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Valve's Steam Machines Delayed, Won't Be Coming In 2014
sfcrazy (1542989) writes "Valve has announced that its Steam Machines won't be available in the market anytime in 2014. The company delayed the release due to ongoing work on the Steam Controller. Valve's Eric Hope explains on Steam Forums why the work on controller is causing the delay: 'We're now using wireless prototype controllers to conduct live playtests, with everyone from industry professionals to die-hard gamers to casual gamers. It's generating a ton of useful feedback, and it means we'll be able to make the controller a lot better. Of course, it's also keeping us pretty busy making all those improvements. Realistically, we're now looking at a release window of 2015, not 2014.'"
Known as "development hell".
You always get feedback and always think of ways to improve your product, but you don't let that delay the release. You launch a 1st-generation, slighlty-flawed product, and spend all that development effort and feedback on the Steam Box II, which will bring in the fence-sitters, and which you get to re-sell as an upgrade to the early adopters anyway. The first-generation Roku box was pretty crappy compared to the new ones, but it actually got the Roku concept to market.
This news makes me very skeptical that the SteamBox will actually happen, and not just sit at Valve being a hacker project. Hacker projects always end up in development hell without some business person to yank the product out of the hackers' hands and put it to market.
Someone do something witty with that will ya? It's too early for me.
Sigh, maybe 2015.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The rumour mill suggests that some games like Civ5, Rome 2:TW and XCOM are waiting on the steambox being released so theyre seen as "release" titles. If this pushes back long enough, hopefully the games will come out anyway.
Controllers are hard to get right. This ain't the eighties where you just slapped some buttons on a box and put it in the players' hands. And they want to make a controller whose basic idea is completely daft anyway, because it totally screws up position feedback.
What's really wanted is a game console where all controls can be remapped on all titles. Let's see a console maker have the balls to implement such a feature. THAT would be a revolution in control, not a stupid zero-travel joystick.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If Steam wants to sell devices they should sell an HDMI stick (like a Chromecast) and pack in a controller. Sell it for $80 or so. People could use it to play games streamed over their network, or through the cloud. If they end up selling a PC running a Linux dist with a crappy selection of ported games and costing hundreds of dollars it will not sell as well since it will be competing directly against two consoles and even other PCs which enjoy a full selection of games, not just a handful.
My bet? They'll never make either a HL2 ep 3 or a HL3.
Why?
Not because it wouldn't be successful - it would. But because it would harm their wider business interests.
Valve makes a lot more money these days from running what is in essence a platform than it ever made from being a games developer. Steam is a big and successful platform. Numbers relating to its success are notoriously hard to come by, but by joining together a few pieces of publisher and charts data (which exclude Steam sales) and feeling out the gaps, you can work out that in the closing year of the PS3/Xbox 360 console cycle, Steam was managing major games sales on a par with either of those consoles, while probably managing a lot more sales of small indie titles.
A big part of running a successful platform is managing your relationship with the wider industry - publishers in particular. Historically, in console land, Sony has been particularly good at this and Nintendo has been particularly bad, with MS somewhere in the middle. Valve is, by all accounts, pretty good at it. Almost everybody publishes on their platform. EA is trying to make a go of their own alternative with Origin, but that's hardly turning into a stunning success. Ubisoft thought about making a break for it with uPlay, but have relented and uPlay has just ended up as a pointless and inconvenient "wrapper" for Ubisoft games which often requires Steam to be running in the background anyway.
And a big element of having a good relationship with publishers is being seen by them as a partner, not a competitor. Since Steam first started to get momentum, Valve has confined its first-party games development to titles outside of the major commercial arenas. Portal and its sequel exist more or less in isolation in genre terms (at least outside of the indie market). Left 4 Dead was like nothing else around when it launched (though others have copied it since).
