Valve's Steam Machines Are More About Safeguarding PCs Than Killing Consoles

An anonymous reader writes "CES has come and gone, and we've gotten a chance to see many different models of Valve's Steam Machines. They're being marketed as a device for a living room, and people are wondering if they'll be able to compete with the Big-3 console manufacturers. But this article argues that Valve isn't going after the consoles — instead, Steam Machines are part of a long-term plan to keep the PC gaming industry healthy. Quoting: 'Over the years, Valve has gone from simply evangelizing the PC platform — it once flew journalists in from around the world pretty much just to tell them it was great — to actively protecting it, and what we're seeing now is just the beginning of that push. Take SteamOS. To you and me, it's a direct interface for Steam based on Linux that currently has poor software support. To Valve, though, it's a first step in levering development, publishing, gameplay and community away from their reliance on Windows and DirectX (and to a lesser extent Mac OS), systems that cannot be relied upon in the long term. ... As for Steam Machines, they are a beachhead, not an atom bomb. They are meant to sell modestly. ... The answer is that Valve is thinking in decades, not console generations.'"

Comments

What's the difference?

[DaTrueDave]

Isn't keeping the PC game industry healthy by putting SteamBoxes in the living room the same thing as a console-killer?

The more open platforms available, the better.

I just need Steam to create a Plex app on Steam and I'm all in.

Re:What's the difference?

[master5o1]

SteamOS is Debian, so if there is something for Debian that sorts out Plex.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

The steambox isn't going to kill anything except itself until they are price competitive.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the Steam boxes we saw were pretty darned expensive. They won't be going into any living rooms any time soon.

Re:What's the difference?

[houstonbofh]

I just need Steam to create a Plex app on Steam and I'm all in.

Here you go. https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/87253-linux-builds/ Feel free to send me money if you want. :)

Re:What's the difference?

[houstonbofh]

Because vendors don't bring out the economy stuff for CES, they bring out the concept dream cars! You can build one much cheaper than a console. And some people will.

Re:What's the difference?

[DaTrueDave]

No, I want a Steam app that is integrated. I'm already running a Plex server on unRaid. I want living room convenience, not command line hell.

Re:What's the difference?

[TeknoHog]

IMHO, a computer primarily designed for gaming is a console. If it's an open system, then great! But it's not like a closed system like an N64 doesn't compute in the same way. Though you might want to draw a line so that it's a console when the manufacturer spends extra effort to limit its computational abilities in order to make it cheaper. Which, IMHO, does not compute.

Re:What's the difference?

[DaTrueDave]

I was under the impression that a SteamBox is nothing but a PC built with certain minimum requirements? Go looking at PC's from those same SteamBox vendors and I'm sure you'll find some that look great, but that are pretty darned expensive, too.

Re:What's the difference?

[DaTrueDave]

I'm already running a Windows nettop box with Plex Home Theater running on it. I want Plex Home Theater running from inside Steam.

As it is, I leave Plex running 24/7. I don't even use a mouse or keyboard anymore. Everything is controlled with my remote.

Re:What's the difference?

[Seumas]

That is never going to happen. Consoles are commodity hardware *at launch* with the specific target of playing games on one platform in one way. With PCs, you've got video cards that cost a couple hundred dollars more than both the XB1 and PS4 *combined*.

A four and five star restaurant will never compete with McDonald's on price. What they *can* compete on is not serving you fetid shit in a paper wrapper. That requires that people give a damn. If people are just fine scarfing down a shitty box of styrofoam chicken nuggets, then you're screwed. It also requires that people make quality products for it. So many PC games are just shitty ports of console games, hindered by limitations of targeting consoles and leaving PCs as an afterthought. Then, you're crippled by trying to operate a four or five star restaurant when you're being supplied the same shitty ingredients as McDonald's.

Re:What's the difference?

[houstonbofh]

That is never going to happen. Consoles are commodity hardware *at launch* with the specific target of playing games on one platform in one way. With PCs, you've got video cards that cost a couple hundred dollars more than both the XB1 and PS4 *combined*.

Whitebox PCs are as "commodity" as it gets. And there are Nvidia graphics cards that meet the specs under $100.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plex plugin for XBMC, done. XBMC is a first class citizen on debian.

Re:What's the difference?

[dugancent]

You have video cards that cost twice as much but aren't really needed. You can get by just fine on something much, much, cheaper and still play nearly every game available.

Video cards are a penis compensator.

Re:What's the difference?

[DaTrueDave]

Does XBMC have a massive library of games that I can play in my living room?

Re:What's the difference?

[Nerdfest]

The point of the SteamBox and keeping things open is that Valve sees where Microsoft is heading with Windows 8 and beyond. They're heading for Apple/console model for Windows where they get full approval of all software and a significant cut of all sales. It's not good for consumers and it's not good for Valve. I'm a little surprised more software companies are not joining them in launching non-game software for them, but they may be more focused on the tablet market.

Re:What's the difference?

[behrooz0az]

Isn't that what we're talking about here?

Re:What's the difference?

[DaTrueDave]

I thought we were talking about Steam, not XBMC.

Re:What's the difference?

[master5o1]

We're talking about Steam boxes, which run SteamOS, which is Debian based and therefore can run XBMC.

There is a launcher from XBMC that will open Steam in Big Picture Mode.

Re:What's the difference?

[Seumas]

So all you're looking to do is meet the absolute minimum requirements and *maybe* match the performance and experience of a console, but with a PC box? What is the point of that? The only reason I would want to build a box to put the SteamOS on and attach to my home theater is if I could replicate the true PC experience on it. That means high resolution, high framerate, high graphical fidelity. I'm not going to accomplish that on $500 worth of parts.

Re: What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgot my password... it's trivially easy to build your own PC with $500 that exceeds the specs of major consoles. (Granted, it was easier five years ago.)

Keep in mind that consoles have DRM technology that custom-built PCs generally lack.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

XBMC can launch games, both native and emulated.

Re:What's the difference?

[Azeroth48]

serviio has a linux release and its free... http://serviio.org/buy-pro/10-uncategorised/60-free-vs-pro - Daemon Scripts: http://forum.serviio.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=71

Re:What's the difference?

[mjwx]

Isn't keeping the PC game industry healthy by putting SteamBoxes in the living room the same thing as a console-killer?

Not quite. The primary goal is the protection of the PC platform (which is Valve's revenue source).

The console killing properties are just an added bonus.

Re:What's the difference?

[bloodhawk]

You mean they are heading for the same model that Valve is currently using? If MS model is bad for consumers then so is the valve model. personally I think both models suck balls. I don't want to be locked into Valves walled garden any more than I want to be locked into Microsoft's, Apples or Googles walled gardens.

Re:What's the difference?

[Nerdfest]

From what I've read, you can install any software you want on the SteamBox, or even run the OS on your own hardware. It's not the same model as consoles, iOS, or what Microsoft is heading for. It's the same model as Linux, Android, and what traditional Windows is.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart TVs will kill consoles eventually.

Re:What's the difference?

[houstonbofh]

So all you're looking to do is meet the absolute minimum requirements and *maybe* match the performance and experience of a console, but with a PC box? What is the point of that? The only reason I would want to build a box to put the SteamOS on and attach to my home theater is if I could replicate the true PC experience on it. That means high resolution, high framerate, high graphical fidelity. I'm not going to accomplish that on $500 worth of parts.

Six months after release, you will be able to match console hardware for under $200, and double it for under $500. PC hardware keeps advancing, and consoles stay static for years. And as for resolution, these days everything is 1080p. There are a few 4k TVs out there, but a 30hz, I doubt gamers are interested. So low end still does everything your TV can show.

Re: What's the difference?

[houstonbofh]

Steambox is not a PC.

You want to look at that again? It is EXACTLY a PC. You can actually take any PC with a decent graphics card and install the software yourself! The controller is not even required, but I would want one. It is just not Windows. And while Steam does have DRM, the OS does not, unlike Windows. Also, no artificial limitations, like my desktop that has 24gig of ram under Linux, but Windows only sees 16... Yes, I know why... Now. After I installed it.

Re:What's the difference?

[deviated_prevert]

Smart TVs will kill consoles eventually.

Hurrah the first person to see the forest for the trees. Even the fledgling company Hisense sees the potential and is currently building essentially a full chrome type os type tv. Samsung is seeing that having a real qwerty keyboard remote option for their latest super "smart" tvs with full faceplant and Chrome browsing capabilities is a possible selling point. It is only a matter of time before the can have attachable file storage with flash drives and essentially be fully capable of everything high end tablets and consoles and a PC can do and be instead a huge non touch screen device or even run off tablets which are used as a full remote. The possibilities are endless.

And this is what has microsnort and frapple shitting bricks in the very near future their tablet market will be redundant in the living room and both of them have not dominated the digital communication market in peoples living rooms and there is real room for others to innovate them out of the market. Perhaps this is the real reason why Apple is suing the shit out of Samsung and Microshaft keeps knocking at their door for more fat patent extortion money every time they bring out a new big screen product that can do what a pc or console can do.

Re:What's the difference?

[tlhIngan]

Isn't keeping the PC game industry healthy by putting SteamBoxes in the living room the same thing as a console-killer?

The problem is, if you want to define a SteamBox as a console, the PC industry is done for.

Because the cheapest one is $500. And the CES announcements show them going to $1300. Tell me how many "cheaper games" you have to buy to justify the $800 premium over an Xbone? (Especially since well, both PSN and Xbox Live also run sales).

And how long are they going to last? I mean, the Xbone and PS4 are going to probably last at least 5 years (the past gen PS3 and Xbox360 are pushing 7 and 8 years). Will today's $500 SteamBox last 5 years? Or are PC developers going to say 2 years from now "Today's steambox is super cool, let's target it!" and leave everyone who bought a $500 SteamBox in the dust?

And nevermind the Tier 1 PC maker who integrates it all on a motherboard and releases it for $400, screwing over everyone who paid $500. If you're going to subject your console to wild price differentials and all that, there better be a good reason other than technical gobbledegook. Titan this, 386 that 6970 over there, foobarbaz. Sorry, people will see "SteamBox" and expect them to work alike. They're buying a console, not a PC.

If Valve plays this wrong, PC developers might need to support Intel 5000 graphics (Haswell) for the next 5+ years running at 1080p because those were the cheapest.

If Valve wants these as gaming PCs, they need to be put near the PCs side. Unfortunately, the way they're positioned now, they're competing against consoles. And outside the big three, the only console maker to have some success is... Apple (more inadvertently than anything). Even the heavily hyped Ouya is struggling.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Derp.

Re:What's the difference?

[jones_supa]

I guess he was dreaming about opening Plex directly from Steam for best integration.

Re:What's the difference?

[RoLi]

The 1300$ model is of course for those who want a status-symbol, i.e. the high price is a feature.

Basically the classic consoles are the printer/toner sales-model: You get the hardware relatively cheap, but you pay through the nose afterwards.

For an open platform that is impossible, so for the Steambox, you have to pay a little bit more for the hardware (i.e. about 500-700$), but you save money on the software.

Surely, there is a place for the printer/toner sales-model, therefore the PS3/XBone have their place - but not everybody likes it that way. (Of course for the brainwashed the fact that different products may use different sales-models is very, very hard to grasp.) So there is place for the open sales-model as well.

But the Steambox has some other advantage: It is also a PC, and you can use it for everything a PC can do:

For example if you use a tablet for EMail/Web and have only moderate PC-use (write Christmas cards once per year, etc.) - and your PC gets old, you may buy a Steambox instead of upgrading the PC. In that case you save money - and space because you can scrap that desk where the PC is sitting on.

So there is definitely a market for the Steambox.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but neither does SteamOS. What's your point?

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are completely disingenuous. As a practical matter, it will not be simple to "sideload" 3rd party software on a Steambox. It will practically impossible for another store to compete on this platform.

And traditional Windows isn't going anywhere, and you will always be able to install whatever you want. Any restriction around this would be suicide-bombing Microsoft's main revenue stream. There are literally millions of applications which will never be in the Microsoft store.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

The days when hardware were subsidised to any serious degree are long gone. It's now just an excuse for companies to engage in rent-seeking behaviour... by convincing customers they are getting a good deal by looking themselves into contracts l (see mobile phones for a classic example - and the inexpensive super-capable, unlocked phones [with features that mobile phone companies dislike] pouring out of china).

Re: What's the difference?

[echnaton192]

+1

Re:What's the difference?

[gerddie]

You are completely disingenuous. As a practical matter, it will not be simple to "sideload" 3rd party software on a Steambox. It will practically impossible for another store to compete on this platform.

Nonsense: SteamBox is a computer with Debian + Steam + some specific drivers and some tweaking. Everything that is available for Debian can be directly installed on SteamOS.

Re:What's the difference?

[echnaton192]

From what I've read, you can install any software you want on the SteamBox, or even run the OS on your own hardware. It's not the same model as consoles, iOS, or what Microsoft is heading for. It's the same model as Linux, Android, and what traditional Windows is.

I agree. Plus: As it is Linux, it is pretty damn hard to ship it with backdoors nobody finds. To me, the main reason for still using windows are games. If current games come to Linux, dual boot becomes an option. Working and most games on steam OS, a virtual box for some applications and dual boot as a fallback for some games.

I don't know about you, but after we know (!) that MS really builds backdoors into its products, I will swith. Gamer or not.

Re:What's the difference?

[donaldm]

Basically the classic consoles are the printer/toner sales-model: You get the hardware relatively cheap, but you pay through the nose afterwards.

As far as hardware goes you may want to buy an extra controller but the main-on going cost of a console is the purchase of games which if anything I have found actually goes down in price over time (i am aware that PC software does as well) and there is a thriving second hand market as well as the ability to give/lend or borrow the game to/from a friend. So tell me how am I paying through the nose.

Of course you can do something similar for a PC or the Steambox however the cost for top of the line (ie AAA) games is not that much different than what you would pay for the same console game. Still it really is a matter of choice since that choice is up to the person making the purchase.

Re: What's the difference?

[davydagger]

well from that perspective, so is a mac, and original xbox

only diffrence they are locked down more and don't distribute OS installers.

otherwise, exact same as a PC, but you have to hack the firmware before installing normal PC oses.

Re:What's the difference?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

And traditional Windows isn't going anywhere, and you will always be able to install whatever you want. Any restriction around this would be suicide-bombing Microsoft's main revenue stream. There are literally millions of applications which will never be in the Microsoft store.

Obviously you haven't actually used Windows 8. When you do you'll be less surprised by Windows 9, always supposed they'll still be in business.

The rest of your statement was equally stupid, as gerddie points out.

Regrettably I had to endure a box with W8 preinstalled, fortunately it took little time to replace that with Debian Wheezy then add the SteamOS repo. An OS, applications, and the SteamOS interface all for $0

How do I subscribe to your stock tip newsletter? I'll buy short and make a killing.

