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What Valve's Announcements Mean for Gaming
Now that we have the full picture of Valve's efforts to bring PC gaming to the living room (SteamOS, dedicated hardware, and a fresh controller design), people are starting to analyze what those efforts will mean for gaming, and what Valve must do to be successful. Eurogamer's Oli Welsh points out that even if Steam Machines aren't able to take the market away from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, they put us a step closer to the final console generation. "Valve has hopefully sidestepped the most depressing aspect of console gaming: the enforced obsolescence that makes you consign your entire games collection to a dusty cupboard every five years." GamesRadar notes that Valve's approach is fundamentally different from that of the current console manufacturers because it's about putting more power into the hands of the users. "The takeaway from SteamOS, then, is that openness breeds innovation. Valve's putting the very source code of its operating system in the hands of everyone who wants it just to see what happens. Comparatively, Microsoft is pushing its Windows Store, turning Windows into an increasingly closed platform (i.e. one that charges costly development licensing fees and restricts access to certain content providers)." Everyone's curious to see how the controller will perform, so Gamasutra and Kotaku reached out to a number of game developers who have experimented with prototypes already. "[Dan Tabar of indie studio Data Realms] said the configuration map for the controller allows you to do 'pretty much anything.' For example, developers can slice up a pad into quarters, each one representing a different input, or even into eight radial sections, again, each section representing whatever you want, mapping to key combinations, or to the mouse." Tommy Refenes, co-creator of Super Meat Boy, wrote an in-depth description of his experience with the device. He summed up his reaction by saying, "Great Start, needs some improvements, but I could play any game I wanted with it just fine."
Or more likely, another back-end for your engine of choice.
As a PC gamer who has been waiting for HL3 for many years, I couldn't give a rat's ass about these announcements.
I was under the impression that engines that already support OpenGL won't need too much modification. SteamOS is just a desktop Linux distribution bundled with the Steam client in Big Picture mode. This means it uses the same video drivers and the same APIs as desktop Linux. The only engines that would need extensive modification are the ones that target only Windows and Xbox 360, as the other gaming platforms use OpenGL or something very much like it.
Gabe and Valve keep talking about innovation but it's now been nearly 3 years since they floated the piston box prototype and with this new announcement we'll be waiting for another prototype in spring 2014. Exactly how long does it take to build a special purpose PC? That is all this Steam Machine is after all, correct?
The last time I paid attention to what Valve had to say it was Gabe back in 2010 or so talking about how with the Steam platform they would be delivering small incremental updates to Half-Life 2 instead of the "lengthy" episodes or even longer Half-Life 3 box sequels. Sorry Gabe, but 2014 is around the corner meaning it's been 7 years since Half-Life 2 Episode 2. You want the industry to follow your company's lead with Steam and games on demand type development then please lead by example.
Talk about dated . . . hello - the world is mobile now.
Good luck making good controls for a platformer on mobile. And good luck playing multiplayer with someone who can't afford upwards of $600 per device per year for a smartphone voice and data plan.
What the hell are you talking about. Contrary to the Verizon commercials, people aren't watching movies on their phones in subways or coffee shops. They're scarcely watching them in theaters either. Where, then, are they watching them? In ... *cough* the.. ah... LIVING ROOM. Yeah, and people still game there too.
sig: sauer
I have no faith that games as decent as Oblivion, Fallout3, Mass Effect (all) were, will ever be as fun on a PADD as they are on my PC.
I'd much rather see the headline "pro-gamers get their hands on the steam controller and approve" than anything else. Especially any that use the claw or hammer grips (aka keeping a finger on the a b x y buttons at all times). Game developers aren't necessarily known for being good at their games.