But if Valve were to release a major high-profile mass-market shooter, like another Half-Life, then Activision and all of those other companies who publish on Steam at the moment might start to look at Valve differently. All of a sudden, they're getting nervous about being reliant on a platform owned by somebody who is competing with them. Worried that their visibility on the platform will be reduced, or that they might get shunted onto the ass-end download servers if they launch in the same window. Why do you think non-EA support on Origin is so poor, despite EA being happy to carry other publishers' games?
It's the same over in console-land. MS and Sony do develop and publish first party games, but they're pretty blatant about the fact that they basically do it just to build the installed base of the console (making it more attractive to third parties). Their main revenue is from third party licensing fees, so the last thing they want to do is get into a cut-throat competition with those third parties. Nintendo, on the other hand, make first-party publishing a huge part of their business, which makes their platforms a scary place for third parties.
So yeah. Steam is great and all that. But it's probably killed off any prospect of more Half-Life for the immediate future.
The only way I could ever imagine that lock being broken would be with Half-Life 3 as a Steambox launch exclusive to give the console's installed base a flying start (so essentially acting as a loss-leader for the sake of third parties).
Thank God for Valve. The gaming industry would be terrible if they weren't around. Any other company would have just pushed this out the door and made their quick buck... hell, no other company would have even tried to make an open gaming platform. If Valve ever offers an IPO I'll be first in line. They're one of the few tech companies out there that are actually doing something I'd consider of value.
Who wants last-gen games for a Linux console that nobody is really supporting?
Valve's ONLY motivation isn't the goodness of their hearts to the Linux community, it's to stop Microsoft from eating their lunch with the storefront. And right now, Steam works great on Windows 8.1 but MS is also making improvements (albeit small ones) to their store. It will be a long while before I give up Steam.
But the threat is real to Valve, and they want us to undertake all the heavy lifting, all the change, so that only 30% of our library now works instead of 100% on Windows. Thanks, but I'll stay with Windows. The Steam Box holds zero purpose for me since they introduced in home streaming. I can just stream a game to a small HTPC in my living room, or onto my tablet and have it powered by my main rig. But again... MS has technology like RemoteFX that can do the same thing... just a matter of time before it's implemented.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Valve needs to put out their controller and that's pretty much it. Most Steam users who want to use a PC in the living room are going to build their own rigs. Alienware even mentioned that there's not a heck of a lot in it for them (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/alienware-s-steam-machine-will-be-their-least-profitable-system-ever/1100-6419770/). The whole issue doesn't feel that important.
Half-life 3 confirmed.
Seriously, how about a USB keyboard and mouse option? It sure would get the thing to market a whole lot faster.
given that after 7 years they have yet to release a conclusion to the cliffhanger ending of Ep. 2 for one of the biggest games ever developed is it any surprise that they won't be releasing SteamBox on time? I've long since stopped caring about Ep. 3 and I won't hold my breath for SteamBox. Even if it is released, will Valve ensure a steady supply of content for it?
Please oh please oh PLEASE don't let this become another Phantom console!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Release the boxes without controllers this year then release a deluxe edition with controllers next year. I have a keyboard, mouse, and a gamepad all of which speak USB just fine. Mark up the controllers and sell them separately, too, if they are so much better.
Steambox will never have an exclusive. Gaben has repeated this several times.
The problem is that, unlike with Android, no one seems particularly interested in their platform--neither hardware manufacturers nor 3rd party developers.
Say a video game developer that is a home-based family business is working on a controller-friendly game. For which platform should it develop this game? Has Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony made the developer approval and game approval process more straightforward than Steam Greenlight?
The problem is that one of the core principals of the console is that it has specific hardware to design for.
Another is that a console's monitor is more likely than that of a PC to be big enough to fit four people around.
It'll still beat Half-Life 2 Ep3 to the market...
