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Alienware Swaps SteamOS For Windows
An anonymous reader writes "Valve left many OEMs hanging when they delayed Steam machines until sometime next year to work out their controller issues. Many of these companies excitedly showed off new Steam machine hardware that they cannot ship, so Alienware has been the first to re-purpose its Debian-based Steam machine to be a Windows-based Steam machine bundled with an Xbox controller. While Windows 8.x has not been particularly well-received it does support a lot more games than Linux and when configured to boot straight into Steam Big Picture mode the influence of the underlying OS is visible only in the larger game library."
It isn't "pussying out", Valve couldn't deliver so they found an alternative.
Linux didn't made much sense for the consumer anyway.
This must be somewhat disturbing for Valve. Then again I doubt many individuals was asking for a Steam specific OS.
Disturbing because if it all released at the same time then at least they'd have some hype now you'll just have small gaming PCs where you either get Windows and kinda all games or the Steam one which only run a small part of all the titles.
Yay! Which one are you going to pick? ... Oh and the Windows one run the software you're used too as well.
I expect that it's going to be nearly impossible for Valve/Steam to succeed with the mainstream with this development. Had there been no ready-to-use competitor it'd be one thing, but delaying launch to the point that the ready-made competitor can just come in and save the day pretty much destroys credibility, and once that credibility is lost it usually can't be earned back.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Obviously Valve would have preferred to have everything ready for launch earlier rather than later; but does anybody expect for a moment that "Well, the proposal is just to build a PC that's good enough for gaming and looks OK in the living room, we commit essentially nothing to the OS until the HDDs actually get imaged and installed" was a part of the calculation for OEMs from the beginning?
Getting the controller right is, for Valve, a big deal; because just cloning the xbox controller won't do much for PC oriented titles; but keyboard/mouse combos are not exactly good couch company (also some bad history there...), so they need something clever.
For the OEMs, the bet is markedly smaller. It's not as though you can easily buy linux-only hardware, and 'quiet', 'small and unobtrusive', and 'reasonably powerful' are virtues you can sell under any OS.
I bet if microsoft goes all in on the Windows store and locks you into only stuff bought from the windows store then the Steam box would have a much better chance. But it seems almost impossible that MS is going to actually go that route at this point. I could be unpleasantly surprised though, but now that Ballmer is gone that seems unlikely.
As long as you can use Steam for windows... and buy games through steam on Windows Linux gaming is basically for ideological purists, for people who represent the 85% of the market or so that use windows, or the 12% that use Mac Steam works so why change? They'd need a really compelling offering.
Time to blacklist Alienware and NEVER buy a Steam Machine from them.
But surely you had already blacklisted Alienware because they have sold Windows-based computers for many years. And frankly, if you are going to blacklist any company that sells Microsoft-powered computers then you must have very limited range from which to choose.
The alternative to mounting a vendetta against the company is to just to grow up and simply not buy the products that you don't want. Then when the Steam-OS systems finally arrive then you can happily buy it, knowing that you weren't forced at gunpoint to pay any evil Microsoft tax.
I expect that it's going to be nearly impossible for Valve/Steam to succeed with the mainstream with this development.
Considering that it is still locking in the Steam service for all games, this is still a win for Valve.
Silly. The company must sell those units or take a loss. If Valve can't give them what they need to sell the units they MUST re-purpose them to sell.
What other OS could they use that would have as good a chance of actually selling? As is, Dell will likely take a loss on this project which means it was a financial and business mistake to do this much with Valve until they were ready.
Dell as you probably are aware is not flush with cash. They've had some very bad financial problems and they are in a very tough business. They cannot afford this crap.
To then blame them for not going down with the ship and taking an even bigger loss simply to spite microsoft is moronnic. It is an opinion morons have... you are therefore a moron.
Good day.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Dell probably had already started the hardware production process. They likely had a choice to either do this or waste or the work (and possibly hardware) that they had already put into i (or built). Seems (to me) like the most obvious reason for this.
No?
The user obviously notice what software they can run.
What make Android successful against the competition? The same thing which make Windows popular. Software compatibility.
