This will put the release closer to when the new consumer VR headsets are available.

Should be interesting to see if they can roll all of this together and not let "valve-time" push steam machines into irrelevance..

Creston wrote on May 28, 2014, 11:16:

Beamer wrote on May 28, 2014, 11:04:
And if they don't make their games multiplatform, will you dual boot?

I doubt many people will, so all of this will live and die by how many devs will make their games available on SteamOS. (I hereby nominate we refer to it as SOS from now on.)

If you can get enough games on SOS, it'll gain traction, but if it's just a few devs, then there won't be anyone interested in running it, which will lead to even those devs saying there's no point in it.

So far the signs are encouraging, but it's going to take a concerted effort of at least several years before any sizable number of people switches.

That's exactly what will happen. Software sells hardware and most devs aren't going to jump on that platform. Valve is just a little too late to the game. Times are going to change in the next couple of years, particularly for gaming, and I very much doubt there's going to be a need for a dedicated gaming machine (consoles go bye bye) other than VR headset wars. It's going to be a race for the next big thing. Gone is the day of staring at a monitor unless you want to play any of the many shitty, unfinished, early access games (just the thing that Valve is doing to Steam). There's just a lot of money going into completely new technology.

Dagnamit wrote on May 28, 2014, 12:15:
I will heartily disagree with the "consoles are vastly overpowered" comment though. The Xbox 360 had a 8800 GTX under the hood, before the desktop card hit the shelves, and a 3 core CPU while most desktop parts were rockin' duals or singles. It was, for about 6 months, the highest quality gaming device available. The new ones had year old mid-range GPU's and low power mobile centric CPU's.

Not... really? The 360 had something similar to an ATI X1800. The 3-core 3.2GHz PowerPC is more difficult to compare, but yeah, probably no slouch. But 512MB of RAM to share between CPU and GPU was pretty paltry at the time.

The STEAM OS and controller are a cool idea for getting PC games off the desk and onto the couch, but having their own boxes? I know I am not the only one who is scratching my head, wondering who is going to buy such a thing. And everyone jumped on manufacturing them, but are now complaining about how low margin they are going to be. Yes, just like consoles.

Oh, Valve. Talk to NVidia and see how Shield is working out for them. It's a device built for no one.

I just want to point out... This is a beautiful example of what a thread should be like...

Lots of good points... Very little of that negative stuff I won't call out.

Thank you : )

-Alamar

Good. If the controller sucks or it's just like consoles this has no chance. If they can find a breakthrough here, even next gen consoles could benefit. I'd love to see some controller that can work nearly as good as a mouse.

This comment was edited on May 28, 2014, 17:32.

Dagnamit wrote on May 28, 2014, 12:15:
You're points are well taken, but I disagree. I believe that SteamOS will be a success whether Valve wants it to or not. I'm extremely bullish on this matter, to a ridiculous degree. I just have a feeling that people will want a high quality experience. Throw in the Oculus Rift, which will be best on a PC, and you've got a need for easy to procure, powerful gaming devices.

What will make SOS successful is if Valve can come up with an efficient DirectX emulator. People have to be able to play their Windows library on SOS. If not, adoption rates will stay very low.

Dagnamit wrote on May 28, 2014, 12:15:
I will heartily disagree with the "consoles are vastly overpowered" comment though. The Xbox 360 had a 8800 GTX under the hood, before the desktop card hit the shelves, and a 3 core CPU while most desktop parts were rockin' duals or singles. It was, for about 6 months, the highest quality gaming device available. The new ones had year old mid-range GPU's and low power mobile centric CPU's.

The XBox 360 and PS3 were closer to PCs of their day than PS4 and XB1 are compared to today's PCs. But make no mistake, I could have built a machine more powerful than an XBox 360 on the day it came out.

El Pit wrote on May 28, 2014, 12:49:
If Valve starts pushing developers to design games to be best played with a f****ing controller, I could as well buy a console. No sale, Steam. But that's of course just my opinion.

That's not what the Valve controller is about. It's about letting you play games that currently require a mouse on your TV without having to balance a plank with your mouse and keyboard on your lap. I'm all for controller innovation.

jdreyer wrote on May 28, 2014, 15:18:
Well, I think it was more of a shot across Microsoft's bow. MS was locking down the Windows O/S and threatening Steam's visibility and maybe even viability on it. Not wanting to leave their fate in the hands of Microsoft (who would?) they wanted to show that they didn't need to be tied to that.

Except they weren't locking down the OS. Their marketplace (which is basically their answer to Steam) was locked down and the "metro" interface required their store other than that it was still just as open. Essentially it would have zero impact on the Valve marketshare at all. I honestly don't believe this "response to MS" stuff, frankly I think it's just another poorly formulated idea out of valve like "episodic content" and "Valve Time" which is just as bad as "Blizzard Time".

They heralded Eposodic gaming as the way of the future and then abandoned it promptly, just like their first forays in to hardware, and I'm sure their controller and other projects to follow. There's a real lack of vision there, lots of ideas but zero dedication to see things through to completion.

Tim Collins wrote on May 28, 2014, 11:35:
They announced steam machines years too early...what a giant waste of our time following this.