The living room died so many decades ago, and so many cultures that game don't know what that is,
More houses have a living room than bedrooms — in some cultures, they only have one room, and everyone lives in it. Of course, most of those cultures don't have game consoles. However, you may note that many people do in fact have living rooms or their equivalent, and they seem to still be buying consoles and console games. Otherwise it would have been tough for GTAV to smash all previous sales records.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Good for you. I'll now go back to watching Dr. Who via Netflix, on my Xbox 360, on my big TV screen. Oh and get off my lawn.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
This is another company using open platforms, and standards, to sell their services. We've already seen this work extraordinarily well with Android, and being that Steam is already the largest online repository for games, I see this working out well for Valve.
This is a fantastic leap forward for gaming and open standards. Unfortunately Microsoft is just barely figuring out how to poorly copy the declining success of the Apple model... looks like they'll have to play catch up again.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
This. I'm most curious as to how this would work with the typical dual-stick layout of a first person shooter. How would something like Battlefield work, where there is also semi-extensive use of ABXY buttons? Having to take your thumb off the pad to push those seems like a possibly significant problem.
Thank you, but i spend all my day at work... where of course, i can't play...
traveling home, i'm driving... so i can't also play
at home, i'm in the couch relaxing... i can play some games in a tablet (not a small phone, forget that) or in the big screen. As most tablet games are simple, if i wan't a more rewarding game i must go the the PC (with linux)... or i can play directly on the TV. Valve helped in both solutions.
Mobile is for kids and teenagers, all rest prefer the office or the couch
Higuita
I think Valve's target audience are the console gamers that can't be bothered to build a gaming rig. I know quite a few of them from work. They're intimidated with using a keyboard and mouse for gaming.
I'm not really interested with trying to play 99% of my library on the "big screen". There's really no benefit to bringing the remaining 1% to the TV as they play just fine with what I already have.
I'm not their target audience.
Consoles have digital restrictions management too, as they use cryptography to ensure that there's no endorsed way to load a game that hasn't been greenlit by the console maker. True, the major console makers have eased up on their developer qualifications for this eighth generation in the face of competition from OUYA and Apple's App Store and Google Play Store. But as I understand the SteamOS reveal, you'll still be able to add games that haven't been greenlit by Valve to your library.
traveling home, i'm driving... so i can't also play
That depends on what city you choose to live in. Some cities have high-quality public transit, allowing use of games designed for mobile platforms such as PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, iPhone, and Android.
SteamOS has one MASSIVE problem- performance in AAA gaming. SteamOS (at this time) can only offer the horribly broken/inappropriate OpenGL and OpenGL ES family of drivers/APIs. The OpenGL family, as well as being only somewhat similar to DirectX, varies in performance to extremes when considering revisions of GPU hardware from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. It is a dirty little secret that these three hardware companies only want to create 'good' OpenGL drivers for their latest GPU designs, often disowning parts that are only a few years old (Intel, for instance, is NEVER going to have good drivers for the Atom chips that use PowerVR GPU cores).
Now, when it comes to 'casual' games, most new GPU parts have so much power, they are overkill for such titles, and can deliver good gaming performance even with appalling inefficiencies in the drivers. Hoverer, even casual games are starting to leverage the excellent deals AAA engine companies offer developers who use their products in modest (saleswise) applications.
The bottom line is that SteamOS needs to have next-gen console ambitions. It needs (in the better Steam boxes) to desire to compete with the Xbone and PS4. There is only ONE way this can happen- by complete adoption of AMD's Mantle driver/API on SteamOS. Unlike DirectX, Mantle is OS agnostic. Mantle (or something very like it) will be the low level API for all development on the Xbone and PS4 (both of which have 2014+ PC-like architectures).
Mantle requires the computer (be it console or 'desktop') to use x86 CPU cores, and AMD's GCN GPU cores. GCN can be thought of as an ISA (instruction set architecture) like x86 or PowerPC or ARM or MIPS. Take the x86. The internals of the CPU changed massively from 386 -> 486 -> Pentium -> Pentium Pro/Pentium 2 -> Pentium 3 -> Pentium 4, BUT the 32-bit x86 ISA remained the same. AMD will likewise update the internals of their GPUs generation on generation, but the GCN ISA will remain.