Re:What's the difference?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Isn't keeping the PC game industry healthy by putting SteamBoxes in the living room the same thing as a console-killer?

Not quite. The primary goal is the protection of the PC platform (which is Valve's revenue source).

The console killing properties are just an added bonus.

I don't know... consider the possibility that Steam just doesn't want to make an investement in a proprietary hardware platform so the PC "choice" is just that - a choice that means they can concentrate on software without being made dependant on a single manufacturer. Choosing Debian Linux is just part of that choice.

Re:What's the difference?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Smart TVs will kill consoles eventually.

Hurrah the first person to see the forest for the trees.

Last time I looked TV wasn't doing much better than the trees. I hear radio and newspapers are a force to be reckoned with though.

Re:What's the difference?

[spire3661]

Did it ever occur to you that any PC maker could commission boxes just like MS and Sony did ? The PS4 is just a fancy PC that costs $380 to build. You think they are the only ones capable of doing that?

Re:What's the difference?

[CronoCloud]

The primary goal is the protection of the PC platform (which is Valve's revenue source).

Perhaps Valve should have diversified their software offerings and done some console games themselves rather than farming out some ports., then they wouldn't have been so dependent on Microsoft in the first place. They could have started doing that in the 90's!

Re:What's the difference?

[spire3661]

WAHHHHHHHHHHH I want custom functionality without doing any work.........

Re:What's the difference?

[spire3661]

The cheapest one TODAY is $500. Think down the road 1-3 years. Intel and AMD are going to come out swinging hard with integrated GPUs next round. Hell someone might get crazy and commission a box like Sony and MS did. (PS4 costs $380 to build, if they can do it anyone else can too)

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

For now. There is a reason that Valve requires a UEFI bios for SteamOS though. Driver signing now, app signing later. Anyone thinking that SteamOS is "open" because it's built on linux doesn't understand what open means.

Re: What's the difference?

[jseale]

They will most surely do this IMHO. Does Ouya ring a bell? Yet another video game system that somehow transmogrified into a media player of sorts.

Re:What's the difference?

[Alarash]

What is the advantage of Plex over UPnP/DLNA ?

Re:What's the difference?

[Alarash]

Or over XBMC, really.

Re:What's the difference?

[Kremmy]

It's not that it's more complicated than a standard go-to-website-and-install process, it's that it's different. While I feel they should have a slick way of performing the install process that doesn't require manipulating the command-line as such, it wouldn't really make a difference because you have already told the installation process to sod off. The problem is that it's not a Steam app, and you don't want to install software.

Re: What's the difference?

[bloodhawk]

The Ouya changed into a media player of sorts as it sucks as a gaming console.

Re: What's the difference?

[jseale]

Yup, most certainly looks like video game systems of the future will somehow have to battle 'Roku syndrome' as a result of manufacturers thinking they can put everything but the kitchen sink into these so called gaming systems, not that it matters me much.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anubis IV]

He's not disingenuous. You're merely misinformed. Steam boxes are already in the wild and being modified with new hardware and software. Valve made it clear from day one that you'd be able to outright replace Steam OS if you didn't want to be running it. A Steam box is merely a PC intended to run their custom version of Debian (i.e. Steam OS), but there's absolutely nothing stopping you from installing a competing OS, installing alternative hardware, or switching over to the desktop from Steam and installing pretty much everything that works in Debian.

Rather than locking things down, they've made an earnest attempt to open them up, in the interest of garnering broader support.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would it take for you to "know" that MS put in backdoors?
I know from my past explorations that they put some in Win95 (it was the last system where you could boot up in DOS to bypass Windows security). One of my instructors in school was a forensic IT analyst for the police dept, and informed us that there are a ton of keys in the system registry that control or bypass user defined security. Some of these are open to consumers/developers, some only to LEOs, some to MS, and some only to Federal agencies. I would say that counts. Now, are you going to do some homework on your own to verify this, or are you going to wait until every idiot on gizmodo or WIRED gets it spoon fed to them?

Re:What's the difference?

[deviated_prevert]

Smart TVs will kill consoles eventually.

Hurrah the first person to see the forest for the trees.

Last time I looked TV wasn't doing much better than the trees. I hear radio and newspapers are a force to be reckoned with though.

I think you are missing the point. The TV is in the process of morphing into a fully internet capable device. And if the lines of "SMART TV" sitting in all the stores and selling as replacements for highdef and regular mpeg digital only tvs are not an indication of the fact that people are actually starting to use them for both purposes then I guess Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, LG are all out to lunch when they push internet capable big screen devices for the living room.

Sure some jerk modded me down as flame bait but that is the nature of mods that have a political agenda and do not see past their nose when it comes to technology.

AND THIS IS NOT A FLAME it is a simple logical argument based upon observation. Which IM not so Humble Opinion is what a real discussion is all about. The flames here seem to come from the fan boys that go out of their way to defend something which is vulnerable to new technologies and that something is companies that try to push products like XBOXs and Apple tv boxes as being a reasonable media device.

The whole point is low power high computation processor tech is making it so the TV can morph into something which has greater capabilities than just a dumb digital receiver. And Samsung especially sees the potential in uniting their tablets, cameras, phones with their TVs to really increase the potential user friendliness of Smart TVs. In fact they are leaving most other companies in the dust in regards to integration of devices.

LG and Sony are starting to catch on and no doubt they will catch up. But as long as Apple and Microsoft can't see the forest for the trees and relies upon add on boxes for digital display they will be left in the dust.

Watch out as Samsung starts to release some killer games for their latest super power smart tvs because it will shock the shit out of the gaming industry. The conclusion here is gaming industry is vulnerable including "consoles" like the Xbox and PlayStation because they are a non portable add on that will become redundant.

If someone has a logical argument with good counter points then type away but twitter like jabs are for kids, arguing is an essential part of discourse and I respect those who have contrary opinions provided they are not just pokes and jabs. BTW I was not the anon coward who I first responded to but I do agree with what he postulated and simply elaborated on the topic. YOU HAVE THE MIC AND THE FLOOR.

Re:What's the difference?

[bloodhawk]

Sony and MS are building their consoles in the millions, hence their unit costs being so low. Very hard market to break into, I don't think any individual steambox is likely to get sales in the hundreds of thousands let alone millions. secondly 1-3 years will be too late for the steambox, Valve have rolled the dice, either they succeed on the current expensive price point or they go the way of the dodo, it is very rare for consumers to give a second chance.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends - what's a 250 game catalog that I already own for Steam worth in terms of console games? That $800 might buy you 10 - 15 games, but by my count I'm still over 200 up. Sure, not all of them support the SteamBox - but a damn sight more than 15 do.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plex is a media player. It can handle multiple media formats directly. Using UPnP/DLNA means that everything you access must be transcoded by an intermediary server or device, using more power and degrading quality of the media. It's like comparing a Blu-Ray to a copy of a Blu-Ray that someone uploaded to YouTube.

DLNA is a joke. It should only be used as an absolute last resort.

Re:What's the difference?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

I think you are missing the point. The TV is in the process of morphing into a fully internet capable device.

I base my opinion on the revenue figures not Murdock's stockholder speeches and CES "optimism over experience" PR. The only relatively healthy sector is subscription.

Re: What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, Ouya. What a joke that turned out to be.

Re:What's the difference?

[deviated_prevert]

I think you are missing the point. The TV is in the process of morphing into a fully internet capable device.

I base my opinion on the revenue figures not Murdock's stockholder speeches and CES "optimism over experience" PR. The only relatively healthy sector is subscription.

It would be interesting to see if sales of smart tvs are on the upswing, but like I said everybody seems to be buying them even those who just use them as dumb mpeg capable displays or OTA in cities with lots of stations where it makes sense. Murdock is a doofis to say the least IP subsciption based TV IS not the end all and be all of the potential to say the least people are pissed enough at the prices for cable subscription services that are plastered with adverts. The good channels that are not supported by adverts make the media too expensive for many in the first place.

So more and more young people on low incomes are turning to other forms of entertainment. For instance if I can take my camera, smart phone, tablet or whatever and then send vids, pictures, documents you name it, directly to someone's screen this feature of Smart TVs alone is attractive to say the least. They are also becoming fully web capable and it is only a matter of time before independent content like youtube and many user created shared content sites is watched on them directly at a higher rate than it currently is. Remember when stupid youtube vids were the flavour of the day on the PC? Well it is just a question of time before people start using the internet directly on their tv for things like research, mail, twitter, faceplant and all forms of digital social media. Essentially "digital social media is the message" to paraphrase a famous Canadian educator.

Frankly network tv has become boring as hell at times even with the thousand channel universe the mogels like Murdock feast on. More and more people are spending more time doing something other than just watching shows. Network tv is not going away it is starting to have real competition for the first time in peoples living rooms. A place where companies like Apple and Microsoft have completely missed the mark on what is really possible. The Murdocks of this world are in for a rude awaking as well. Sure there is a market for subscription just look at what is happening with Nutflax ...Notflicks or what ever but the real market can be much much more than just subscription services through device specific web apps. Either way interesting times ahead. One thing that would be a colossal tech fail would be touch screen tvs though, finger butter and goober slob on your high def display is not going to catch on and I don't see people with 10 to 20 foot sticks siting on their couches poking away at a touch screen device in the future...

[FUNNY_BONES]

Though knowing Microsoft they are likely to try to push the idea on people if they decide to create their own SUPER SMART WINDOW8 TV. Just try to imagine a 50 inch SURFACE DEVICE, I don't think they are really that stupid so we won't see Surface brand Super Smart TVs any time ZUNE. LOL Unless they get Samsung to make one for them.

[/FUNNY_BONES]

Re:What's the difference?

[Funky_20]

Then what is stopping someone from installing Debian then installing Steam and running it big picture mode? Why would Valve lock down SteamOS when running an unlocked version is really easy?

Re:What's the difference?

[DaTrueDave]

Yes, and I'm willing to pay for it. Isn't that why Steam exists? To sell programs?

Re: What's the difference?

[houstonbofh]

well from that perspective, so is a mac, and original xbox

only diffrence they are locked down more and don't distribute OS installers.

Um... That is kind of a big difference there.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why are you whining about it here. Go offer your money to the Plex developers.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Either point us to documentation of these backdoors that we can test ourselves, or admit that you're making it up. We'll be waiting.

The observation that there may be backdoors in a closed OS is reasonable; it is a statement of possibility rather than fact.

The claim that there are backdoors is testable. Disclose these backdoors and their functionality, and anyone can verify them. Otherwise, go away you obnoxious twat.

Re:What's the difference?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

I think you are missing the point. The TV is in the process of morphing into a fully internet capable device.

I base my opinion on the revenue figures not Murdock's stockholder speeches and CES "optimism over experience" PR. The only relatively healthy sector is subscription.

It would be interesting to see if sales of smart tvs are on the upswing, but like I said everybody seems to be buying them

In your enthuasiasm for the hardware your're missing the point. The Television industry is dying because, with the exception of subscription TV, it's revenue stream is advertising. That's now a revenue trickle with no chance in hell of reverting to it's former cash cow status.

You conflate a viewing device (TV viewer) with a content delivery industry (Television). The television you refer to is just a screen with only arbitrary differences from a plethora of other "screen" devices.

In some parts of the world Television is still broadcast and viewed in a non-digital format, elsewhere "TV manufacturers" are losing market share to "Computing device" manufacturers. That's as likely to change as a Neilsen report is to become relevant to ABC mobile device iview statistics (passive advertising funded entertainment/content consumption is no longer a couch dominated activity).

In short, it could be argued that "television" is morphing - just as it could be argued that drive-in-theatre morphed into streaming video. It's all "screens" right?

Re: What's the difference?

[webheaded]

You realize SteamOS is Debian and that you can install anything you want, right?

Re:What's the difference?

[deviated_prevert]

Fair enough and I agree with your point about network tv and the advertising cash cows. However I will point out that the latest generation Smart TVs do have interfaces for the new cash cow streaming media services and they have them big time.

The streaming media services would have to be co-opted into not releasing interfaces for Smart TVs and if that happens it could easily spell one hell of a set of legitimate law suits against the digital media industry for collusion. Nutflax already has apps on most of the top end tvs and there are pay streaming services a plenty ready for the consumer to sign up for right on their tvs, no need for a set top box in the living room at all. AND this was the whole point. The games on Smart TVs are still rather primitive but that is changing like I said as the processor tech for the TVs reaches high through put standards up there with PCs. This is why I said most so called tech gurus cannot see the forest for the trees. The networks are getting scared just look at what ABC is trying to do with their latest salvo of law suits against a streaming service.

But this discussion is particularly about the gaming industry so IMO they will be in trouble very soon if they do not include streaming games and apps for Smart TVs My prediction is that TVs will soon have the ability to have high speed access storage attached with high bit rate binary execution capabilities in the not very distant future. Perhaps this is the real reason why Microsoft extorts every manufacturer with their FAT PATENTS??? Especially the ones that use add on storage devices and OSS Linux kernel based firmware like Samsung Smart TVs???? This is my crystal balls at work if it does not happen then it will only be because the industry will block it the same way they block sales of high definition studio digital audio recordings.

All I am saying is the media consuming public will go where the very best bang for the buck is and an all in one Smart TV that can be run from a simple tablets, smart phones as well as sophisticated remotes seems to be the answer to having streaming internet based services as well as user created content in the living room. Essentially Playstations, Xboxes, SteamBoxes, AppleTV and all the other add ons that send out HDMI might all be brushed aside in the very near future judging from what Samsung is up to. YES I AM A GRUMPY SOB but the point is when I smell very well politically connect collusion, I don't just shut up and not say anything like some do.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you're 100% wrong. Only Valve would even have a reason to operate at a huge loss like sony and microsoft do in that market segment. No one else is going to bother if valve is going to be selling them for cheaper than it costs to make them. 380 to build is losing money hardcore when you sell them for 400 through retailers.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said steam will allow you to purchase steam os apps without running the actual steam os?

Re:What's the difference?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Fair enough and I agree with your point about network tv and the advertising cash cows. However I will point out that the latest generation Smart TVs do have interfaces for the new cash cow streaming media services and they have them big time.

.