Linux doesn't have it when it comes to all the games on Steam.
Common, it's *Valve* we're speaking about.
They WILL deliver. Except that they will deliver on "Valve Time".
It will be as usual: wonderful, better than expectation, and *horribly* late.
What were they expecting? Given Valve's track record, they shouldn't have jumped on thing before knowing with certainty that Valve is ready.
They should either.
- start producing steam machine as soon as they can (as they did) but clearly state that these are *prototypes* and probably part of the functionality will be missing.
- or NOT jump on the bandwagon so quickly, and wait until Valve get their shit together (which could be anywhere between now and 2017) and then release a machine with all the features and the specs.
What Alienware did was as stupid as announcing a "special offer with 'Half-Life Episode 3' packaged in for free together with the machine!", and then not knowing what to do as Valve is delayed, packaging some random "Medal of Duty" instead.
Also, SteamOS actually, does work. The problem isn't Linux, the problem are:
- controller (are still tweaked)
- linux games (currently, steam OS works better as a light box to play your game on the living room's big screen/projector by *streaming them* out of a Windows war machine somewhere else in the appartment, rather than playing them directly there. Porting takes time).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Please research this "Just-in-Time manufacturing" that the AC mentionned.
Dell has *almost invented* the concept.
Their ARE NOT sitting on a bunch of thousands of useless premanufactured SteamBoxen that they need to get rid of. These box don't exist yet.
They don't even have a huge inventory of parts waiting to be assembled.
At most, what they have is a couple of prototype that they built in-house and that are ready to be replicated, once the orders start pouring in.
The problem isn't the stock.
The problem, as you mentionned yourself, is the money. Dell has some difficulties (current Asian no-name manufacturer are better than them at the JIT game [being closer to the manufacturing plants producing the part] and are outselling them).
They need to *SELL* something and they need to get diverse (selling as much new original and different products as possible. Selling only desktops won't cut it anymore).
They would have hoped to sell home consoles. Valve would have neen a nice way to have a piece of Sony's and Microsoft's pie. But Valve being Valve, there's no guarantee when they could sell official Steam machines.
So for now they settle in selling whatever else they can think of (a Windows-based living room machine), just to be able to sell something.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I do find it amusing the idea of a "gaming laptop". Build quality might be nice if you get something like Alienware, but the expense and lack of proper cooling or expandability kinda makes the whole enterprise seem a bit like selling ice to Eskimos.
>This is moronic. They could simply have gone with any OS besides Windows. ...
No, *that* is a ridiculous idea. They've invested significantly in man-hours and hardware costs (dies, etc) to be able to produce a living room gaming machine - i.e. high performance, aesthetically pleasing, and probably a lot quieter than a traditional machine with the same specs. Those qualities all come with a premium and don't really lend themselves to anything other than a living room gaming machine. It can't really be repurposed into another niche unless they could sucker people into paying the pretty-and-quiet premiums for a machine where they don't really matter.
So, given that they've done the groundwork to produce a gaming machine, they are limited to an OS that supports gaming. SteamOS is unavailable, and no other Linux can offer the gaming compatibility and support promised by Valve - Dell certainly doesn't want to deal with customers disappointed because the promised ecosystem is not yet available, nor create their own gaming Linux distro which will only be rendered obsolete once SteamOS is finally ready. That leaves Windows as the only realistic option.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I have to disagree; I play a large number of my PC Steam games with a controller, and that includes most of the FPS games. I was in a party of 3 playing co-op Borderlands 2 the other day, and asked if anyone was using mouse+kb...nope, we were all using controllers. Mouse+kb is usually more "accurate", but controllers are almost always more "fun", in my experience. In the last couple of years the number of PC titles with excellent controller support has grown by huge leaps and bounds; with new games I don't have to use xpadder or some such, just plug-n-play.
This is moronic. They could simply have gone with any OS besides Windows.
They can't go with Linux because their Steam contract forbids it.
They can't go with OS X because Apple forbids it.
They can't go with Windows because some Anonymous Coward forbids it.
Those three OSes are the only three that run Steam.
So what is this any other OS that runs Steam that isn't one of the only three that runs Steam?