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