I get your point too. However I just see newspaper, television, music "publishers" and film "production" companies as robber barons of distribution. Streaming services IMO are just late prospectors on a picked out gold field, all of them dying because the internet changes the game. When it comes to hardware, and "smart" TV is just hardware - the manufacturers are at the mercy of consumers. For the most part their revenue stream comes from those that weren't born knowing the internet (I remember the first television broadcasts, but I'm showing my age). My grandkids don't know what MTV is, watch most of their videos on YouTuber, and get their movies from bittorrent - almost all those movies are made for subscription TV. They get their news from blogs and forums and have never bought a newspaper, they buy their music from Google Play - much of it direct from the musicians, and they haven't watched television since they were in primary school. The grandkids are all gamers but mostly they play "app games'' - something else they buy direct from the developers by-passing the distribution monopolies. Only one of my kids owns a television, though they've all got home-built multimedia boxes with TV cards, likewise the grandkids - none of whom have ever owned televisions that I know of. Gunna be hard for those business models to make money from them, and I see the same things happening in Asia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Africa.

So we agree on some things, just not the future of "smart tv". And no, I don't own a "television" (a couple of old analogue TV sets, but there's no signal for them even if I wanted to watch them, though I've got TV cards - which I don't watch, just the recordings (I'm in Australia where television is shit, so I mostly watch HBO, from PirateBay.)

I've got friends who own a chain of electronic shops - they don't sell many TV sets these days... probably because the top end of the consumer market import Yamakasi Catleap big screens that beat the shit out of anything "smart" TV can offer, in price, picture quality and screen real estate. Might be different elsewhere though. The "low-end" of the market, earning less than $100K pa, still buy televisions, and watch daytime TV and "reality" shows - but changes in technology (self-driving delivery vehicles and robots) mean their spending will be increasingly restricted... so I strongly suspect that'll be the final nail in the coffin for content delivery monopolies. "Smart" TV is pretty dumb without content monopolies, and streaming is a content delivery monopoly built on a content delivery/distribution monopoly.

Re:What's the difference?

[freeweaver]

nothing?

Valve isn't locking anything down. They can't, it's debian.

a atom bomb

[Joe_Dragon]

that atom cpu sucks for good gameing

Re:a atom bomb

[ArcadeMan]

It also sucks at running your spell checker.

Re:a atom bomb

[Mashiki]

Sorry, what atom cpu is being used in gaming for these boxes? Ah that's right, none.

Re:a atom bomb

[Mashiki]

Odd. /. at a url to bluesnews. Let's try that again.

Re:a atom bomb

[Hognoxious]

Running a spell checker on Mr. Tard School's posts is like sticking a band aid on Marie Antoinette.

Re:a atom bomb

[Joe_Dragon]

it's a joke

Re:a atom bomb

[Mashiki]

it's a joke

Might make sense if there was a joke in it, but as it stands it might be closer to trolling.

Re:a atom bomb

[spire3661]

You would be surprised at what my Asus T-100 Atom 3770 can run.

Maybe just maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's about profits and the people at Steam aren't on some quasi-crusade to save anything other than their own business interests? Why does everything need to be some modern day jihad to the people around here?
 
FFS, it's gotten old.

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[chill]

FFS, I've gotten old.

FTFY

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[adolf]

Maybe it's about profits and the people at Steam aren't on some quasi-crusade to save anything other than their own business interests? Why does everything need to be some modern day jihad to the people around here?

Because we're mostly in the US, where we've been forced to spend our childhood years learning the writewashed details of every past war and conflict, but very little other history, and therefore demand that every competition have exactly one clear victor because that's what we're used to?

Re: Maybe just maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whitewashed...

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what it is. PC gaming isn't dying and is nowhere close to it. The number of PC gamers is greater than all console gamers combined. The number of games coming out for PC is greater than all consoles combined. The back library of PC games is greater than the combined libraries of all consoles ever made.

This is just a way for Valve to pretend to be "one of us". It's a marketing stunt, nothing more.

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

You couldn't be more wrong. Gabe Newell worked for Microsoft. He knows what kind of damage they are capable of doing. He doesn't see or acknowledge many threats to his business, but Windows 8 was clearly one of them. (Whether it still is, is up for debate.)

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't said anything that runs counter to the facts that I stated. Your comprehension skills need work.

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[vikingpower]

Mod parent up. Wanting, needing a clear victor in any contest does, indeed, seem to be "typically American". As for me, a "typical European", I could live with the idea of Steam occupying some grey niche area between the desktop PC and the gaming console. Why not ? It would be better for the general public, just as any open OS viz. the opening-up of any OS is better for the general public. It would be good for the fledgling PC industry. It would be good for game developers.

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree here - I don't want to be in Gabe's walled garden any more than Apple or Microsoft. I'm in my own garden planting the flowers from various companies. Gabe is trying to take control just like everyone else, because he sees the gardens closing in on the consumers. The fact is that Steam has had free and unrestricted access to customers on all platforms and I like that, but moving to a dedicated Steam PC is essentially another garden. And I don't need more walls.

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[JimCanuck]

Because we're mostly in the US, where we've been forced to spend our childhood years learning the writewashed details of every past war and conflict, but very little other history, and therefore demand that every competition have exactly one clear victor because that's what we're used to?

>br/>Last time a war involving the US had a clear victor was World War 2. So if that is what you get out of your history books, you have bigger issues to deal with.

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[adolf]

Hey, you know: Last time anyone forced me to learn about history, I was just a kid.

Is it a kid's fault that their interpretation of the lessons before them is broken and flawed, or is it the lessons' fault?

Meanwhile, I agree: We've all got bigger issues to deal with.

Re:Maybe just maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this:

Microsoft has killed off competition from larger and more adept rivals.

Where is IBM's mass-market consumer OS? What about their SMB server presence?

Netscape was once a vastly superior browser compared to IE. Where did it go? Who lost that anti-trust lawsuit filed by the US DoJ?

Where is OpenGL on Windows now? The biggest threat to the Windows gaming stranglehold was silently buried in Vista. In an absolutely ideal situation, OpenGL implementations can match D3D performance---all due to "necessary" changes in the graphics architecture. These changes were part of the effort to implement the DRM required for HDMI (HDCP compliance).

So, maybe he didn't go into detail. But if you've been paying attention, you've seen the kind of maneuvers Microsoft has pulled. His post banked on readers being knowledgeable enough to fill in the pieces. Evidently, that consideration does not apply to you.

Good

[ArcadeMan]

I'm all for building my own gaming box, especially if it removes Microsoft from the picture.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I done with gaming on microsoft platforms.

Explain

[aaronb1138]

This quote makes zero sense:
"...reliance on Windows and DirectX (and to a lesser extent Mac OS), systems that cannot be relied upon in the long term."

Really, because my experience with Linux and backwards / forwards support for both software and hardware has been vastly worse than Windows from XP through 8. Sure before XP, Windows 9x was terrible, but are we really going to keep basing derp derp FUD on a 5 year window of hard lessons from nearly 15 years ago?

Can we just fess up and admit that SteamOS is an effort predicated on a personal beef Gabe Newell has with Microsoft and especially the fact that Windows 8 included it's own store and that store was not Steam. The story is well documented and the whole industry is going to blow a lot of money on development just to satisfy one man's ego.

Re:Explain

[Escogido]

Whatever his true motivation is, it makes sense from a business standpoint. Microsoft would love to become for Windows what Apple is for OS X / iOS, and Valve doesn't want that - it's understandable. From a certain angle, Steam machines are not unlike Google+: there are some diehard fans that would kill for it, many go like "why do we need another [social network / console platform]?" and the company behind it is big enough and has enough mindshare that the product is guaranteed to have some visibility even if it is not quite on par with what the rest of the market has to offer, and eventually gain enough of a market share to make sense, even with all backwards / forwards support issues you pointed out. And for consumers more competition is always good, so sure why not.

Re: Explain

[Spottywot]

Unfortunately Microsoft seem to be looking to looking to emulate Apple by taking a cut on every piece of software released for the platform, and raising the barriers for entry for indie developers in the process. I think that the competition for their traditional gaming market by players such as Steam has the potential to persuade Microsoft not to backtrack on their previous business model. Either we get what we have been used to as gamers and developers from Microsoft, or we have a new place to go which is based on Linux. I really don't see the problem here.

Re:Explain

[neuro88]

This quote makes zero sense: "...reliance on Windows and DirectX (and to a lesser extent Mac OS), systems that cannot be relied upon in the long term." Really, because my experience with Linux and backwards / forwards support for both software and hardware has been vastly worse than Windows from XP through 8. Sure before XP, Windows 9x was terrible, but are we really going to keep basing derp derp FUD on a 5 year window of hard lessons from nearly 15 years ago? Can we just fess up and admit that SteamOS is an effort predicated on a personal beef Gabe Newell has with Microsoft and especially the fact that Windows 8 included it's own store and that store was not Steam. The story is well documented and the whole industry is going to blow a lot of money on development just to satisfy one man's ego.

Linux supports older hardware than windows 7 and 8, no question. Regarding the software... You definitely have a point there. Almost. The Linux kernel itself actually has backwards compatibility for userspace software going back quite a bit. It's mostly glibc that breaks this. If it isn't happening already, it will eventually. You'll be downloading games from that simply ship with their own libraries. I believe a lot of Windows software works this way.

You can actually get a lot of old loki games to run in linux by installing older versions of various libraries. Although, you do encounter some issues. For example, Simcity 3000 won't give you sound since it wants to use esd (which hasn't seen use in years), but the game will otherwise run. This takes some work to setup, but if the games on steam do this for you, it's a non-issue.

Re:Explain

[Anonymous Coward]

T
Really, because my experience with Linux and backwards / forwards support for both software and hardware has been vastly worse than Windows from XP through 8.

Define what you mean by backwards/forwards support for software and hardware? Pretty much every version of linux that there was is still freely available. Hardware support was flaky in the early days (I remember having to deal with the junk that WinModems used to be) but for years now this is a non issue. In case you missed it Steam has been working with the graphics card vendors and linux support for graphics cards as it stands now is as at least as good as it is for windows.

Re:Explain

[LordLimecat]

I think his point is that right now, if Windows dies, PC gaming basically dies.

He wants to get a non-trivial number of Linux PC game boxes out there so that more people are targeting PCs, not Windows.

Re:Explain

[X.25]

Can we just fess up and admit that SteamOS is an effort predicated on a personal beef Gabe Newell has with Microsoft and especially the fact that Windows 8 included it's own store and that store was not Steam. The story is well documented and the whole industry is going to blow a lot of money on development just to satisfy one man's ego.

Yea, because Gabe is a jedi master who makes other people do things he wants.

Please, stop the nonsense. I can bet my left nut that Gabe and people working on Steam machines know a thing or two more than you about PC hardware and/or gaming, and are not just mind-controlled by Gabe.

Reasons and everything else have also been well documented, and are certainly not based on a hunch that someone has about Gabe's ego.

Re:Explain

[thegarbz]

This quote makes zero sense:
"...reliance on Windows and DirectX (and to a lesser extent Mac OS), systems that cannot be relied upon in the long term."

Really, because my experience with Linux and backwards / forwards support for both software and hardware has been vastly worse than Windows from XP through 8. Sure before XP, Windows 9x was terrible, but are we really going to keep basing derp derp FUD on a 5 year window of hard lessons from nearly 15 years ago?

If this was early 2012 I would have agreed with you. However in the past 2 years Microsoft have shown what appears to be an attempt to abandon the PC / monitor model of computing chasing endlessly the touch/tablet cashcow that others are milking. They have almost self destructively released a new version of Windows which has almost universal hate, is difficult to use with a mouse / keyboard and have thrown 20 years of UI design lessons out the window in the process. Worse still when the users complained they said they'd listen and released Windows 8.1 completely ignoring the primary complaints of the system.

An OS from a company that appears to consider PCs and customers toxic can not be relied upon in the long term. Yes the rest of your comment is most definitely an element of it too, but that doesn't change the fact that Windows appears to be an attempt at Microsoft leaving the OS business.

Re:Explain

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from disk space, Windows 8 has the exact same system requirements as Ubuntu.

Re:Explain

[paskie]

glibc is also backwards-compatible (within the 2.x series, i.e. since before year 2000). The problem are other system components that change and evolve - things like image processing libraries, sound libraries (as you point out yourself), etc. The ones that the software relied on before are simply disappearing.

However, I think that the situation is much more stabilized now than about five years ago and the ecosystem is fairly mature now. Two big question marks now are systemd and wayland, but the former shouldn't affect applications like games, and the latter should come with a good compatibility layer.

Valve itself is also making sure that the situation stabilizes by specifying what the games can and cannot rely on.

Re:Explain

[Demonoid-Penguin]

This quote makes zero sense: "...reliance on Windows and DirectX (and to a lesser extent Mac OS), systems that cannot be relied upon in the long term." Really, because my experience with Linux and backwards / forwards support for both software and hardware has been vastly worse than Windows from XP through 8. Sure before XP, Windows 9x was terrible, but are we really going to keep basing derp derp FUD on a 5 year window of hard lessons from nearly 15 years ago? Can we just fess up and admit that SteamOS is an effort predicated on a personal beef Gabe Newell has with Microsoft and especially the fact that Windows 8 included it's own store and that store was not Steam. The story is well documented and the whole industry is going to blow a lot of money on development just to satisfy one man's ego.

Linux supports older hardware than windows 7 and 8, no question. Regarding the software... You definitely have a point there. Almost. The Linux kernel itself actually has backwards compatibility for userspace software going back quite a bit. It's mostly glibc that breaks this. If it isn't happening already, it will eventually. You'll be downloading games from that simply ship with their own libraries. I believe a lot of Windows software works this way.

The OP is a moron. While the initial release of SteamOS isn't dual boot friendly it's clearly designed to be. As for poor software support - that's another reason why Debian Linux was a smart choice (and that decision was not made by Gabe Newell) - there's not a whole lot of work that Steam had to do, it's basically a Liquorix kernel and a backport of eglibc. The same dumb platform choice made by other stupid loser companies like, um, Google and IBM. :)

You can actually get a lot of old loki games to run in linux by installing older versions of various libraries. Although, you do encounter some issues. For example, Simcity 3000 won't give you sound since it wants to use esd (which hasn't seen use in years), but the game will otherwise run. This takes some work to setup, but if the games on steam do this for you, it's a non-issue.

I guess it's some work. But hardly onerous.

# apt-get install libesd0 pulseaudio-esound-compat

Re:Explain

[CronoCloud]

or on fedora:

sudo yum install puseaudio-esound-compat

Indeed, pulseaudio is a drop-in replacement for esd, it should just work.

Re:Explain

[CronoCloud]

As has been said, install pulseaudio's esound compatibility package and it should "just work"

Re:Explain

[Demonoid-Penguin]

or on fedora:

sudo yum install puseaudio-esound-compat

:D "puseaudio", does that work OK with sysmd?

