Razumen wrote on Apr 13, 2012, 12:06:
Streaming is more niche and unreliable than either consoles or PC...
Are we entirely sure about that? OnLive seems to be working fairly well and who says that OnLive is doing it all right? Maybe Valve could do it all much better and bring streaming out of its niche. Everyone was lol'ing at Steam in the early days. No one would have ever thought it would ever become what it is now.
Valve think long term, not like most people just a couple of weeks ahead, and streaming will become a major part of the media landscape. There's no doubt about it. Microsoft is really keen on the whole streaming biz and who knows maybe Valve is going to pwn them a second time (the first time being when Steam became what GFW(L) was supposed to be from the start).
... plus they'd still have to invest in a server farm to render those games and pump it them to the players. And did I mention streaming is shit?
If there is one area where Valve is right at home it's gotta be server farms. They are very experienced in running an extremely large network by now. Will it be a technical challenge? Yes. Will it be worth it if the end result is you can give Microsoft and other big media corps the finger? Fuck yeah.
And streaming doesn't have to be shit. As I said the tech is relatively new and hasn't nearly been fully explored yet. There's a good chance that Valve could find ways around the usual issues like lag by syncing input devices and the display in all new ways (see here for a vague reference that this can generally be done:
Lucid MVP and HyperFormance).
No, I think it's more likely it's a standardized barebones PC that you can play Steam games on out of the box on your TV - They already have the infrastructure, a HUGE library of games, they've admitted to developing a Big-TV mode for Steam and have a decent name for themselves, I'd say it's very much possible.
No way. Research, development and design of a barebone PC would cost lots of money for very little return since selling PCs has become a very low margin business.
Then there's the even bigger -MUCH BIGGER- issue of Microsoft who will not watch idly as Valve brings PC gaming to the TV. Because that's exactly what the Xbox is all about. It's Microsoft's core Xbox philosophy actually.
Also Steam isn't an OS and Microsoft owns Windows. There are a million ways they could make life a real bitch for Valve like requiring a fee for the sale of each Windows game or slipping some "oops code" into a DirectX or Windows update that "accidentally" messes with the Valve PC. Network hacks and attacks... you name it.
All of that totally aside from the very likely legal action that Valve would face from Microsoft or that Valve might have to take against Microsoft to make that Valve PC become a reality. Or legal action from publishers who might be OK with their game on Steam in a free PC market but don't want their game on a Steambox PC. Remember that Valve does not own the games they sell.
Forget it. There's no way that Valve is doing a Steam console or a Steam barebone PC. Valve's philosophy right now is "games as a service" and a St(r)eambox as a set-top box would be just the thing they need to become a leading player in bringing that market to the mainstream before anyone else does.