamOS or the Steam machines. In fact, they're giving you what you want. From Valve:
Will I be able to build my own box to run SteamOS?
Yes.
Can I hack this box? Run another OS? Change the hardware? Install my own software? Use it to build a robot?
Sure.
Can I download the OS to try it out?
You will be able to download it (including the source code, if you're into that) but not yet.
So, from what I can tell, they've taken a general purpose OS and fine-tuned some aspects of it for gaming, they're open sourcing it so that you can make your own hacks to it if you want, the hardware for this box will be general purpose stuff that you can hack on to your heart's content, and Valve has no history of engaging in the sorts of artificial limits that you're talking about.
Really, it sounds like your complaints are aimed at Steam (the app, not the OS) and its DRM, which is an entirely separate issue. I don't know why you started talking about kernels and other such things when the OS and machine are as near as I can tell exactly what you described that you wanted.
Think carefully about those statements. Here are some possible consequences of SteamMachine:
Failure - Status quo is maintained.
Success (even moderate success) - LINUX Gains a huge user base dedicated to gaming. The calculus of game developers and publishers with regards to LINUX development and Linux ports does a complete 180. Native support for LINUX games becomes something publishers might actually consider as worthwhile instead of "WTF is LINUX?".
Success and Valve turns evil - Games will be made to natively support LINUX so they run on the Steam console hardware platform of the day. DRM can and will be circumvented as always, but now they'll run on LINUX instead of Windows.
One word: Convenience.
How many people have bought Rokus or Tivos when they could just hook up a PC to their TV, install the right hardware, install the right software (Browser, Silverlight, MythTV) and get the same thing? Convenience.
The lack of convenience is what has been driving people away from PC gaming to the consoles. Why mess with drivers, OS updates, incompatibilities, updating your anti-virus, etc when you can just plop a game disk into your playstation or xbox and just enjoy the game.
Now if you already have a PC with steam installed, then you're not the main targeted demographic for SteamOS and/or the Steam Machines. Valve is (rightfully so) looking at all the peoples with wads of cash beating on the doors of Sony and Microsoft and asking themselves "What can we do to bring these people back to PC gaming?"
So now the consumers have another choice. The easy to use XBOX, Playstation, or pre-configured and ready to go Steam Machine by (Dell, Gateway, Alienware, HP). Just take it home, plug it into your tv, insert credit card, acquire games.
Already have the PC hardware? Get SteamOS and install it (or dual boot with your favorite OS) to get a similar experience. Want to leave the gaming rig upstairs while you chill on the couch? Get a smaller Steam Machine and stream your workhorse to your TV.
Their slogan should be: "Shh... No tears, only games"
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
One of the benefits of traditional consoles is the (relative) lack of the kind of hardware fragmentation that can cause errors, glitches, and performance drops....Will it be up to standards adherence and vigilant devs to make sure hardware fragmentation doesn't get out of hand? Or is there some magic bullet that Valve has discovered?
Or are we looking at the worst of both worlds, with broken games that you can't fix?
My guess...as in GUESS, as in Gabe hasn't discussed with me over a game of Xcom...is that it will likely be closer to an AutoCAD kind of situation. AutoCAD gives a short list of Quadro and FirePro cards that are 'Certified'. They are stupidly more expensive than other cards...but if you have a support contract with AutoCAD and you say that there's a video bug, they will (in theory) work with you to get to the bottom of it, because those cards are thoroughly tested with the software.
What seems to make sense in this case is to have a Steam Machine that can have different modules like a PC, but in a much more simplified manner, like a console. You may not have a GeForce 790GTX contingent on a 1KW power supply and a compatible motherboard...you'll have all the Steam Machines shipping with baseline hardware and modularized core components. You'd be able to get a "level 2 GPU", "level 2 RAM", "level 2 SSD", and a "level 2 processor", and next year they'll have "level 3" versions, and so on. Driver updates can be a non-issue because they can be baked into the SteamOS patches; since they know what the modules will be, they can easily have the drivers ready without a problem.
It *can* be the best of both worlds if it ends up being "limited choice". Being able to throw any old GPU from Newegg into the Steam Machine will be a mess, but being able to have different combinations of hardware levels in the same box can still provide some degree of choice while keeping a level of consistency that will be in line with the advantages of traditional consoles.