Re:Explain

[StarTuxia]

I read this as, "do you trust Microsoft to be producing and supporting the Windows desktop platform and DirectX?" We have reports of falling PC sales, don't you think Microsoft is going to be looking elsewhere? Microsoft closed the Aces studio, and sold off its assets for Microsoft Flight Simulator to Lockheed Martin, one foray into PC gaming was with Microsoft Flight which ended in disaster, so I would expect MS to be spending more and more time with Xbox and much less time on bothering with the PC market, indeed the Microsoft Store seems to heavily favour Xbox. I wouldn't be surprised if they stopped work on DirectX as we know it and shift the development to support the mobile/Xbox market. It is business, pure and simple...

Re:Explain

[Alarash]

The problem is that in people's perception, Microsoft and Apple are not only proprietary systems over which nobody but these companies have control (this is not a perception but a reality) ; but are also evolving in a way that is less and less open and would force you to go through them. I'm one of the few people who actually like Windows 8(.1) but I'm really not in favor of Microsoft only allowing applications from the Windows Store in the future. Sure, it's "maybe" they'll do that. But I don't like maybes. If Valve is committing to developing a platform that is more open than Microsoft's, then I'm happy. Maybe Microsoft will keep its own platform open, and in that case it's a win/win situation for me. If Microsoft doesn't, then I still have Valve's.

I doubt it

[koan]

This + tablets = even lower PC sales.

Re:I doubt it

[Seumas]

I don't understand your comment.

Are you saying that the whole "Steambox" thing will be such an utter failure that it will turn people off from buying PCs *period*, thereby killing sales even further?

Of course, PC sales aren't bleeding out by any means, overall, so...

Re:I doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

Call it a hunch, but anytime someone says "We aren't doing this" well...

And yeah maybe a little of what you said.

Re:I doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

Steambox is a PC. So are the PS4 and Xbone. PCs aren't dying, consoles are. It's not hard to see that gaming machines are converging and that will lead to a bunch of manufacturers making PC hardware that all run the same games.

Re:I doubt it

[Demonoid-Penguin]

I don't understand your comment.

Are you saying that the whole "Steambox" thing will be such an utter failure that it will turn people off from buying PCs *period*, thereby killing sales even further?

Of course, PC sales aren't bleeding out by any means, overall, so...

Ignore the OP, clearly too clueless to understand the difference between a Windows box and an Apple box (fuck all).

Oh, well

[Mephistro]

You can build your own steam machine for peanuts, if you are technically inclined. If you aren't, you can request the help from a friend, and if you can't/don't want to do that, you can still buy a suitable PC an add SteamOS on top. If you're too lazy even for that and have money to expend, you can purchase one of these pretty Steam machines. At the very least you'll be free from the Windows tax and still you'll end up with a full fledged PC with a serious OS (Linux) that can run lots and lots of 'serious apps' + a growing number of games. I think Valve has hit the nail in the head with this one. Kudos to them.

Re:Oh, well

[Seumas]

I think the problem is the concept of building a really nice gaming rig and then locking it away to your home theater, where it becomes fairly useless as it becomes nothing but a game console and home theater box.

Re:Oh, well

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're saying that all game consoles and HTPCs are useless?

Also, don't forget the other class of steambox, where a cheap/small/cool machine is put under the TV and the high-performance gaming happens on a desktop, with the video streamed to the TV.

Re:Oh, well

[Tom]

and still you'll end up with a full fledged PC with a serious OS (Linux) that can run lots and lots of 'serious apps'

*cough*

Sorry, but Linux is not a serious desktop OS. And I say that as someone who had hoped for almost a decade that it would become one.

Using it basically as a black-box OS where the end-user is only ever exposed to your custom app and never to the OS itself is precisely the right move, because that's what Linux is really good for (other than, say, windows which regularily graces bulletin boards or kiosks the world over with blue screen, "new software updates are available" windows and other "why the fuck can't the OS stay in the fucking background instead of jumping into your face?" bullshit.

Re:Oh, well

[Seumas]

No, game consoles and HTPCs are not as expensive as a high end gaming PC. I don't mind throwing $400 at a PS4 to stick in my home theater that does nothing but play games, because it does that one thing well and is only $400.

I'm not going to cram my current desktop rig into my home theater, because it's a powerful machine that is capable of doing far more than spitting out a movie or playing a Steam library. I'm not going to invest in a less powerful PC to dedicate to the home theater, because if I'm going to play a PC game, why would I play it on the lower power system when I have a much better one at my desk?

I am hoping for the best out of SteamOS and even these Steamboxes, but I am not quite understanding where the niche is they expect to truly capitalize from. A high end system is expensive and wasted dedicated to just gaming on your couch, but the opposite end of the spectrum isn't compelling when you can just play on your existing system at your desk for a far better experience.

It would seem to me the only real market is for people who don't already have a decent gaming system and are looking for a low-end low-cost replication of a low-end console experience, but with the PC. In which case, that's totally fine, but . . . seems pretty limiting...

Re:Oh, well

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, but Linux is not a serious desktop OS.

Yes, it is. I've been using it as my sole desktop OS since 1999. Many governments have adopted it as their sole desktop OS as well, including Munich Germany. It works great, as long as you keep in mind its limitations (just like any OS, or anything at all for that matter). If you're trying to use it as a clone for Windows, it's going to fail; it simply isn't going to work well if you try to run it in an environment that absolutely needs to be 100% compatible with Windows software and standards. However, this is true for Mac OSX too, and I don't ever see anyone saying "Mac OS is not a serious desktop OS".

Re:Oh, well

[schnell]

it simply isn't going to work well if you try to run it in an environment that absolutely needs to be 100% compatible with Windows software and standards. However, this is true for Mac OSX too, and I don't ever see anyone saying "Mac OS is not a serious desktop OS".

I guess it depends on how you define "serious desktop OS." I don't think most people define it your way, e.g. "100% Windows compatible." I think most people define it as being explicitly supported "out of the box" by a critical mass of parts of the PC ecosystem:

• Major commercial software vendors
• Networking equipment, printer/scanners, and other accessory vendors
• Native commercial game ports/support
• Support from ISPs, cloud backup services, etc.

The reason is that most people who use computers - not most Slashdotters, but most people - want to buy things with which other important things will "just work." Geeks will seek out how they can make things work in unapproved configurations - and will find it great fun! - but the vast majority of computer users and even corporate IT departments will not.

So basically unless you can walk into a Best Buy or something and walk up and down the aisles of boxed software, games, peripherals, monitors, yadda yadda and see your OS listed under in the "Supported Systems" or "System Requirements" fine print on the boxes, then you are not a serious desktop OS for the mass market.

Your mileage may vary - I am just proposing a definition based on mass market usage. There are Slashdotters, I'm sure, who use Plan 9 every day and it is a "serious desktop OS" to them. But for the world at large, I think most people find a different definition.

Re:Oh, well

[Grishnakh]

I think most people define it as being explicitly supported "out of the box" by a critical mass of parts of the PC ecosystem:

No, a "serious desktop OS" is something that does the tasks you require of it. Everyone has different requirements.

Major commercial software vendors

There's tons of software that doesn't work on MacOS, including lots of enterprise software. So Macs aren't "serious desktops"?

Networking equipment, printer/scanners, and other accessory vendors

I don't know of any serious printers (not cheap POS Best Buy printers) that don't work in Linux, nor any network equipment.

Native commercial game ports/support

Why the hell is this important? How many large corporations give a shit about commercial game support for their office workers' desktop PCs?

Support from ISPs, cloud backup services, etc.

Again, not important if you're a corporation or government or any serious institution.

So basically unless you can walk into a Best Buy

No serious business gives two shits about anything sold in Best Buy. Corporate IT departments do not shop at Best Buy.

Your mileage may vary - I am just proposing a definition based on mass market usage

IT departments don't give a shit about mass market usage. They only care that the applications they use are supported by the platform.

You talk like someone who's never worked in a real job at any decent company before.

Re:Oh, well

[Tom]

They were invented by engineers.

For engineers. The fact that you're posting on this site means you're not representative of the general population.

Re:Oh, well

[msobkow]

A PC with comparable hardware to a console is not that expensive. The problem is, when people say "gaming machine", it's usually a gaming fanatic who wants a 4K display and the graphics horsepower to drive it with all settings maximized. You don't get that with a console, and if you downgrade your components in a PC to a comparable level of performance with a console, you'll find PCs cost about as much as consoles do.

Re:Oh, well

[echnaton192]

Yes. And there is one major point: Hiding backdoors like the ones implemented in the consoles and Windows is not as easy on linux. After NSA, even though I am gamer, there is no way in hell that I'll be running a closed source OS on my machines in a year or so except for dual boot from time to time. Starting steam could unmount the drives with my data on linux, the reast is more or less open, so a backdoor is harder to hide.

To me, that counts. A closed source device that listens to every word spoken in my room and looks for the number of people and what they are doing? You got to be kidding me. I do not care why Gabe does it. I want it. On my own machine, built by myself. Able to play current games (half life 3! Now!) and do serious stuff on a platform I could trust considerable more than any NSA-infested closed source system?

This is a nobrainer.

Re:Oh, well

[DJRumpy]

You have a few valid points as some of the GP's examples were a bit out there, and for some of your own points, you would be laughed out of your procurement department. Corporate IT environments care very much about who uses software. I don't know about your IT department, but ours has very strict standards about supportability, health of a company, number of customers and business strength, etc. Those things are key to investing heavily in a software or hardware platform. You don't want to drop millions on a product only to find the company has gone under and won't be supporting your purchase. There comes a point when an OS reaches enough market saturation that it is largely considered a viable alternative that has achieved it's own momentum. Linux simply hasn't gotten to that place yet. Does that make it an invalid choice? Certainly not, BUT it does make many corporate IT shops hesitate to invest heavily in it. We have Linux in our environment. Not a large one, and certainly not widely supported, but it's there.

I don't think the OP was stating it was ineffective or a bad choice, and your defensive post speaks to that, but rather it just hasn't achieved enough market saturation that it is largely considered a viable general use desktop for the masses. No more, no less. That speaks nothing to it's benefits, or it's drawbacks, and you should take such at face value, which is true enough. Linux is more of a specialty desktop. It can do what it does extremely well, but for most purposes, it would require a bit of customization that an OS with better market saturation would probably get out of the box. Not because it can't do those things, but because the vendors who create such products probably also took that market saturation into account when designing their products.

Re:Oh, well

[CronoCloud]

The fact that you're posting on this site means you're not representative of the general population.

I feel insulted. I'm a luser not a hardcore Linux nerd you insensitive clod. I don't use emacs...or gnu screen. I actually use X11. I configured my printer with a graphical interface not my hand editing /etc/printcap. I haven't compiled a kernel in years! I'm not even a programmer or sysadmin, my first exposure to Linux was on the PS2. Look at my slashdot UID...it has 6 digits.

I think I shall start referring to my Firefox window as "The Internet" and my computer's case as "The CPU" now.

All kidding aside, I agree with you.

Re:Oh, well

[Grishnakh]

I don't know about your IT department, but ours has very strict standards about supportability, health of a company, number of customers and business strength, etc. Those things are key to investing heavily in a software or hardware platform. You don't want to drop millions on a product only to find the company has gone under and won't be supporting your purchase. There comes a point when an OS reaches enough market saturation that it is largely considered a viable alternative that has achieved it's own momentum. Linux simply hasn't gotten to that place yet.

This is BS. Red Hat is already a much larger and more profitable company than lots of other OS vendors, such as Green Hills. I don't see Green Hills' puny size preventing it from being used for various DoD projects. Novell is also a pretty sizeable company with their own distro. You don't have to be popular enough to be sold in Best Buy for corporate IT departments to invest in you; just look at how much weird enterprise software out there is bought by IT shops, despite the fact that no one else uses it. IT departments don't hesitate to drop millions on that software, even though most of it is utter shit.

Re:Oh, well

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem with Steam and Linux is if you actually try and use a large amount the indie games they are so buggy it is unreal.

Steambox hardware running Windows 7 Embedded would work better. (Find someone who can get a free key from Dreamspark).

Perform what ever legal tricks are required to make it legal if you are bothered about such things.

Re:Oh, well

[lordofthechia]

I'm not going to cram my current desktop rig into my home theater, because it's a powerful machine that is capable of doing far more than spitting out a movie or playing a Steam library.

Well for you there's In-home Streaming

Per Valve:

You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have - then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!

The streaming function doesn't require a beefy machine ( even Tegra 3/4 devices can handle it).

Re:Oh, well

[Anonymous Coward]

Actuall the ENVI Image Analysis software, http://www.exelisvis.com/ProductsServices/ENVI/ENVI.aspx, runs better on Linux than Windows. Native 64 bit there longer too....

Re:Oh, well

[Anonymous Coward]

Redhat sells as a server, it doesn't have a huge desktop following. We use Redhat extensively in our datacentre, but NO ONE here uses it as their desktop.

Re:Oh, well

[Grishnakh]

It doesn't have a huge desktop following because most companies use Windows for that. They do that for various reasons: 1) inertia, and 2) applications and infrastructure, namely Office and Outlook/Exchange (and also Active Directory), though there's also lots of 3rd-party applications which are Windows-only that the business may be tied to.

If a business decides they want to free themselves of MS, however, it's quite feasible, depending on what they do and what applications they rely on. With more and more apps being web-based, the MS dependency is shrinking. With governments, it's easier because they can call the shots; they don't need to worry about being 100% compatible with everyone's MS Office documents; they can use LibreOffice and if they have any problems, tell the other organization to provide it in a more compatible format or fuck off. Businesses (which have competitors) don't usually have that luxury. And there's alternatives for Outlook/Exchange out there, though they aren't as popular. Google stuff is becoming a stronger alternative (Docs and Calendar). Aside from this, you can always run Windows Terminal Services for necessary Windows apps, or run Windows in a VM.

Re:Oh, well

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, let me know when Avid Media Composer runs on Linux.

Re:Oh, well

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so cool. So instead of just running games on my PC, I will need two PCs to do the same thing! What awesome progress they're making over at Valve!

Re:Oh, well

[ausekilis]

I think the problem is the concept of building a really nice gaming rig and then locking it away to your home theater, where it becomes fairly useless as it becomes nothing but a game console and home theater box.

You're right, it does become a console and home theater box. Is that really a bad thing?

I'd like having a console that doesn't need physical media and can have many terabytes of information. I'd like a HTPC that I can use like a TiVo if I wanted (just slap in a TV Tuner card and you're set). Or a HTPC that I can store all my media on, so I can show my friends pictures of the latest vacation while playing whatever music I choose, and not having a dozen people huddle around a desk. I also like having a full-fledged PC that I can use to browse the web, in case I get stuck in a game or want to show some friends some movie I found somewhere, since not everything is on YouTube. Not to mention having it in your living room means those local Co-Op games are now accessible, and so is a more comfortable way of pass-the-controller.