Mantle allows developers to talk to the computing units of the GPU directly, something OpenGL and DirectX can NEVER, EVER do. Therefore, in future situations, Mantle may be 10x+ more efficient at KEY rendering tasts than OpenGL/DirectX- an advantage no next-gen AAA console developer would dream of ignoring. Most AAA games will originate for the console market, and will NEED Mantle to allow ports to PC like platforms, including Steam Boxes.
Mantle solves the issues of lousy/untrustworthy/problematic graphics drivers on Linux in one simply, incredibly price efficient act. The fact that it locks one vendor in (AMD) and one important vendor out (Nvidia) is an issue, but Nvidia is essentially copying AMD's fundamental approach to the GPU in their 2014 GPU designs, and could possibly come to an arrangement to make their parts GCN 'compatible' (like how AMD makes x86 CPUs compatible with those made by Intel).
Anyway, if SteamOS adopts Mantle for AAA, and OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenGL ES3.0 for more casual games, there is no reason Valve can't have a fantastic success with this project. Following the Microsoft path on the other hand (forcing extraordinary hardware overkill to merely maintain 'parity' with the next-gen consoles) will doom SteamOS.
I've watched a bunch of stuff (indie-game the movie, Interviews, ext.) with Tommy Refenes and Honestly if I trust anyone's opinion on input it's him. Doesn't mean he couldn't be wrong but if he says it works well that's a pretty good sign to me.
I would how many people would, though, if one movie didn't use over half of their monthly bandwidth limit.
The modular piston model computer made by Xi3 is in no way affiliated with Valve. It was a sly sham. Valve was in talks with Xi3 to see what could be done, but stopped associating with the company, and shortly thereafter Xi3 started promoting the Piston and accepting preorders.
They used some meetings as the impetus to declare that their prototype product was Valve's creation and websites at it all up.
I'm sure more people would if they had more data to use.
I wish Valve would start announcing new games. This console infatuation is getting annoying.
They're sending out controllers as part of the Steam Box beta. The participants are pulled from Steam users who volunteer and jump through a few hoops, so we'll no doubt see reviews from outside gamers very soon.
Visit the
Nice, due to this we'll have Samsung and Huawei games consoles. Give it all away.
It's fairly obvious that SteamOS and its hardware is leading up to cloud gaming. They might support streaming from a PC as well in the short term but that's a side effect of where they are heading. I expect that when they finally out themselves that many existing titles will be instantly playable through the cloud if someone has already bought them. Not sure what they'd do for things like DLC though.
> Contrary to the Verizon commercials, people aren't watching movies on their phones in subways or coffee shops.
I live in Finland, and watch stuff on Netflix with my Galaxy S3 almost everyday when commuting to/from work - I have a 21MBit max. connection which costs about 13 euros a month, with unlimited transfer. It's a regular pretty deal here.
What I see is less power in the hands of users as all games become subscription and "early access." The developer is freed from its obligation to ever provide a finished product that actually belongs to the user, rather than being leased or sold "on spec"
I'd much rather see the headline "pro-gamers get their hands on the steam controller and approve" than anything else.
If the Steam OS is PC gaming for the living room, then the controller needs to be designed for the gamers who inhabit the living room. Lots of families playing there. Lots of casual and social gamers playing there. The prod not so much.
By "making controls", do you mean as the game's designer or the hardware's designer? I mean, there are controllers for mobiles
The former. Game developers can't rely on the end user to buy a $39.99 controller for a $2.99 game. This means games in genres that don't adapt well to a flat sheet of glass get the shaft on mobile.
and even a few mobiles with proper game buttons [such as the iReadyGo Much i5]
Bringing your own phone is decidedly not the custom in the United States and Canada, which comprise a supermajority of the English-speaking industrialized market. This particular phone supports "WCDMA" (that is, UMTS) only on 850 MHz and 2100 MHz bands, not the 1700 MHz that T-Mobile USA uses for 3G in many of its markets. That leaves AT&T, which offers no discount for bringing your own phone. Besides, even in countries with a saner wireless market, game developers still can't rely on the end user to switch phone models for a $2.99 game. Otherwise, Sony's Xperia Play would be more widespread.
