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Dell Joins Steam Machine Initiative With Alienware System
MojoKid writes "Plenty of OEMs have lifted the veil on their planned Steam Machine products, but Dell really seems to want to break free of the pack with their Alienware-designed, small form factor machine that they unveiled at CES this week. It's surprisingly tiny, sleek and significantly smaller than the average game console, weighing only about 4 — 6 pounds fully configured. Dell had a prototype of the machine on hand that is mechanically exact, complete with IO ports and lighting accents. Dell also had a SteamOS-driven system running, though it was actually a modified Alienware system powering the action with Valve's innovative Steam Controller. In first-person shooters like Metro: Last Night that Dell was demonstrating, the left circular pad can be setup for panning and aiming in traditional AWSD fashion, while the right pad can be used for forward and back movement with triggers set up for firing and aiming down sights. You can, however, customize control bindings to your liking and share profiles and bindings with friends on the Steam network. What's notable about Dell's unveiling is that the Steam Machines initiative gained critical mass with a major OEM like Dell behind the product offering, in addition to the handful of boutique PC builders that have announced products thus far."
Can we stop putting unnecessary lights on everything, it's gotten tiresome.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Not to mention that Dell when they offer Linux with their server. Sometimes had a tendency to put it on hardware that Linux doesn't fully support.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Dell recommends Windows.
Prolly because Dell - estimate is all mine, YMMV - gets > 98% of its revenue stream from selling grey / black boxes to enterprises with deep pockets, NOT from peddling Alienware stuff.
True, I had an Alienware laptop once, and it was awesome. But still. I never met someone else with an Alienware box. And these are simply *too e x p e n s i v e * for being considered for anything resembling daily prodution use. So this is, quite probably, just muscle-flexing. The future will quite quickly tell us what this is really worth.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I don't know why WASD "won" (people say "AWSD"? Really?), but I've never played a game which had ESDF as the default. I've never even *heard* of a game which had a pre-configured option to use those keys. Not that I disagree with the advantages, however.
But back in my day, ZX*? was the standard.
ESDF was standard in Tribes and tribes 2, iirc.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
All this news about steam machines is great, but in the end they will compete with consoles, not with standard PCs.
Higher end of the console market + lower end of the specialist gaming PC market (which is Alienware's arena) sounds like a viable target market to me.
There's probably not enough details of these third party steam machines yet, but in principle they should be more customisable and expandable, with more up-to-date hardware than consoles. Also, (unless Dell et. al. break out the footgun and lock their boxes down), they can double as Linux PCs or dual-boot Windows if you really must.
Plus, there's the potential of a "single market" for content that covers Steam on Mac, Windows and regular Linux distros, commercial Steam Machines and home-brew SteamOs boxes.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Not for me, thanks. Two of the things I love about consoles are never having to check "System Requirements" or upgrade to support a new game. If I wanted that, I would just go back to PC gaming and playing the never-ending videocard chase.
To me, the Steambox looks like the worst of both worlds.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one knows what kernel it's running, does it make a sound?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I don't know why WASD "won"
My sense is that it was momentum from the earliest PC days when you had 2 player multiplayer off a single PC.
Player 1 used the arrow keys/number pad. Player 2 used WASD.
WASD was the closest thing to the inverted-T on the furthest left. (Because with 2 players on one keyboard things were cramped.
ESDF fails both criteria... its not as close to the inverted T shape, and its not as far left. WASD was the natural choice.
Then as things went on, most games had default single player keymaps on the left and right using the arrow keys/numberpad and wasd. As games got more complicated the numberpad started getting seriously neglected, since there weren't a lot of keys that were easily reachable from the numberpad (especially from the index finger of a right handed person) vs the half the keyboard you could reach from WASD, plus the number keys on top... it was no surprise that gradually the "numpad" mapping became a useless afterthought -- where developers would omit key functionality from the numberpad mapping (2ndary functions like reload, or zoom, or toss grenade, change weapon fire mode... 2ndary, but still crucial were omitted making the numpad mapping useless without them.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one knows what kernel it's running, does it make a sound?
Since there are cross-cutting concerns between the platforms, the answer is yes. People know that this runs Linux, more people will spend time developing for Linux, some of those developments might have a positive impact on the desktop or people maybe more likely to install it as their desktop.
I guess that in order to please the shareholders and ultimately survive in the business it's absolutely essential for the traditional PC vendors such as Dell to be innovative and seek and try out any possible new revenue streams, markets, and business models due to the terrible shape of the industry... Five years ago the idea of starting to build and offer Linux based gaming boxes probably would've raisen rather unintentionally hilarious sentiments among the senior product management people of a PC vendor if someone would've dared to suggest something like that.
Two of the things I love about consoles are never having to check "System Requirements" or upgrade to support a new game.
Offset by 10 of the things I hate about consoles:
1) completely locked down
2) loaded with ads
3) games that are substantially more expensive
4) charge premiums for access basic features (e.g xbox gold)
5) artificial roadblocks to indie developers
6) artificial roadblocks to mods
7) demanding I have the disc in the drive, despite installing it to the hard drive
8) locking my online purchases to single physical console
9) arbitrary limitations on what controllers are available
10) 5 years out of date hardware on launch day
So, yeah, I can live with checking the box for requirements. To each their own, but I think that's the worst reason going to choose consoles.
For what its worth, I -do- have a Wii and WiiU, and I like them. For the last several generations now, Nintendo has had the least idiotic restrictions, and its relatively unique games library, and local multiplayer options have won me over my complaints. But the last playstation I owned was the PS1, and I've yet to have any interest in an xbox.