Since a great deal of the console games get released on PC too, you're typically only missing the exclusives for the platform. By all means, get an XBone with Forza and Halo for $600. Then go and get the PS4 with GT and Resistance for $500. I'll spend my $600 on a custom PC and hit up a steam sale and get dozens of games with that last $400.

Remember, a "Gaming PC" here doesn't mean the 4K signal to 3+ monitors, with surround sound, and RAZR gaming peripherals. In the living room, you can get a good home-built steambox for around $600 and another $30 on each controller if you don't already have the wired XB360's, just google "gaming htpc".

Let's be honest

[TrollstonButterbeans]

Let's be honest, here is one major advantage of a Steam Machine.

Teenagers and pre-teens rock at getting viruses, malware and such on a Windows computer. This is why everyone buys them tablets.

Windows is starting to be its own worst enemy, Windows 8 is terrible (and I have it on 2 machines) and Windows 7 --- while almost perfect --- at the hands of an inexperienced user the default settings aren't the best.

Typical users ARE NOT looking to tweak, break-in a system, uninstall crapware.

This is where the Steam Machines can excel --- bringing PC quality gaming to the masses without Windows update installing countless GB of mostly unwanted stuff at 3 AM. And Mac computers, while great, are not mainstream economical (I have 2 Macs and I love them. But they are pricey).

Consoles are a trade-off --- they offer gaming with training wheels (no mouse, can't offer bleeding edge graphics, overly sandboxed and limited from a developer perspective at times I would guess) --- SteamOS can offer PC quality gaming without the drawbacks of Windows maintenance/OEM crapwares.

Re:Let's be honest

[Lendrick]

Realistically, if an OS isn't used by many people, there's little reason to write malware for it.

(That being said, if Steam OS makes desktop linux big, then there will be more malware for desktop linux.)

Re:Let's be honest

[0123456]

Window 8 is malware.

Re:Let's be honest

[Anonymous Coward]

As is Ubuntu Unity. I wouldn't touch either with a 10ft pole.

Re:Let's be honest

[TheloniousToady]

Realistically, if an OS isn't used by many people, there's little reason to write malware for it.

And if an OS isn't used by many people because it's so hard to administer that only techies can use it, there's zero reason to write malware for it. Who wants to write malware for techies when you can shoot fish in a general-population barrel?

(That being said, if Steam OS makes desktop linux big, then there will be more malware for desktop linux.)

If I may paraphrase Norma Desmond:

Linux is big. It's the users that got small.

Re:Let's be honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Word. This should be the most user friendly Linux experience ever. But not just Linux, but PC experience period. If Valve nails this, we will have Linux PCs as easy to use as a game console. Whoa.

Re:Let's be honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. If SteamOS catches on, there will be cheaper versions of the SteamBox in stores, and those versions will have as much crapware as any Windows machine.

499 US dollars

[tepples]

Xbox One: $499. Steambox One: also $499.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar price... for similar features... where's the Kinect?

Re:499 US dollars

[tepples]

The Steam Machine doesn't need an NSA spying device. Besides, you could say the same thing about Xbox One: where's the mods?

Re:499 US dollars

[Charliemopps]

Yea, but if everyone you hang out with has $2000 PCs and they're playing team fortress all night long, now you're not shit out of luck. You can pick one up for $500 and hang with your friends. Not only that, but if you know how to use a screw driver you can build your own steam box for cheaper.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

PS4 is more powerful than that and $100 cheaper.

Re:499 US dollars

[tepples]

But of the PS4 and the Steam Machine, which has more games?

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

The PS4 has higher quality games and that is all that matters.

Re:499 US dollars

[RoLi]

Of course if you don't want to use it as a doorstop, you will need software for it:

XBox One: A handful of games at typically 50$

Steambox: Already over hundred games at typically 20$

And that is exactly why the Steambox will be a success.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Such as what? Resogun? Contrast? ...Resogun?

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_4_games

Most of those won't be coming out for Steam Machine. Oh and Resogun sucks ass. It's Defender with pretty graphics; I'd rather just fire up MAME and play the real thing.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Steambox: Already over hundred games that everyone has already played for years at typically 20$

FTFY

Re:499 US dollars

[ThePhilips]

And that is bad how? It is actually very good.

Considering the very low entry price (buy and plug new HDD(*) into my rig, install SteamOS) I actually might do it over a week-end just to kill the boredom by playing some of the sentimental junk.

(*) Or even cheaper: pick old (potentially failing) HDD from the pile on the shelf.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

Because everybody already has the games. There is zero incentive to get a Steambox.

Re:499 US dollars

[Therad]

And where is the free multiplayer? And the steam sales? And backwards compatibility? A steam machine will be cheaper in the long run. No questions about it.

Re:499 US dollars

[CronoCloud]

Resogun, yeah it's a Defender clone but it's a damn good one.

DCUO. Hey, the PS4 is the first console to launch with an MMORPG available, that counts for something.

I hear Knack is a fairly fun platformer

Don't Starve.

ACwhatever

Sportsgamefoo

Lego Marvel Super Heroes

It's not great, but it's not horrible.

Re:499 US dollars

[CronoCloud]

Oh and Resogun sucks ass. It's Defender with pretty graphics;{/quote]

Yes it essentially is Defender with pretty graphics, but I think it's a fairly good game.

[quote]I'd rather just fire up MAME and play the real thing.[/quote]

Who needs MAME when you have Midway Arcade Origins on the PS3. Or Midway Arcade Treasures on the PS2, or the Williams collection for PSOne, SNES, etc etc.

Also Midway Arcade Treasures for the PSP means portable Defender (and Gauntlet)

Re:499 US dollars

[CronoCloud]

You're not taking ALL the console games into account. Not all console games come on disc or are $60. There were games costing less than $20 for the PS4 on PSN at launch.

Re: 499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are using that nice of computers, and playing team fortress I would call that a waste.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

With MAME I can play more than just Defender and I can play on my PC, phone, tablet or Dingoo.

Re:499 US dollars

[CronoCloud]

Yes, but did you pay for that Defender software you're playing in MAME? The game is still owned by Warner Bros who still sell it for various platforms.

Re:499 US dollars

[ThePhilips]

Many old games are real cheap and, believe me, the $5 is a better deal than the hours of troubleshooting why the darn thing won't start under Win7/Win8.

Re:499 US dollars

[bloodhawk]

If all people are interested in is old games then they would be far better off with a ps3 or xbox 360, both with hundreds of games available. most can also be had for $20 or under second hand and the console will cost half that of the cheapest steambox. Chasing users that want to play old games is a quick way to an early death.

Re:499 US dollars

[ThePhilips]

Chasing users that want to play old games is a quick way to an early death.

AFAIU Valve isn't "chasing users" with the old games. That is a merely sideeffect of porting of their software to Linux plus H/W requirements being set that any relatively recent PC with nVidia graphics would do. That's the beauty of it: you are not required to buy new H/W.

Re:499 US dollars

[bloodhawk]

So again where is the incentive to get a steambox? If you already have the old games then you have a machine that can play them, if you are after the latest and greatest games then steambox is at best a gamble.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

What difference does that make? I have it.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get your logic. Are you saying that I should spend an additional $5 on a game that I already bought and play just for the privilege of playing it on a Valve endorsed PC that I would have to spend at least another $500 on?

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

A $2000 PC for TF? Probably could do TF + multiple video encoding or bitcoin mining on a $2000PC with two cores tied behind its back ;).

In contrast getting a 60fps minimum on Crysis 3 at 1080p max quality still seems hard...

Re: 499 US dollars

[rioki]

+1 totally agree. Team Fortress is a fun game and all, but the graphics where never really updated since 2007. Not that I think this is a bad idea...

Re:499 US dollars

[CronoCloud]

You mean you are using something you don't have the rights to use.

Don't be a overly entitled man-child. Grown-ups pay for the stuff the use/want, that includes games. Yes, even old games.

Now if the game wasn't available on any platform I'd be more willing to cut people some slack...but Defender IS still being sold.

Re:499 US dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'm using something that isn't sold or readily available any more. And no, ports aren't the same thing. It's up on Internet Archive for free download for this exact reason.

By resorting to ad hominem, you tacitly admit that you have no ability to conduct a rational discussion and invalidate everything that you have said. Have a nice day.

Small form factor

[tepples]

You can build one much cheaper than a console.

Case and all? I was under the impression that the small form factor needed to fit in next to a TV was a premium market segment, that PC cases the size of a PS4 and motherboards and power supplies to fit in them were more expensive than a "normal" tower case, motherboard, and power supply.

And some people will.

But do these people have the financial power to get these cheaper-than-console Steam Machines into stores?

Re:Small form factor

[houstonbofh]

OK, how about this. http://www.directron.com/cheap-save-pc-3.html Use the dropdown to pick the Gforce GT630 for $70 and the entire package is $317. You can do better picking some parts, but this is a full package, assembled and tested.

Re:Small form factor

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not going to be running anything on a GT 630. It only has performance about on par with the Intel Iris Pro GPUs.

That said, I could still build a better machine than any of the Steambox offerings, case included, for $500. That might not be a bad idea for a small business if SteamOS does somehow manage to gain any attention among gamers.

Re:Small form factor

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you are free to do build it... people can't say the same about consoles.

Re:Small form factor

[donaldm]

OK, how about this. http://www.directron.com/cheap-save-pc-3.html Use the dropdown to pick the Gforce GT630 for $70 and the entire package is $317. You can do better picking some parts, but this is a full package, assembled and tested.

Terrific! a "dual core" processor (admittedly at 3GHz) and 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 memory compared to 8 CPU's and 8 GB memory of the latest consoles. Oh great the PC does have a DVD RW drive compared to a BD/DVD read only drive. Sorry this is not the same as the latest consoles and you have not even added in the cost of a keyboard, mouse and possibly a controller which if you are a serious gamer is not going to be under a $80. Also I am quite sure which device I would prefer next to my HDTV and it is not that.

Of course this site is in the USA and is no help for people in other countries who would normally pay 10% to 40% more. In Australia we would pay AU$549 for the PS4 (if you can get one, since it is out of stock at the moment) and AU$599 for the XBOne. AU$1.00 = US$0.90 as of the time of this posting..

Still to be fair the PC you have the link to is quite acceptable for general use although you would have to install you own OS which in the case of a Microsoft OS is also going to cost unless you are one of the "Green Parrot Brigade" :).

Re:Small form factor

[spire3661]

Antec 150-300 case, Celeron 1610 and a low profile 7750 is powerful, cheap, quiet and small. I built a prototype a while ago when the Steam box rumblings started, using the best OTS, low power stuff i could get my hands on. Further, Sony and MS's designs are pretty trivial, any decent sized OEM can make a box just like they did. The instant Steam OS finds the hardware sweet spot, the clone wars will have begun using cheap, commodity hardware.

Re:Small form factor

[Kremmy]

With a 300 watt power supply, I wouldn't put dedicated video into that machine unless it was stripped of the drives and booted from the network. That's just asking for trouble.

Personal computer vs. appliance

[tepples]

IMHO, a computer primarily designed for gaming is a console.

So is a Wintendo a "console". Another definition of a "console" is a computer whose case and UI are designed for use with a TV as its display.

Though you might want to draw a line so that it's a console when the manufacturer spends extra effort to limit its computational abilities in order to make it cheaper. Which, IMHO, does not compute.

To me, a "personal computer" is a piece of computing hardware where the person who owns it controls what computing it performs. For example, a device running SteamOS (or other X11/Linux distributions), Windows, OS X, or Android is a personal computer. A device running operating system whose publisher has veto power over apps, such as Windows RT, Windows Phone, Apple iOS, Nintendo iOS (Wii, Wii U), Sony GameOS (PS3), Sony Orbis OS (PS4), is an "appliance".

Re:Personal computer vs. appliance

[TeknoHog]

To me, a "personal computer" is a piece of computing hardware where the person who owns it controls what computing it performs. For example, a device running SteamOS (or other X11/Linux distributions), Windows, OS X, or Android is a personal computer. A device running operating system whose publisher has veto power over apps, such as Windows RT, Windows Phone, Apple iOS, Nintendo iOS (Wii, Wii U), Sony GameOS (PS3), Sony Orbis OS (PS4), is an "appliance".

This! I hate the way "PC" is often used to refer to a Windows box, when a Linux/BSD installation is generally much more personal(ized) than the same old Windows you see everywhere. That said, this is a matter of degree, so it's hard to draw a line -- a closed OS makes computing more limited, but even a Free OS is often handicapped by non-free BIOS and firmware.

Re:Personal computer vs. appliance

[Anonymous Coward]

Android? I have to use an unpublished hack to get root, and another unpublished hack if I want to boot my own kernel. Pretty sure my Android device isn't a "personal computer" by your definition

Google are masters of, "Wasn't me, guv'nor." They have most of the control but blame everyone from the NSA to the device manufacturers.

PulseAudio can emulate ESD

[tepples]

For example, Simcity 3000 won't give you sound since it wants to use esd (which hasn't seen use in years), but the game will otherwise run.

Wikipedia's article about PulseAudio claims that PulseAudio can emulate ESD. Or is this emulation too broken to work with SimCity 3000?

Re:PulseAudio can emulate ESD

[neuro88]

Wikipedia's article about PulseAudio claims that PulseAudio can emulate ESD. Or is this emulation too broken to work with SimCity 3000?

I have no idea... I didn't know about this so I never tried... But thanks for the info, I just may give this a shot!

Difficulty of greenlighting and modding

[tepples]

Can we just fess up and admit that SteamOS is an effort predicated on a personal beef Gabe Newell has with Microsoft

I'll consider that when you answer this question: Is it easier for a startup video game developer to get a game greenlit on Xbox One or on Steam? Is it easier for a user to install a community-maintained game mod into a game from Microsoft stores or from Steam? Perhaps Gabe N.'s beef is not with Microsoft as much as it is with the concept of people being locked into unmoddable major-label games. Case in point: had Half-Life been a console exclusive or otherwise lacked modding tools, there would be no Counter-Strike.

Re:Difficulty of greenlighting and modding

[aaronb1138]

You're confusing the SteamOS with console gaming. My point is more in the direction of SteamOS vs Windows or OSX gaming which was the largely false statement.

As far as Indie developers go, they can self publish pretty easily to the PC or sell on Steam without the need of a dedicated SteamBox or SteamOS right now. The end user generally benefits from keeping everything on their preferred platform, Windows or OSX. The issues I take with SteamOS are the propaganda and a lot of reinventing the wheel.

Re:Difficulty of greenlighting and modding

[CronoCloud]

Counter strike exists because some cheap-ass Euro-gamers, modded a game they already had because they were too cheap to buy other games. Nothing more, nothing less? Haven't you wondered why the modding community is so strong in Europe, it's because they're cheap pirates at heart! They have been since the 80's!