Dude, that shit you mentioned happened 25 years ago.
That doesn't make needing a gimmick to break into the market any less true now than decades ago. As Mark Twain pointed out: "It is not worth while to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible."
That's ridiculous. You're saying that houses with a single room have a living room but NOT a bedroom? The single room serves the both purpouses, and most likely, won't have living-room furniture due to space constraints (My single-room flat is a clear example of that).
"Microsoft is pushing its Windows Store, turning Windows into an increasingly closed platform (i.e. one that charges costly development licensing fees and restricts access to certain content providers)"
Cannot find a citation for this. Because it is it simply not true. I speak as a software developer publishing software on Windows.
I think it's a mistake to use the Steam name to define the open platform they want to drive, as it is the same name as their product so other companies may be reluctant to go as it would be free advertising for your opponent. SteamOS, SteamBox, SteamController...
What would have happened if Android had been called Google?
If it's the room that you do your living in, i.e. in which you spend your casual waking at-home time, then the furniture in it is definitively living room furniture. You might spend all of your time out and only come home to sleep though in which case, fair enough, no living room and no living room furniture.
Except that mobile gaming is a completely different beast from living room or PC gaming. Mobile gaming is about quick bites, simple controls, and shallow gameplay (this isn't a bad thing, per se). Mobile gaming is casual, by default. Its hard to get into an epic RPG while on the bus, or in the dentist's office. If I'm going to play something like Skyrim, I'm going to do it in a comfy chair, on a good screen, with mature controls.
Tethering a controller to your phone or tab is counterproductive, since you "un-mobiled" mobile gaming, by forcing someone to carry around a controller as well as their device.
Mobile isn't replacing anything, I wish that fallacy would die. Mobile is supplementing a certain part of traditional markets, but it isn't replacing the core of those markets. Looking at console and traditional game sales back this up, they aren't slowing down in relation to rise in mobile device sales. Nor will they, since they fill a very different niche than traditional consoles and PCs for gaming.
Same with the stupid trope that mobile will magically kill traditional PCs... This is said by people who never used their PC for anything more serious than email and light web browsing. There is very little in my daily computer tasks that can be moved to mobile, outside of light email and web duties. Sure, this is a gap MS is targeting (badly) with the Surface Pro, but suddenly we're not talking mobile anymore, but a traditional laptop with a floppy keyboard and optional touch controls. And still it isn't going to be as good as my large screen for most tasks.
The living room died so many decades ago
I'm now picturing a family of four huddled in their backyard streaming watching movies on a 10" tablet. I feel kind of bad for them, since they could be inside, sitting in their living room watching it on an increasingly affordable giant HDTV.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Valve took our OS, improved it, and is going to give it back. It's the Open Source way.
However, there are still a bunch of propriety extensions in SteamOS. But at least with Valve's effort non-Steam users will also benefit.
I think bfandreas's premise was supposed to be that a significant fraction of mobile gamers are likely to already own a PlayStation 3 console and the controller that was bundled with it. Support in Android games for the Dual Shock 3 will satisfy PS3 owners but not people who own an Xbox 360 (which uses proprietary RF instead of Bluetooth) or a Wii (whose remote Google broke in Android 4.2) instead of a PS3.
You may find that while the US and Canada are not the market majority when it comes to mobile computing.
I was under the impression that US and Canada put together were bigger than GB, Ireland, Australia, and NZ put together. Otherwise, you have to translate your game into multiple languages and hire voice actors in each language.
Asia will in fact be the biggest market.
Which Asian countries? Each seems to speak a different language. The only language that "Asia" has in common with Western Europe and the Americas is English in India. Is wireless coverage in India that much better than in Indiana?
Also I didn't have to buy a controller for my tablet since my PS3 controller connects to it via Bluetooth.
You had to buy a PS3 controller, but I see your point: those can be found cheap on eBay now.