I don't expect there to be any new games in the Half-Life franchise anymore. They already tried making HL2EP3 but ditched the project. The leaked screenshots from their project tracker showed a Half-Life 3 stub with no development activity surrounding it. At that time their most efforts were clearly in creating the Source 2 engine (with massive development effort) and a new Left 4 Dead game to go with it. Meanwhile, time has passed and already a decade has elapsed since the initial release of Half-Life 2.
Of course Valve probably wants to keep the Half-Life hype going and dream alive as long as possible, to maximize people's interest in the company.
Steambox will never have an exclusive. Gaben has repeated this several times.
That in no way addresses the statement of the comment to which you replied. It's idiotic to think that Valve can't release blockbusters of their own on Steam, because gamers don't tend to play just one title a year, or a lifetime or whatever.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I heard they're waiting for their release title to be completed first: Duke Nukem Forever 2.
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
Let Gabe rake in the cash on Steam, but spin off a Games division that only has to worry about...making games. Then we'd already have Portal 3 & Half Life 3 instead of holding our breaths Forever.
a controller driver, or a layer between the game and the controller API permitting remapping without the developer having to support it is not a hardware issue, but a software one.
To minimize complexity, a lot of console game platforms statically link the controller drivers. The remapping would likewise have to be statically linked.
I'll second this opinion. Valve's current darling is Dota 2, which I play frequently. I think Valve has done a fantastic job of releasing a free to play game that is simultaneously profitable and utterly free of the annoyances that plague most free to play games. However, it's very clear that Dota 2 is intended to be a "reference design" rather than a cash cow franchise - its a demonstration to other publishers that they can use Steam to make profitable but non-exploitative freemium games. Heck, Valve didn't even develop Dota; they just persuaded Icefrog to give them the rights to it, and incorporated it into the Source engine.
I think of Valve's first party titles these days in the same way that I think of Google's Nexus program. We're seeing Google wind down the Nexus program because it has largely accomplished its goal of convincing OEMs to make their phones more Googley (for better or worse); Valve is likewise de-emphasizing their first party titles.
Value, Steam, um, look, your controller is a great idea and maybe it's for the masses who think the using controllers is the way to go, but I am not one of them. In fact, I'm a PC gamer of many decades. I don't want a fucking controller from you, I want the steam box. Most the games I'm going to play will require a keyboard & mouse for best use. I'm cool with that.
But trying to make the one controller to rule them all is going to fuck you in the ass.
If your hardware (Steam Box) is finished, then I suggest you just bundle a normal controller with it, and start selling them. The "real" controller you can introduce next year when ever you decide you made it right.
Be seeing you...
if you want a commentary on an issue to which you know the solution then provide the solution. How about you provide useful information yourself instead
Because I know what the consensus about best practices used to be, not what the consensus has changed to. During 2012 and 2013, console makers revised their developer qualifications to better compete with other markets such as Apple's App Store and Google Play Store.
The Steam Machine was just a shot across the bow at Microsoft. The Windows 8 Store threatened to squeeze Valve out of the software sales market. Gabe Newel's Ex-Microsoft and he knows as well as anybody how they operate.
When Win8 flopped harder than a beached whale and the Store flopped harder still they almost immediately laid off the engineers they hired to build the darn thing. These days it's mostly just a curiosity.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I would more think of a pack-in (get one code unlocking it and a few other games on steam when you purchase a SteamBox)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
What is the risk in waiting another year for this technology to be developed and released?
If they rush it, the best thing we can hope for is something equivalent (plus or minus) to the current controller technology. Honestly, we don't need another Dual Shock or Xbox controller -- the ones we have are great, and there is relatively little improvement to make upon them. They also already work with Steam, nearly flawlessly.
Let Valve take their time and get this right. They might actually start something new, and possibly even innovative, in this rehashed, mundane world of cookie cutter consoles.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
I admitted that I know CronoCloud's opinion. I don't know others' opinions. A lot of people accuse me of being disingenuous, but that relies on tacit assumptions that the opinions I've already seen are the only opinions in existence.