Re:Difficulty of greenlighting and modding

[spire3661]

What you call 'reinventing the wheel' is actually undoing the stupid shit MS and Apple pull with their OS. I dont see any propaganda, i see a lot of ignorance and lack of vision.

Re:Difficulty of greenlighting and modding

[lxs]

Yarr! I think I'm going to stroll down to the piazza and drink some fine wine to that.

Re:Difficulty of greenlighting and modding

[Anonymous Coward]

undoing the stupid shit MS and Apple pull with their OS

Such as? Can you provide examples?

I was mistaken

[sgt scrub]

I have always believed that Linux deserves to be a gaming platform. I use my machine for games. They are fun, exciting, and most are open source. I've never had to go online to sign up for an account to play any of them. I don't need to maintain an online presence so as to provide someone with information about my behavior. Games I play are available without having to buy a box specifically designed to satisfy the DRM needs of the games I am playing. If games on Linux comes at the loss of those benefits, or the Linux desktop is replaced by some java user interface that pushes the user towards signing up for things, I'm not seeing the benefit.

Barrier to prevent a crash

[tepples]

Unfortunately Microsoft seem to be looking to looking to emulate Apple by taking a cut on every piece of software released for the platform, and raising the barriers for entry for indie developers in the process.

How is an entry barrier necessarily unfortunate? Entry barriers exist for a large part to prevent conditions like those that led to the 1983 crash.

Re:Barrier to prevent a crash

[Spottywot]

Unfortunately Microsoft seem to be looking to looking to emulate Apple by taking a cut on every piece of software released for the platform, and raising the barriers for entry for indie developers in the process.

How is an entry barrier necessarily unfortunate? Entry barriers exist for a large part to prevent conditions like those that led to the 1983 crash.

It's quite simple, the market for computer games was very naive back then, people believed hyperbolic quotes on the back of games, and the misleading screenshots and cover art. We are now dealing with at least 2 generations of tech savvy consumers, and poor games simply won't sell, it's not like poor releases can taint the industry anymore on the same scale as the early days of cheap computing. Barriers to entry enforced by dominating entities such as Microsoft just mean that they get to define the playing field to suit themselves, whereas more competition means the playing field has more of a chance of being defined by the consumer or developer.

Re:Barrier to prevent a crash

[Anonymous Coward]

> How is an entry barrier necessarily unfortunate?

Because the collateral damage (in the US, at least) is almost always anything that doesn't fit corporate America's sanitized definition of "family friendly". Anything that's remotely "adult" represents "unknown risk" (criticism, prosecution, whatever), and large corporations are violently allergic to that kind of risk because they represent big, wealthy, high-profile targets for every small-town prosecutor looking for his 15 minutes of fame. Thanks to the way in America we're willing to give prosecutors nearly unlimited resources to pursue any alleged crime, even a small-town narcissistic bully with the law behind him can blow his county's budget dragging big companies into court and subpoenaing their most senior employees at will, and the thought of being judged by a jury of bible thumpers from some county nobody in their own state capital has ever heard of scares big companies shitless.

Think about how much money gets made in the adult industry, and contemplate for a moment why Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, NBC, and the rest aren't doing everything they can to get a piece of the pie. They're afraid to. If they were largely invulnerable to anyone besides federal prosecutors in Washington, DC, you can BET there'd be things like a Verizon Adult appstore, sex.google.com, and "Bedroom Olympics 2014" for Xbox360.

Re:Barrier to prevent a crash

[spire3661]

Any lessons learned from the 1983 crash do not apply to today. The video game market in 1983 was incredibly tiny compared to now. It would be impossible to recreate that crash now now matter how much shovelware Nintendo puts out.

PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[stoicio]

Isn't the desktop PC market actually declining?
The reality is that most people never needed a desktop PC and can get by without one just fine.

Home PCs are now only for old people who are used to that sort of thing.

The desktop workstation wil become a specialty item used for science,
and engineering. The rest of the population will be using thin clients on
remote apps, or smaller, more ergonomically suitable, portable devices.

It's difficult to believe that desktoip PC gaming actually has 'decades' to survive.
I'm questiong the business plan here....

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Seumas]

Nope. Hardware sales are projected to decline very slightly over a couple of years and then start to return. For a market that is constantly under the claim of "dying", they sure are selling an awful lot of $1,000 video cards and $300 CPUs and $300 chassis' and making whole businesses out of catering to even more niche markets like water cooling nuts.

Steam has 65,000,000 users. That is more than XBOX (but less than Playstation). That's not PC gamers. That's just *Steam* gamers.

Consoles are $300-$500. The lowest end gaming PC that you can get by with starts at that price. Further, games have largely been targeted at consoles and ported to PCs in such a way that they just don't really demand much of the PC hardware.

In other words, PC gaming is as big as it has ever been. Even if mobile and console platforms grow massively, that doesn't detract from PC gaming. You can do more than one platform. It's just that software necessitates the increase in hardware capacity and software just hasn't been making those demands for a long time, leaving PC gamers to make longer use of their PC hardware. That reflects in hardware sales. A reduction in hardware sales means just that - a reduction in hardware sales; not a reduction in people playing on their existing hardware.

Additionally, we've been told for years now that *console* gaming is dying and will soon be dead. And so will all handhelds that aren't a tablet or mobile phone. Of course, that is bullshit. Steam's user numbers, the popularity of PC-only games, and the 8,000,000 PS4 and XB1 consoles sold in the last two months is evidence that it is bullshit.

I am skeptical about the future of PC gaming, but not because of some perceived lack of interested gamers. The only thing that can harm PC gaming is if developers and publishers continue to treat PC gaming like a redheaded stepchild. If they continue to put out PC ports in a half-assed and often-broken fashion and months or years after the console versions of the same game. And if they continue to not exploit the power of the PC, but just port over console versions of games that look and play progressively worse over time as the console platform ages.

If PC gaming dies, it won't be for lack of interest. It'll be because it was sabotaged and undermined by the developers and publishers.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Anonymous Coward]

The 5 million PC gamers currently online on Steam disagree.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[stoicio]

Interesting.

But aren't they selling an aweful lot of video cards pretty much for bitcoin mining and not gaming?
Bitcoin is about to go flop because the designer of it percieved that the computing world
would stay static, which it logically couldn't. The perception that desktop computers will
always be PC boxes, required by the world, is pretty much the same kind of situational bias.

I am guessing the 65 million number for Steam are a count of people who have logged on to try it
out of curiosity. The daily user numbers indicate actual customers and that count is orders of magnitude smaller.

I am skeptical that the desktop PC market is sustainable for more than 5 more years. Most of the common things
people have historically done with PCs can now be carried around in ones pocket with the cellphone. That leaves
the home gaming, desktop PC, to become a single use device in most households.
Why would anyone bother with that kind of cash outlay for something that sits idle 90% of the time? Nostalgia?

I'm guessing that the consoles will become less expensive as competing Indian and Chinese technologies arrive
on the market. I can't actually believe that Japan and USA will have any corner on the electronics design market
in a short period of time. The US is not training enough new people, has a miniscule proportion of the global population
to draw ideas from and has lost the ability to do anything other than rewrap old tech (ie: the xbox is really just a crippled PC),
and Japan has social demographic issues that will create a shrinking pool of technically skilled people capable of making new
product (hence the new 'Walkman'). An indication of this is that Sony would rather serve games to a gaming thin client.
The Playstation4 is probably the last of that series of devices from Sony.

We also need to remember that handheld devices will keep improving. Nvidia know this, that is why they are now targeting
graphics device designs, specifically to support that platform.

All things told, as nostalgic as I am for the 1970's and 1980's computer era, the desktop PC is so over it's not even funny.
No amount of wishing will make the PC come back because the public now know what the PC will (and will not) do
and are moving on to more generally useful tools.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[bloodhawk]

Video cards aren't cost effective for bitcoin mining anymore.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[bloodhawk]

while I think PC gaming has more users than consoles. That number from steam is garbage. I am currently an online steam user, as is my mother and sister and none of us are playing games. Steam is set to startup with the PC for most users therefore when they are logged in they are counted as online.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we hit a plateau at 12-14nm, there's exactly one die-shrink left in the pipeline before making chips are unprofitable, and once Intel and AMD start using it, everything from there on out will be software efficiency improvements (eg no more virtualizing, no more Java or Flash use, no bloated OOP frameworks, etc) unless new materials increase the thermal headroom available to allow for higher clocks again (we've been at a 3-4ghz ceiling since the Pentium 4.)

This is why Mantle is more of a big deal, we need to throw away the bloated operating system constraints and split computers into three markets
"Gaming" (high end PC's that do not run Windows, they're more like a PS4 with the option to drop to Windows/OSX to do consumption activities)
"Content creation" (Developer machines, video capture, renderfarms)
"Content consumption and business needs" - Tablet computers that regular keyboards and mice can be used on. Web/cloud software is good enough for them.

Right now the problem we keep seeing is that companies like HP and Dell keep marketing computers that are that third category of "consumption" as also capable of playing games, when all they come with is the onboard graphics that Intel or AMD put on the lowest-end parts. These machines were never meant to play games, and the quick death-knell of the netbooks that couldn't even run Windows Vista proved that.

Remember why old PC games didn't run under windows 3.1? Because Windows put too much overhead on the weak 386 and 486 computers of the day by hiding the physical hardware from the game. Instead of everything working in 1 clock cycle, things now took 2 or 3 because windows had to check if it should be doing something.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, I have Steam installed on my whimpy MacBook, haven't touched the thing in at least a year. Even if I do get around to replaying Half-Life 1 one of these days it's a little ridiculous to consider myself an active "PC Gamer" as I don't even have a clue what the current popular games are.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Notabadguy]

The desktop PC market is *not* declining. Shipments of new PCs are declining because the PC market is stable.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Ardyvee]

Yes. Tablets, smartphones are taking over a lot of the task we used to do on the PC. It's shrinking. Nowadays you don't need a PC unless you plan to play games in it, or do some sort of work that the current mobile (and no, I don't mean laptops) computing platforms can't do. I plan on keeping my PC upgraded. I'd leap to having a server in my house if money wasn't an issue. But that's me. I am an exception to the rule. I feel more at home sitting in front of my PC than inside my room (a recent acquisition too, since before I used to share a room in which I basically just slept). I can't see myself using a smartphone to see videos (who'd want to see anything in that tiny screen?!). To me, all my devices should be an extension of the PC I'd have at home, keeping all the information and providing services to myself and those I care about.

Most people nowadays can make do with a smartphone and a tablet. Maybe add a stand and a keyboard if anything more demanding needs to be done (assuming they can just do it with the on-screen keyboard). So yes. You are right. the microcomputer market is dying. Personal Computers will now mean your tablet or your smartphone, or perhaps even your thin client, not your microcomputer at home. Not the microcomputer I'm writing this from. At least not to many people.

And yes, the switch from PC to microcomputers is intentional.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Shipments of new PCs are declining because of Windows 8. If MS doesn't fix this, an evolved Steambox and MacOS (provided Apple doesn't fuck up their UI) could very well emerge as the mainstream machines for (ironically) doing actual work.

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Kremmy]

Are we to understand that none of your family are actually Steam users, they just happen to maintain accounts?

Re:PCs Don't Have Decades for Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the general public likes Windows 8. The only place where you see the nerd rage is on Slashdot. GP has it right, the market is stable.

Close Steam, open GNOME, install game

[tepples]

Games I play are available without having to buy a box specifically designed to satisfy the DRM needs of the games I am playing. If games on Linux comes at the loss of those benefits, or the Linux desktop is replaced by some java user interface that pushes the user towards signing up for things, I'm not seeing the benefit.

This article states that SteamOS users can close the Steam client and bring up a GNOME desktop. At that point, the user can install any game made for Debian.

Re:Close Steam, open GNOME, install game

[Seumas]

Games I play are available without having to buy a box specifically designed to satisfy the DRM needs of the games I am playing. If games on Linux comes at the loss of those benefits, or the Linux desktop is replaced by some java user interface that pushes the user towards signing up for things, I'm not seeing the benefit.

This article states that SteamOS users can close the Steam client and bring up a GNOME desktop. At that point, the user can install any game made for Debian.

So . . . basically, Tux and FreeCiv. :P

Re:Close Steam, open GNOME, install game

[tepples]

Or anything that works in Wine. Or some of the old Loki games. Or use a Retrode or INL-Retro cart reader to copy your NES, SNES, and Genesis cartridges to your Steam Machine and install an emulator.

Re:Close Steam, open GNOME, install game

[tepples]

I'm not a lawyer, but neither is Anonymous Coward, who wrote:

not a single legitimate use of a ROM copier exists.

At least in Slashdot's home country, your claim is at odds with 17 USC 117(a)(1), which states that making a copy or adaptation of a computer program for use on a particular machine is not copyright infringement.

Re:Close Steam, open GNOME, install game

[Winamp]

Exactly. I play Doom 3, Quakes 1->4, UT2004, Prey, Neverwinter Nights, and many other commercial games as well as older commercial through open-source engines. None of them require Steam and are completely DRM-free. Of course it does mean you have to have a willingness to enjoy games from the 90's and 00's, but that was my gaming prime and from what I've played of many modern AAA titles I'm actually having more fun with the older stuff anyway.

"poor software support"

[PopeRatzo]

I wonder if when the first Nintendo Wii was released people accused it of having "poor software support". They only had a small fraction of the number of games that are available already for SteamOS.

Funny what a little money spent on marketing can do. Even "independent" voices in the media will treat you differently if they see you throwing money around.

The Wii got a nice tongue bath from the media whereas Steam boxes get a lot of "where are the games?"

It's a good thing that we don't put the popular media in charge of anything. First, because they're barely even able to perform the one task they are charged with, but also because they are so easy to con.

Re:"poor software support"

[Anonymous Coward]

The wii did incredibly well for Nintendo hardware sales, it actually did appallingly bad for software games sales, hence why many 3rd parties don't write games for wii or wii u now.

Re:"poor software support"

[Anonymous Coward]

It had the entire Gamecube back catalog available.

Search on steam for games supporting Linux and big picture 80% are humble bundle games and about 20% of those work as well as the Windows versions.

But there is the latest version of Football Manager which a fair few people seem to go for.

Re:"poor software support"

[PopeRatzo]

Dota 2 is one of the most profitable games on Steam. It plays very nicely on Linux.

Pretty much

[Sycraft-fu]

Yes, MS may eventually go out of business, or discontinue Windows. They also might eventually change the way it works so substantially as to break things. However, it is a pretty unlikely scenario, they have pretty good history and a good definition of their support lifecycle.

Nothing in the universe is certain, of course, but neither would be something like Steam Box. Being Linux based doesn't mean anything. I mean, suppose all of a sudden Intel, AMD, and nVidia got together and decided to totally change everything. New ISA, no more DirectX or OpenGL, etc, etc. Everything would need to be reported, redeveloped, and it would be a massive problem.