No, the only thing this means is that they're still not working on Half-Life 3.
this is my sig
The dev behind Super Meat Boy (comically difficult side scroller with a cult following) put up a nice synopsis of his experience testing the controller:
http://tommyrefenes.tumblr.com/post/62476523677/my-time-with-the-steam-controller
Pretty good review for a 3d-printed prototype. Importantly, it seems like it's not fundamentally flawed, and the touchpad based control system works fine in practice.
So in summary, despite the terrible digital pad and stiff, domed buttons, he still prefers the 360 pad? One of the "minor" problems with this new controller is that "your thumbs need tactile contact in order to accurately know what button you are pressing", but this controller doesn't even have this "advanced" feature, so you don't know which button you're pressing!?!?!? Isn't that like the most fundamental feature of an input device??? Wow, this Valve controller sounds great... I personally just don't understand how old consoles like the SNES, Genesis, even the NES had MUCH better digital pads than modern consoles - I'm not sure if they're trying to intentionally cripple them to encourage 3D games over 2D or what.
Apparently the guy who made super meat boy got to use it and has detailed his experience. Have you read it? It answers a lot of my questions and put my fears to rest.
:P
Or are you waiting for fata1ity's review?
This might be a local term, but what do other places call a 1BR-1BA apartment?
This might be a local term, but what do other places call a 1BR-1BA apartment?
If that's all that's in it, and the "kitchen" is part of the bedroom, then it's a studio. But I had a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom 600 sq-ft. apartment in Austin with a living room with a semi-separate kitchen. The toilet and shower were in a closet more or less, the sink was in the bedroom, and there was a washer-dryer stack in a literal closet with hookups in. I was happy to pay $600/mo for it since it was five minutes' walk from work. People asked me if I was crazy to pay so much. I explained that I was from California, where $600/mo gets you half a house in shitsville, a room in most towns, or half a room in a big city like SF.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And it's why SteamOS I think, doesn't really have a huge draw towards it. Yea on Slashdot it will -- Linux OS made for gaming? What's not to love? But in reality PC gamers prefer the mouse/keyboard combo to play their games, and taking games that work *perfectly fine* in Windows and putting them into a dedicated box to play with a controller (which I still think won't work as well as KB/M) doesn't really have any allure to most 'mainstream' (ie, not technical -- just give me my goddamn game and let me play) type of gamers.
The only way SteamOS and Steamboxes take off, is if there are SteamOS EXCLUSIVES. That's why people choose Xbox vs PS, because of exclusives in many cases (though now the argument can be made for the achiements, friends list, etc). And while Valve might be crazy enough to release Half Life 3 as a SteamOS exclusive, I don't think all the other development companies out there are going to do that. Steam will still work on Windows *just fine*. It will continue to have a "big picture" mode that if you are so inclined, will work *just fine*. So why would you want another box to do something you can already do just fine?
I don't get the allure -- but that's just me because not all of my games are on Steam, and by going to a SteamBox I would actually have less options and games available to me (and often, with worse FPS and performance since not all my games are Valve games and would presumably be a Wine port or something like it), than I would than sticking to Windows.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
This is it in a nutshell. You can be as open source as you want, but without the games having a native linux port your not going to get the users you need. It's a terrible chicken and the egg problem (you need users to get developers, and you need developers to get users) valve has a head start because they have a good image, but it'll take more than that. For valve to succeed it will all be about making it as easy as possible to develop for the platform (if you take the cost of development down, you need less users to justify it). Which has hopefully all been made easier with AMD and Nvidia being more open, and the latest consoles being x86.
Rocket Surgeon.
If you read the review properly you'd know that the controller he tested (unlike the pictures Valve showed us) didn't have the ridges on the touchpads that give tactile feedback on where your thumbs are placed. And he said he prefers the 360 controller purely based on his 1000s of hours experience playing games on it, and it wouldn't actually be a bad thing if all the other controllers disappeared and this was the only option for games. For a review of a prototype that is still being refined, that is actually pretty good, especially from someone who confesses they are really picky about controls and controllers.