PC gaming had a rough batch of years for a while after the collapse of the retail market for games (when eb / gamestop etc all reduced their PC offering to one tiny shelf with some overpriced obsolete PC titles in beat up boxes).
But now, between Steam, GoG, Desura, Humble bundles, and the levelling off of the pc performance curve enabling gaming rigs to go for years without needing hardware to play ... the selection of games is enormous, and the prices are stupidly low.
Add in the maturity and ease of use of voice chat, readily available game servers etc. PC Multiplayer still lags behind consoles in terms of user friendly ... but its no longer anywhere near the chore it once was to setup.
Right now we are in a new golden age of PC games!
Now just give me a good joystick Space Sim in the vein of Privateer!
That hasn't been a serious thing in years. If you bought a decent gaming PC in 2006 you'd still be playing new games on it today.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one knows what kernel it's running, does it make a sound?
Not if it's running pulseaudio.
Uhhh...did everybody forget those ubuntu netbooks and laptops already? Wow, short memories here. I can't say as i blame ya though as Dell has hell with Canonical, with them even having to keep their own fork because default ubuntu kept crapping on the drivers.
That said while I was all jazzed up about Steamboxes, now? Its a big meh. i mean the STARTING price is the same as the Xbone, and that is for the LOW END bottom o' the line system? Really? When you can get the octocore PS4 for $100 cheaper? I have a feeling this will go over like a lead balloon, the PC gamers already have Win 7 and DIY, the console gamers aren't gonna pay $100 more than a PS4 for an i3 unit that frankly if it weren't for the stylish case would go for $350 at Worst Buy, and the icing on the fail cake is just how little of the Steam catalog actually runs on the thing. I mean who is gonna want to pay $500 for a machine that gives you a worse catalog than just buying a $299 i3 Worst Buy special and adding an $80 HD7750?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The never ending video card chase ended after the 8800 GTX. Any mid to top range card will last AT LEAST 5 years.
Good-bye
In my experience, one copy of a console game that allows up to four players in one household is cheaper than two to four copies of a PC game that requires a separate PC per player.
a) I routinely buy PC games for less than 1/2 or 1/4 what a single console game costs... often for the same title.
b) Tons of xbox games do not support split screen play
c) All that said, that's precisely one of the reasons why I have the Wii and Wii U. It is better for local coop.
The roadblocks were put in place because in 1983, a flood of me-too titles from startup developers was causing the median quality of Atari 2600 games to become unacceptable.
And yet Steam and GoG and other online stores are doing just fine. Multiple curated stores work fine to keep it from being a crapflood.
How would you propose to improve median game quality while still allowing indie developers?
Any 5 year old can write software for the PC. That doesn't mean its going to get onto steam, or another major store. It doesn't matter how many roadblocks steam puts up, because the platform itself is open. So if I want to run that 5 year old kids software I can, but its not going to clog up the popular stores.
Other than by using the disc or the console as the root of trust, how would you propose instead to verify that a single purchased copy of a computer program isn't being used on more offline machines than for which it is licensed?
Trusting the customer. Pricing things and providing support (server player matching, free updates, dlc, etc... so they are motivated to buy even if they can get it for free.)
Working for GoG.
Armed service members who are deployed often don't have Internet access to phone home daily
This is the single most ridiculous argument I've ever heard.
You can't possibly expect to convince anyone that deployed troops need to access to the latest triple AAA video games is a valid reason for oppresive Disc based DRM.
You do realize the publishers could solve that simply by removing the DRM. Support our troops EA, Microsoft, Sony! Remove the DRM! Then our troops won't have to carry a backpack full of easily scratched discs around in sandholes in the middle east where replacement are hard to come by.
As opposed to PC games, many of which impose arbitrary limitations on how many controllers a game recognizes at once as a way to sell more copies.
Its not to sell more copies, its because at present very few people are setup to even play PC games multiplayer locally. The steambox push may well put a lot more PCs on TVs with controllers and energize the PC market for more local / split screen coop.
Microsoft in fact requires games to be XInput-only if they're made for Windows RT or otherwise sold through Windows Store
The beauty of PC gaming is that there are other stores than the one store store with stupid rules that the vendor wants to push.
The hardware in the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS
Handhelds are an entirely separate conversation, and right now they are having their lunch eaten by mobile phones and tablets. My kids have a 3DS, and it makes more sense than a mobile smartphone contract for a 7 year old. And they enjoy them (hello pokemon) but angry birds, tiny wings, candy crush... whatever is sucking back a lot of their time too now too. And adults have largely dropped handhelds for mobile phones. Yeah the controls aren't as good, and the games aren't usually as deep... but for a lot of them its good enough, and they already have it in their pocket.
This intended to be funny. Despite offering Linux server and laptops running Ubuntu, Dell writes "Dell recommends Windows" everywhere; on their website, in press and TV ads, mails. Currently, I'm a postman (I worked in IT before, I got my LPIC-1) and every letter I distribute from Dell has this writing on the envelope. It was revealed that Microsoft is offering vouchers to companies recommending Microsoft products. This led to some funny moments such as a web page where Dells says "Ubuntu is safer" just bellow a line reading "Dell recommends Windows Vista Premium".
Maybe.... but only if you spend >$500 on the video card.
According to Tom's Hardware guide in 2006 they were recommending the Radeon X1950 XT in the $270 range. For the $340 range they suggested dual X1950 PROs or dual GeForce 7900 GS. For $460 they recommended the Geforce 8800 GTS.
The 8800 GTS is the minimum requirement for Assassin's Creed Liberation and is below the requirement for Batman Arkham Origins. So, maybe a dual 8800 at $920 would do okay.