Now that is exceedingly unlikely to happen, but just another example that you can't have some solution that is perfect, forever, and will never go away no matter what.

Hell look at the console market. You can't rely on shit there, yet it still seems to do well. You don't know if a new console will come out, if it does when, when it does if it'll be backwards compatible, etc, etc.

This idea that a Steam Box is needed for some kind of stability is silly. The parent has it right: It is an ego thing, and a thing to try and protect Steam. Valve loves Steam because it means they can fuck around and do as they please, no worries about money because it rolls in for very little effort. However if people started using the Windows Store to get their software instead (not likely, Microsoft is making a big hash of it) then Steam's market could dry up and that would suck for Valve.

Re:Pretty much

[Grishnakh]

I mean, suppose all of a sudden Intel, AMD, and nVidia got together and decided to totally change everything. New ISA, no more DirectX or OpenGL, etc, etc. Everything would need to be reported, redeveloped, and it would be a massive problem.

This wouldn't happen, because, as you say, everything would need to be re-developed, and it would put these companies out of business. I don't just mean Linux software would need to be re-ported, I mean they'd have to wait for all-new software of every kind to be developed to run on their chips. It's not like MS can port Windows to a whole new ISA in 3 months and the companies which use OpenGL/DX would be able to get together and develop a new graphics API and port all their software to it in that time. It would take years for the dust to settle, and I'm just talking about proprietary software here, and totally neglecting open-source stuff. So the very idea is just ludicrous.

This idea that a Steam Box is needed for some kind of stability is silly.

No it's not. It's about control. With Win8, MS is trying to take more control over the PC software ecosystem by emulating Apple's "app store", and they're also moving development in a new direction with the Metro UI. Independent software companies which are mostly tied to the MS platform, and don't like the way it's going, would be stupid to put all their eggs in one basket, which of course is why you see more software for Macs these days that 10 years ago. Valve's direction makes total sense: they're trying to get more control over the platform their software runs on, and that's pretty easy to do with Linux since it's open, allowing you to build custom OS builds easily, and also allowing software vendors a certain amount of power in dictating the direction of development of the OS if they wish (and the existing players agree with them and accept their patches), which you simply don't get with a proprietary OS vendor.

The parent has it right: It is an ego thing, and a thing to try and protect Steam.

That's not an "ego" thing, that's good business sense. Putting your company's future in the hands of another company which doesn't have your interests at heart, and which actually competes with your company in some ways (MS has their own games division), is utterly stupid.

Re:Pretty much

[RoLi]

Microsoft breaks things all the time, just look at Windows 8.

In fact they not only break things accidentally, they quite often do it on purpose to force upgrades. They already promised to delete all downloadable support software for Windows XP when support runs out. Why? Because the bandwidth costs so much?

At my workplace the IT department is already struggling for over 2 years with the transition from XP to 7 because there is just so much software and hardware that doesn't work with 7. The "solution" is to put the XP-machines, where no Win7-transition is possible on isolated non-internet-connected networks.

So yes, Microsoft breaks a lot on every update.

Re:Pretty much

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, suppose all of a sudden Intel, AMD, and nVidia got together and decided to totally change everything.

The Wintel platform has so much inertia behind it that the major manufacturers stopping their manufacturing would only have a temporary impact on it. Some other manufacturer (ARM seems rather likely) would just pick up the slack and make exorbitant amounts of money in the process due to the massive demand.

Re:Pretty much

[msobkow]

You see more software for MacOS because Apple has achieved a significant market share, so there are now enough users for it to be profitable to port to the platform.

SteamOS portends to do the same for Linux -- provide a large enough user community that it's worth writing software for. More importantly, it standardizes the gaming APIs so that game developers have a known platform to code to. Right now, there is too much divergence on the particular sound APIs and display software versions in what is collectively called "Linux" for it to be safe to port to. While there are big players in the server space (RedHat/CentOS/OracleLinux), the same is not true of the desktop, and that has seriously hindered uptake by the developers.

As per usual, it's been a chicken and egg problem. People won't go with a Linux box for the sake of games because there is a dearth of games. People won't develop for Linux because there is a dearth of users.

Re:Pretty much

[Demonoid-Penguin]

You see more software for MacOS because Apple has achieved a significant market share, so there are now enough users for it to be profitable to port to the platform.

SteamOS portends to do the same for Linux -- provide a large enough user community that it's worth writing software for. More importantly, it standardizes the gaming APIs so that game developers have a known platform to code to. Right now, there is too much divergence on the particular sound APIs and display software versions in what is collectively called "Linux" for it to be safe to port to. While there are big players in the server space (RedHat/CentOS/OracleLinux), the same is not true of the desktop, and that has seriously hindered uptake by the developers.

As per usual, it's been a chicken and egg problem. People won't go with a Linux box for the sake of games because there is a dearth of games. People won't develop for Linux because there is a dearth of users.

Do you think? Have you ever heard of, um, dual-boot? Linux development is already the largest community project in the history of the planet. Perhaps you're confusing that little segment of the market called "Desktop" with all computers? I'm guessing you're not a programmer.

There's no significant reason why installing a SteamOS onto a Mac (as dual-boot) will be any harder (if it hasn't been achieved while I type this) than it currently is to install it as a dual-boot onto a Windows 8 box. I initially installed it (Ye Olde SteamOS) onto an external USB drive in VirtualBox before "fixing" Windows 8 by taking over the entire harddrive with Debian Linux and adding the SteamOS repository to get the SteamOS interface.

Re:Pretty much

[msobkow]

WTF has dual booting got to do with a stable set of game programming APIs?

So *what* if you can dual-boot Steam OS?

The POINT is that Steam OS gives the game vendors something that hasn't been available in the Linux desktop market to date: a standardized set of APIs with a significant market share.

As to your snide comment about "I'm guessing you're not a programmer", you young whipper snapper, I've been slinging code for over 35 years and could run rings around your ass in C++ or Java.

Re:Pretty much

[msobkow]

For your information, I cut my wisdom teeth on BSD for the VAX 11/780 in the fall of 1984 and have been slinging *nix code ever since.

That's right. The ORIGINAL K&R 'C' language... and everything that has come since that has been worth learning.

God damn smart ass PUNKS don't know jack SHIT about the history of the systems they brag about "knowing".

Re:Pretty much

[msobkow]

Hell, I even pre-date the GPL. :P

Ricky Stallman stopped by the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon to preach his new "GPL" idea while I was learning *nix coding...

Re:Pretty much

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Hell, I even pre-date the GPL.

Is that the senility defence?

Re:Pretty much

[Demonoid-Penguin]

WTF has dual booting got to do with a stable set of game programming APIs?

I never said it did. Comprehension and extrapolation are not your strong suites, namedropping and skiting don't compenstate any.

You see more software for MacOS because Apple has achieved a significant market share, so there are now enough users for it to be profitable to port to the platform.

Dual-boot means SteamOS is easily accessible on existing (recent) Apple almost all Windows machines, which means a much greater market share than Apple already has.

a stable set of game programming APIs

You're reaching if you need to bring straw men to the discussion at this point - and desperate if you're trying to conflate "Linux" with "Debian Linux as modified by Steam".

So *what* if you can dual-boot Steam OS?

The POINT is that Steam OS gives the game vendors something that hasn't been available in the Linux desktop market to date: a standardized set of APIs with a significant market share.

The same point I made. (sigh).

As to your snide comment about "I'm guessing you're not a programmer", you young whipper snapper, I've been slinging code for over 35 years and could run rings around your ass in C++ or Java.

Good for you. Wish I had the time, must be at least a decades since I wrote anything other than pseudocode.

Now stop flipping that withered thing and wash your hands

Re:Pretty much

[Anonymous Coward]

ARM are a design house not a manufacturer.

consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[Anonymous Coward]

I think consoles are going to kill PCs this round, the PS4 in particular. 1) Last gen was getting near the 'good enough' point. 2) Fixed hardware, especially for 8 wimpy cores, the particular cache sizes, and heirachy, and sound processors will matter. 3) A large amount of RAM for a change (8 GB). The PS3 couldn't handle real mods for UT2007 for RAM reasons. This time it is different. 4) Devs didn't make games that went beyond console power last generation, and they won't this gen. 5) The PC's secret weapon, Moore's Law, is coming to an end.

Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[0123456]

8GB is hardly a large amount of RAM. That's pretty much the minimum for a decent gaming PC these days.

And, since the new generation of consoles are basically just low-end gaming PCs, they're hardly likely to 'kill PCs'.

Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[Dunge]

Sorry but I bought a PS4 and I'm not impressed. My PC can render the same games in a much better way, it's my PC is 2 years old. How will the PS4 hold up for the coming years compared to PC? Like crap the PS3 did, crap.

Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[Hamsterdan]

For most people, it won't matter. Graphics and resolution doesn't make a bad game better (ie: Duke4ever). Besides, a TV (where the Steambox is going to be hooked up) only has a resolution of 1920*1080. My old Core2Duo has absolutely no problems pushing pixels at that res on a Radeon 6770. I admit the CPU is being clocked at 3.8, but it's probably on par with a 3.0 i3.

I still game on my PS2, my NES, even my C64. If the game is fun, it will still be fun at 320*200. (besides, older games tend to take longer to finish, giving me more fun for my money)

Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[bloodhawk]

both the Ps4 and Xbox One are far too underpowered to be able to kill off PC gaming, combine that with the locked down nature of the consoles, restricted media options and PC gaming is definitely safe for at least another generation.

Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[jones_supa]

4GB should be enough for all games.

Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen games on the Xbone and PS4 and the visuals look like the stuff we had on PCs back in 2010. If I compare gameplay, Xbone and PS4 games fare even worse. Not impressed.

Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam based gaming is in many ways much more restricted than console based gaming, as unlike with console gaming you cannot buy or sell the games second-hand.

When you take into account the ability to buy and sell games second-hand, steam works out rather expensive. Skyrim, for example, costs £14.99 on Steam. I was able to buy a second-hand copy from CEX for £6 for my Xbox360. Unlike the Steam version, in 6 months time when I get bored with my Xbox version I can resell it and make back maybe half of my money.

Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round

[Reapy]

PC will continue to dominate for me due to the amount of game sales available now a days. It is still a new thing, but I have such a huge backlog of games to play through that were purchased 10 dollars that it will be a long time before I run out of things to play. Couple this with several alpha funded projects that proved entertainment periodically as they are updated, PC gaming has never been better imho.

Meanwhile on the console, as game complexity increases, they suffer similar bug problems, are harder to patch due to certification issues, and provide less options to fix or work around them than on a PC. In addition console releases do get ported over to PC more and more, usually their controllers work with a PC easily, and things like steamOS's streaming feature can get you easily on a couch with a console like experience, playing 60 dollar games that you got for 7.50 in a steam sale on your couch.

And you don't have to pay for multiplayer.

I'm hoping to avoid a console this generation and stick to the PC.

More like killing Windows/DirectX

[Dunge]

And they won't succeed since it's still the better way to develop games.

That's Just Advertising, it's more like 1 million

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are the independent stats for that?

The real next generation

[shastamonk]

Think about up the next generation of game developers - kids growing up right now. If they're gaming on a console and using a tablet or smart phone for their other computing need, they have no real exposure to programming, 3D modeling, audio software or any of the other things that go in to designing games. If Windows and MacOS are moving towards closed software ecosystems and a mobile interface type of simplified UI that hides everything but Twitter and a browser from the user as they both seem to be, Linux is going to have to play a larger part in gaming development in the future. The more devices and distributions tailored for different purposes and specific hardware while still allowing users to peel back the curtains to access everything available on the OS, the better off we'll all be. Kids are curious and will do what they've always done since the advent of personal computing; making cool stuff for fun and to impress people, and unless some change like this takes place, fewer and fewer people will ever be exposed to these tools.

I know my nephew got his parents to buy an iPad just so he could play Minecraft. While the mobile versions of Minecraft make it hard (impossible?) to use addons and mods, I'm sure more than a few kids have been pushed in to building a PC or getting a gaming laptop to really take advantage of what that game has to offer. It'll just take one killer app that allows people to be creative and do things on a Steambox(/Windows/MacOS/Linux) that can't be done on a closed platform to start moving these things.

And in the meantime, Valve will be taking things slow and steady like they always have and building partnerships with hardware and software developers to get SteamOS ready to take over when the inevitable decline of support from MS and Apple for desktop users pushes the hardcore audience over where the games will necessarily follow. Totally agree with the article's author, Valve isn't trying to win a war but positioning itself for a future that's seeming pretty likely if not certain. The Steam machines that are launching now are a low risk investment from everyone involved. Free advertising for Valve, and a simple rebranding of exisiting hardware for the manufacturers. The real test will be how seamlessly and well the streaming works to entice hardcore gamers into putting a HTPC or steam box in their living room, and so far we haven't seen anything there.

Are you sure?

[Anonymous Coward]

To you and me, it's a direct interface for Steam based on Linux that currently has poor software support. To Valve, though, it's a first step in levering development, publishing, gameplay and community away from their reliance on Windows and DirectX (and to a lesser extent Mac OS), systems that cannot be relied upon in the long term.

Are you sure? I thought Valve was trying to promote the noble cause of Software Freedom.

Re:Are you sure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that must be it, what with Valve being the biggest pusher of DRM and lock-in. Getting Linux as a freebie is convenient because they don't have to do any work making their own OS.

A simpler theory

[TheloniousToady]

To Valve, though, it's a first step in levering development, publishing, gameplay and community away from their reliance on Windows and DirectX (and to a lesser extent Mac OS), systems that cannot be relied upon in the long term.

Silly me. I thought it was all about popularizing Steam by reducing the build cost for gamers who want to play Steam games on high-end PCs, by taking out the cost of Windows. It may also have something to do with Valve having more control over their platform and/or building an empire.

Re:A simpler theory

[kamapuaa]

I think it's still safe to assume people want to have one home PC. A steambox is always going to be a second PC, not a true replacement to a Windows PC. It doesn't replace Windows on the desktop, it gives people $500+ more of computer they have to buy

Bitcoin isn't cost effective

[Anonymous Coward]

'nuff said...

Saving the PC platform?

[aiadot]

Everything capable of computing and is owned by a person is a PC: macs are PCs, the PS4 is a PC, smartphones and tablets are PCs, even my brand new Panasonic smart rice cooker is a PC. What people call "pc gaming" is nothing more than windows gaming. Windows games only work on windows/x86 machines(at least out of the box). Steam Machines are not an example of Valve trying to save windows gaming.

