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[Jan 08, 2013, 9:55 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Engadget has follow-ups to comments recently attributed to Ben Krasnow about plans for Steam hardware. Ben says he was misquoted (or mistranslated) and that he did not confirm Linux support and he does not think they will be showing off anything of the sort this year as reported (thanks HARDOCP). Meanwhile, there's an interview with Valve's Gabe Newell on The Verge where the Valve honcho talks of how they are working with many hardware partners on "Good, Better," or "Best" boxes for playing Steam games, and also goes ahead and says they will be releasing Linux-based "Steam boxes," among other things, also discussing their interest in low-latency controllers, biometric controllers, and other cutting edge-ness. This includes much discussion of open versus closed systems.

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29.

Re: More on Steam Hardware

Jan 9, 2013, 14:56

Beamer

StingingVelvet wrote on Jan 9, 2013, 14:48:
Verno wrote on Jan 9, 2013, 11:47:
The aesthetics are fine and I wouldn't be surprised if the hardware ended up as powerful or moreso than current consoles, people put up with way worse in the living room. I don't see why the OS matters either, its just how many compatible games can it deliver and that depends on what kind of weight Valve can throw around. No reason it couldn't run Windows too, some people have speculated that a higher tiered SKU might do so. If they were a smaller company I'd be dubious but they have an incredibly large customer base. HTPCs are expensive to build and the prebuilt options (Zotac, Foxconn) aren't powerful enough for the kind of gaming most want to do. It has a lot of crossover market appeal unlike the Razer thing posted in the news story below this one. If they could get external videocards (Thunderbolt, maybe in a year?) finally sorted out then this sort of thing would be ideal even.

That's all well and good but it doesn't answer the question: who is it being sold to? Console gamers will not switch to this at the same time new consoles much more powerful come out. The indie/androud lovers will go Ouya or an equivalent. PC gamers would have to install Windows and then be turned off by the lower specs and upgrade constraints.

I don't know who the audience is.

Valve is hoping to get more Linux development. But it's a chicken/egg thing - devs won't port to Linux if no gamer uses Linux over Windows, and no gamer will totally abandon Windows because Linux doesn't have enough ports.

So make a device that focuses on gaming and Linux. Then tell developers that they have a wide open user base just dying for games. Developers port a bit more. More people buy. More developers port a bit more. More users buy.

Or so the hope goes, but without a reason to port to Linux no one is going to port to Linux, and since virtually anyone that wants a game on Linux also has Windows, there's no reason to cater to the platform.




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Subject

Comment [quote="Beamer"Jan 9, 2013, 14:56][quote="StingingVelvet"Jan 9, 2013, 14:48][quote="Verno"Jan 9, 2013, 11:47]The aesthetics are fine and I wouldn't be surprised if the hardware ended up as powerful or moreso than current consoles, people put up with way worse in the living room. I don't see why the OS matters either, its just how many compatible games can it deliver and that depends on what kind of weight Valve can throw around. No reason it couldn't run Windows too, some people have speculated that a higher tiered SKU might do so. If they were a smaller company I'd be dubious but they have an incredibly large customer base. HTPCs are expensive to build and the prebuilt options (Zotac, Foxconn) aren't powerful enough for the kind of gaming most want to do. It has a lot of crossover market appeal unlike the Razer thing posted in the news story below this one. If they could get external videocards (Thunderbolt, maybe in a year?) finally sorted out then this sort of thing would be ideal even.[/quote] That's all well and good but it doesn't answer the question: who is it being sold to? Console gamers will not switch to this at the same time new consoles much more powerful come out. The indie/androud lovers will go Ouya or an equivalent. PC gamers would have to install Windows and then be turned off by the lower specs and upgrade constraints. I don't know who the audience is. [/quote] Valve is hoping to get more Linux development. But it's a chicken/egg thing - devs won't port to Linux if no gamer uses Linux over Windows, and no gamer will totally abandon Windows because Linux doesn't have enough ports. So make a device that focuses on gaming and Linux. Then tell developers that they have a wide open user base just dying for games. Developers port a bit more. More people buy. More developers port a bit more. More users buy. Or so the hope goes, but without a reason to port to Linux no one is going to port to Linux, and since virtually anyone that wants a game on Linux also has Windows, there's no reason to cater to the platform. [/quote]

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