Or developers wishing to target these devices could make sure their games work perfectly in Wine. That's the goal of Cider on OS X, for example. If a program is developed with Wine as a first-class citizen, how is it not just as "native" as a Qt program running on a Gtk+ distribution?
You have to deal with different threading, file-system, audio, controller and networking APIs
Threading I'll give you, though C++11 is supposed to take a step toward fixing this. Audio and controller appear to be handled by SDL or Allegro. Networking is why Windows copied the BSD sockets API to make Winsock in the first place. As for file system, there are plenty of thin wrappers that run on Windows and expose rough equivalents of POSIX APIs such as opendir() and the like. Could you explain in more detail?
then Linux really has won. Game consoles are the last piece of customer devices casually used where Linux has not a strong foothold
-e book readers: most based on linux
-all sony entertainment equipment like cameras, television etc (PS3 excluded): Linux
-most medium to high end media players:linux (exclude ipod)
-most phones (except feature phones and iphones): Linux
-netbooks for consumers: chrombook share seems to explode
The last bastion where Linux never got any foothold were all things related to gaming. If steam now makes a "reference design" for a linux based gaming machine, that could settle some battles at ones. This has the potential to kill the PS4 and the XBOX, since every cheap chinese manufacturer can clone the thing. And like android the marketplace will be the cash-cow holding this together.
Do you honestly think Microsoft couldn't make a case against Wine if they needed to?
Microsoft could make a case against Wine in the sense that Oracle could make a case against Android: a losing one.
People have bandwidth limits?
How quiant.
/M
The Steam Machine is not replacing desktop PC gaming, nor traditional consoles. It's in between.
They are providing a controlling that tries to bridge the gap between accuracy of the keyboard/mouse with the "sit back on your sofa" convenience of a pad - and remaining compatible with games that are designed for either. A seemingly impossible task. They haven't just whipped out a wireless keyboard and mouse mat that straps to your legs, or a remote control sized keyboard trying to squeeze 100 keys on it (if you play a 100 button game, use a keyboard!).
If you still want to use your desktop, you can!
If you still want to use your own controller, you can!
If you still want to use your keyboard + mouse, you can!
If you want to play PC based games on a larger screen sitting back on a sofa, you can!
Personally, I just don't feel right sitting at my desk with a pad in my hand, and I'm sick of disks - searching for them, cleaning them, having to leave the house (or wait for delivery) to purchase them. Sure, I "own" them and I could sell them, but I like keeping games because I'm forever going back to them months/years later when I feel the urge - plus I'd rather give my money to independent game developers who create playable games, than the buy-low-sell-high pre-owned game re-sellers.
I actually can't wait for this "console" to come out. Microsoft have ruined the gaming industry for me, and aren't stopping (may have u-turned on recent devastating plans, but then intention was still there).
It's about time someone who seems to actually care about gaming came and shook things up (with the added side effect of improving gaming on Linux, so we might have no reason so be stuck with Windows)
Just note that the ABXY buttons on the Steam Controller wouldn't be the ABXY you'd push on a 360 controller. There are 4 top buttons and 2 back buttons, as well as having the circlepads click.
Except that mobile gaming is a completely different beast from living room or PC gaming. Mobile gaming is about quick bites, simple controls, and shallow gameplay (this isn't a bad thing, per se). Mobile gaming is casual, by default. Its hard to get into an epic RPG while on the bus, or in the dentist's office. If I'm going to play something like Skyrim, I'm going to do it in a comfy chair, on a good screen, with mature controls.
I think you just explained that Nintendo DS could have never had any deep gaming, and especially no deep RPG, experiences. You are demonstrably wrong. Games on DS can be paused at any time by flipping the clamshell closed, they're also designed for "quick bites", you can even go read about it even. Then go for broke and read how this impossible device with impossible games has shattered sales records worldwide.
Mobile also has some deep gaming experiences, just because you've never bothered doesn't mean they don't exist.
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