IMO, valve is instead trying to create a new version of "pc gaming", in the shape of an open home console(as opposed to the sony/nintendo model closed model) while also trying to expand in the next hot market: smart TVs/living rooms. Having it's own software and hardware platform where your service is the default is also a great way to reduce the visibility of rival game appstores like GOG, Origin and non steam popular games(Minecraft, LoL, Blizzard games).

Not only that but Valve is trying to save something, this something is itself. The business may look great nowadays, but it's foolish to think they're invincible. Windows and Mac are becoming walled gardens, not very friendly towards apps outside the official app stores. Windows PC sales are in record decline. 65 million steam accounts may look impressive at first glance but considering that steam is a FREE service and that even the PS3, the overpriced console that sold the least the last generation, still managed to grab 80 million users(let alone way over a hundred million PSN accounts), it's clear that Valve doesn't have as close as many users as it could. If Valve lose it's momentum, they could easily become irrelevant.

On the other hand as long as Actvision/Blizzard, Minecraft, EA and LoL (and in Japan, porn VNs) exist, Windows PC gaming will exist. Contrary to popular internet forum belief, Windows PC gaming is much more than Steam. I personally believe that, if wasn't for the crazy seasonal sales and mandatory steamworks in some games(Civ5 in my case), many people(including myself) wouldn't even bother with the service.

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does the news of Valve's plans to make a "Steamcast" service that streams non-Steambox-compatible games being played in Steam on a Windows or Mac machine to the Steambox change your opinion of Valve's motivation? How would (as-of-yet-unannounced) news that this was accomplished through the Steam Overlay and could (therefore) be done with any full-screen game launched through Steam change your opinion?

> 65 million steam accounts may look impressive at first glance but considering that steam is a FREE service...

One needed a PSN account to play networked games on the PS3. One doesn't need a Steam account to play networked games on the PC. I would wager that almost all of those Steam accounts actually make money for Valve. One can't say the same thing about PSN and Sony. :) (I, for one, was greatly pleased that I had never purchased anything on PSN before the PSN breach, and vowed to keep not giving Sony my credit card details.)

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[thegarbz]

Everything capable of computing and is owned by a person is a PC: macs are PCs, the PS4 is a PC, smartphones and tablets are PCs, even my brand new Panasonic smart rice cooker is a PC. What people call "pc gaming" is nothing more than windows gaming. Windows games only work on windows/x86 machines(at least out of the box). Steam Machines are not an example of Valve trying to save windows gaming.

Sorry but I could not disagree more. The distinction of the Personal Computer was a general purpose device to be used by the owner for a variety of tasks. I would not call any device with a limiting feature set a Personal Computer. Yes on the smartphone / tablet, yes on the Macs, of course yes on the PC, but the PS4 and your smart rice cooker is NOT a PC. Just because something has the ability to compute does not make it a PC.

Unless of course you can run spreadsheet tasks, check your email etc on your rice cooker in which case I take it back.

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[jones_supa]

even my brand new Panasonic smart rice cooker is a PC

Interesting! What kind of PC? Do you know which OS it runs?

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Android

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[umafuckit]

What people call "pc gaming" is nothing more than windows gaming.

I disagree. Your definition of PC is obviously too broad. A PC is a desktop or laptop computer running a multi-purpose OS. The new kids of the block, tablets and smart-phones, don't really qualify as PCs because of the poor software selection and bad input device (touch-screen). You can make the case of tablets and phones, but it doesn't change my real point: that a toaster or a PS4 is not a PC. One is a cooking device and the other is a locked-down games console. PC gaming does not mean "windows gaming." You can PC game on Linux, Mac and Windows box. If I run Doom 3 on a Windows box I'm PC gaming and I'm still PC gaming if I fire it up under Linux. I agree, however, that with the addition of a Steam box the distinction between a PC and console becomes blurred.

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[jpettifer]

So if PC Gaming is only Windows gaming then obviously I wasn't playing Arkham City or Bioshock Infinite on the weekend on Mac Os X.

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can PC game on Linux, Mac and Windows box

While I think his definition of PC is a bit too broad for my tastes, I kinda agree with his point. If I play a game like Skyrim, which on the PC is available only on Windows, then unless something like Wine or VirtualBox gets really good there is no way to play that game on mac or linux. Of the 3000 games on Steam, only 300 are playable on Linux(at least out of the box). The term "Windows gaming" is probably not going to stick at this late, but there is definitely some truth behind it.

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Skyrim, Arma 3, Chilvary or FF14? As for linux, of the 3000 Steam games, only 300 are available for linux. The fact is that the great majority of pc games are windows only.

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs are not PCs, they are Macs. Even Apple says that. Macintosh IS a personal computer, but it's not a PC. The term "PC" explicitly refers to IBM compatible personal computers. That is anything with an x86 based CPU that runs some version of DOS or Windows.

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

So acccording to you a Linux PC is not actually a PC? Who care what Apple says.

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not. PC specifically refers to IBM compatible personal computer. There are personal computers that run Linux, but they are not correctly called "PCs"

Re:Saving the PC platform?

[poolmeister]

Skyrim works just fine on Wine.

In that case it's about monitor size

[tepples]

As far as Indie developers go, they can self publish pretty easily to the PC or sell on Steam without the need of a dedicated SteamBox or SteamOS right now.

That's true of single-player or online games. But for games designed around local multiplayer, such as fighting games, how many potential end users have a PC connected to a suitably large (television sized) monitor? The advantage of a Steam Machine over a Windows PC or a Mac is that the median monitor on a Steam Machine is expected to be bigger.

Looking at the history of consoles.

[Z00L00K]

If you look at the history of gaming consoles a lot of them has come and gone. The PC has been around longer and is evolutionary, gaming consoles are just dropped and not evolved.

Overall this means that a gaming platform for PC can evolve instead of requiring a completely new re-design with new developers each time a new gaming platform is released. It also means that if the gaming platform is done right and is backward compatible it should be able to run older games as well as the latest.

Valve is with Steam trying to do the same thing as IBM did when releasing the PC. It may not be the best platform (the PC was in reality pretty crappy when it was released) but it will be widespread.

Re:Looking at the history of consoles.

[frankconner]

I do think keeping your gaming library is the best thing about this.

How pathetic is it...

[Karmashock]

... that a game company has to protect the PC from Microsoft.

I really hope the new CEO at MS is less of an asshat.

Valve ?

[Tom]

Valve has gone from simply evangelizing the PC platform [...] to actively protecting it

What a load of paid-for bullshill. Valve has famously horrible customer-service and that flies right in the face of that claim.

Want to help the PC platform? Make fewer people sorry they spent money on your shit,

Re:Valve ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting.

Microsoft.: A+
Apple: A+
Google: C- (and an alert against them)
Valve: F

None of them have BBB accreditation, so any excuse of bias is automatically invalid.

Re:Valve ?

[Tom]

Not surprising if you think about it.

For MS and Apple, you are the customer. So they care about you. Most importantly (and that's what the BBB rates): They actually handle your issues.

For Google, you are the product that they sell to their customers (advertisers). So they care just enough that you don't leave. They also mostly handle customer issues because they understand that they are often technical problems that are in their own interest to solve.

Valve... well, as I said. Basically, they don't give a fuck.

Simple question - yet to find an answer

[Anonymous Coward]

So Steam Box / Machine - sounds great. Have lots of Steam Games, would love to run them on a big(ger) screen on a couch. Got it. Civ V - OSX and Windows game. How will it run on such a box if it's Linux? Virtual Machines - heard of those, great - but what about lag and driver support? Basically, what's the point of such a box if the inventory of software isn't Linux - which is most of their popular titles if I'm not mistaken.

Re:Simple question - yet to find an answer

[poolmeister]

You're assuming that Windows is here to stay in the PC games arena.
Really Microsoft Windows has only been the choice for gamers because of Microsoft's tight monopoly and control of the PC industry for the past 20 years with mega-dollar deals with hardware & software makers and adept lock-in tactics.

Valve and others companies who are invested in the PC industry know that Microsoft's stranglehold on home computing is dying, Microsoft have only themselves to blame by releasing bad software on a glacial release cycle whilst more recently pissing off developers.
The writing has been on the wall for Windows for a some years now, the explosion of iOS and Android devices show that Windows is over in the eyes of the general public, now it's just that shitty OS you have to use for work, even that is becoming less relevant.

For the x86 PC architecture to survive, i.e. to remain mainstream in 5 years time, Linux is the logical next step and it is a big step that the big software players have been putting off for years.
Compared to consoles high-end PC hardware is still the most performant and continues to evolve but the platform is held back by one thing, Windows and sales are falling drastically, PCs need to become sexy again and with sexy read uncomplicated.

Your comment about Windows games is short sighted, in 3-5 years time, when all the new PC titles could be available for Linux, Mac & Windows who'll care about those old Windows only titles? Especially those ones that won't even run in Wine for a bit of nostalgia? not me.

Re:Simple question - yet to find an answer

[Anonymous Coward]

You still didn't answer the question - can I play Civ V on this box - in the next 2 years? If not - forget it.

DX release - all platforms?

[danknight48]

I think we are close to seeing Microsoft actually having to release/support Direct X on all platforms.
Thats all they need to do to put a slowdown on Steam controlling the linux gaming market.

It will happen, MS will be forced to rethink their PC market dominance and control. In the mean time, I just hope openGL becomes the king of PC gaming, once again.

Slighty OT, but...

[cplusplus]

When I read "Big-3 console manufacturers" in the summary, I thought "Three? Who's the third? .. .... Oh yeah, Nintendo." How sad.

I was referring to user space

[tepples]

Android lets you run anything you want in user space after ticking the "Unknown sources" or "USB debugging" box, and plenty of devices ship with unlocked or officially unlockable bootloaders. The platforms I defined as "appliance" platforms restrict even user space.

Re:I was referring to user space

[Anonymous Coward]

Unknown sources isn't the same as having root. There are apps that won't work well or even at all without root. Backup software and file managers spring immediately to mind. Also, in order to unlock a bootloader, you must first root the device.

Re:I was referring to user space

[tepples]

Unknown sources isn't the same as having root.

Likewise, having root on a GNU/Linux PC isn't the same as having access to the CPU's microcode update facility. At some point you have to draw the line as to how low-level you want to get. The Apple iDevices and game consoles draw that line too high to be useful for anything.

There are apps that won't work well or even at all without root. Backup software and file managers spring immediately to mind.

Certain kinds of backup software need root. The backup command of Android Debug Bridge doesn't though. And the Rhythm Software File Manager on my Nexus 7 works fine without root, finding the Samba shares on my laptop with no issue.

Also, in order to unlock a bootloader, you must first root the device.

Nexus devices are the opposite. You can fastboot oem unlock without root, but it wipes the device.

Re:I was referring to user space

[aethelrick]

The Apple iDevices and game consoles draw that line too high to be useful for anything.

Clearly that statement is erm... rubbish. The millions of people who own consoles and iWotsits are doing something they find USEFUL with them. The fact that these products offend some people does not make them useless in general. I love open source stuff as much as the next geek but come on people, most humans out there couldn't give a rats ass about how open their console is, they just want to play games, or, more to the point, their kids do.

I think Valve is more interested in selling content at a price that makes consumers consume rather than trying to win a pissing contest with Sony and MS over who's got the best console. They have concerns however that Windows is heading the way of the Apple walled garden, so they're trying to provide alternatives to that garden and they're hoping that developers will jump on board. With a bit luck steam boxes will take off enough to get Sony, MS and Nintendo to at least drop the price of their games a bit. Console gaming is after all under significant price pressure from the £0.69 iOS or Android game at one end of the spectrum and now they are comming under similar pressure from Valve at the other. Compettition rocks!

Then again, I've been puzzled all my adult life by people who just don't care enough to learn anything about something new before they form an (often utterly stupid) opinion, it's way easier for sheeple to just believe marketing spin (or any other source of convenient bullshit i.e. religious leaders, politicians, the daily mail). So I suspect that the people with the marketing team best able to lie to the most people will win no matter which is actually technically better than the other.

PC Gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't been into a lot of PC games for quite a while now, the last game I actually completed was Baldur's gate 2 and its expansion... most of my gaming time have been on consoles. To be honest it will probably stay that way. But I would more than gladly pay for Steam boxes if only to support "PC" gaming on non Microsoft machines. Really the only reason I keep a Win XP box around is the theory that I "might" want to play a PC game at some point. Everything else I do on it can be done either on non Windows boxes or my other compute appliances like my iPad.

I'm sure Microsoft have considered this when they started their new strategy with Windows 8. I sure hope it works out well for them.

Needs grow and sometimes there's no app for that

[tepples]

The millions of people who own consoles and iWotsits are doing something they find USEFUL with them.

That's fine until your needs grow to include something for which there is no app. For example, there's no app for wireless network troubleshooting because iOS provides no suitable public API. Or if you have enrolled in a first-level programming class at school but it happens not to be tailored for any of the few programming languages on the iPad, there's no app for that. Or if you want to view a web page that uses WebGL or getUserMedia as a fallback for lack of Flash, there's no app for that.

Steam Caused Me To Stop Playing PC Games

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been a PC gamer since the says of Wolfenstein, we are talking the original version, back in 1992 or thereabouts. I played Quake for hours every night (Let's get on with the killing), Battlezone, Battlefield, etc.

I kind of tapered down in 2006, but in 2007 paid 2007 bought Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare at Best Buy. New to me at the time was something called "Steam" which to get the game working I had to install Steam software, create an account, and log on to Steam any time I wanted to play the game.

I never could get things to work right with that Steam account so I gave up, uninstalled the game and have not bought a PC game since 2010. Steam was a complete turn-off. What I did not like was even though I paid $50 for the game (the default price for newly launched games back then, such as from EA) I never felt like I owned the DVD disc nor the game. Everything was controlled by Steam.

Don't know if I am the typical user (not a heavy gamer, would buy two to three titles every year), but Steam caused me to lose interest in PC games and actually stop playing games. Is Steam a good idea? I dunno. I heard on the news that the PC game industry was tanking. Perhaps Steam is the reason why.

Just saying.

P.s. Why am I commenting at this late date? I bought a new notebook and happened upon my games case where I keep all my game CDs and DVDs. I installed that Call of Duty 4 on it just for the heck of it. logged into Steam and of course could not log into a game. After revisiting this nightmare I decided to search Google to see how that company is doing, and happened on to this page. Here I am, ranting 7 years later! LOL.

Re: Needs grow and sometimes there's no app for th

[aethelrick]

You are quite right, however most people don't even know those problems exist and for those people, their shiny new iWotsit is the best thing since sliced bread. They're not wrong they just happen to not need or want the things you speak of and as such really quite like the products they choose and tell all their non-geeky buddies about them and so they go buy them as well.

Steam boxes will fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Steamboxes will be Valve's big failure. They're about replacing a walled-garden with another one, Valve's own.