Well, I think it was more of a shot across Microsoft's bow. MS was locking down the Windows O/S and threatening Steam's visibility and maybe even viability on it. Not wanting to leave their fate in the hands of Microsoft (who would?) they wanted to show that they didn't need to be tied to that.

Also, what WaltC said.

Alamar wrote on May 28, 2014, 09:25:
I am not a believer... And I expect Steam Machines, SteamOS, to go the way of the ouya bird... : )

-Alamar

Well, except that Ouya had something like $10 million behind it. Steam has something like $10 billion.

"Steam Machines delayed... we had some of our guys and gals roll over to the HL3 tables."

Well I'm sure the dozen or so people that will buy one of these things is dismayed to hear of this delay.

If Valve starts pushing developers to design games to be best played with a f****ing controller, I could as well buy a console. No sale, Steam. But that's of course just my opinion.

BIGtrouble77 wrote on May 28, 2014, 11:53:

This misses the point... The reality is that MS is a terrible gatekeeper for gaming on PC's.

No, I get your point. You want emphasis on open source and open standards. But MS isn't a "gatekeeper" to begin with. Anyone can develop for Windows. They can make their shit open source too, if they want. They don't even have to use MS's graphics API if they don't want. All the open standards you want are available on Windows. But no one is using them. There is nothing stopping anyone.

But what's more is that the Linux gaming ecosystem on SteamOS will not be open source and open standards.

Gaming on Linux, even on SteamOS is going to be based around closed source proprietary software. Drivers, DirectX emulation layers, developer middleware, vendor-specific shit from Nvidia and AMD, SteamOS-specific distro stuff by Valve, and of course the games themselves.

Linux gaming is NOT about free and open source software in any way. It uses just as much proprietary closed shit as Windows gaming.

WaltC wrote on May 28, 2014, 12:01:

Dagnamit wrote on May 28, 2014, 10:15:

Alamar wrote on May 28, 2014, 09:25:
I am not a believer... And I expect Steam Machines, SteamOS, to go the way of the ouya bird... : )

-Alamar

I believe. Look at how games are struggling on the underpowered new consoles. SteamOS is slick and is getting surprising traction with devs, imo. 4k native gaming will be possible on a $500 rig in 2-3 years. There's always been a market for super high-end consoles, we just haven't had one for a while.

Current consoles are vastly overpowered compared with the previous gen. They are only underpowered compared with PCs--but that's been the case as far back as I can remember...;) A "steam machine" is a PC with Valve stickers on it...

You're points are well taken, but I disagree. I believe that SteamOS will be a success whether Valve wants it to or not. I'm extremely bullish on this matter, to a ridiculous degree. I just have a feeling that people will want a high quality experience. Throw in the Oculus Rift, which will be best on a PC, and you've got a need for easy to procure, powerful gaming devices.

I will heartily disagree with the "consoles are vastly overpowered" comment though. The Xbox 360 had a 8800 GTX under the hood, before the desktop card hit the shelves, and a 3 core CPU while most desktop parts were rockin' duals or singles. It was, for about 6 months, the highest quality gaming device available. The new ones had year old mid-range GPU's and low power mobile centric CPU's.

Dagnamit wrote on May 28, 2014, 10:15:

Alamar wrote on May 28, 2014, 09:25:
I am not a believer... And I expect Steam Machines, SteamOS, to go the way of the ouya bird... : )

-Alamar

I believe. Look at how games are struggling on the underpowered new consoles. SteamOS is slick and is getting surprising traction with devs, imo. 4k native gaming will be possible on a $500 rig in 2-3 years. There's always been a market for super high-end consoles, we just haven't had one for a while.

Current consoles are vastly overpowered compared with the previous gen. They are only underpowered compared with PCs--but that's been the case as far back as I can remember...;) A "steam machine" is a PC with Valve stickers on it that say, "Steam Machine." Or rather, I should say that is what they will be when and if they ever see the light of day. There is nothing remotely console-ish about them, and nothing "custom", except maybe for the controller Valve has yet to get right (and the stickers, of course.) "Steam OS" is a Debian Linux derivative with a Valve front end.

My thinking is that the "Steam Machine" germinated in Newell's mind as a way to light a fire under Microsoft's rear end because he was upset with Microsoft's original direction with Windows 8. Now that the people responsible for that no longer work in Microsoft on a daily basis, and Microsoft has changed its tune with Windows 8, direct x (D3d), and particularly with the xBone, the "need" for a Valve "SteamOS" is much less than it was a year ago--and interest at Valve is predictably waning (Valve really, really does not want to become an OS company--trust me...;))

Also, try and apply logic here...;) > 90% of Valve's Steamworks business (and 95% of Valve's income from its own software franchises like HL1/2/3(?)) comes from the Windows market--if Valve had to depend on commissions from selling Linux games, or it tried to sell HL3 to "SteamOS" customers exclusively, they'd have to close the doors in a week (but maybe longer, depending on how much cash they'd have to burn through and how quickly they could sell off whatever physical assets the company owns.) Now that Gabe's "Microsoft crisis" has passed, the entire SteamOS project at Valve is becoming much less interesting.

As a publicity stunt for Valve, to elevate the company's public profile, however, SteamOS has been very successful! And, that, I think, was the idea, all along.

How much has Valve's pressure served to push Microsoft back into its more traditional, Valve-friendly role? That is hard to say, and while I think most of Microsoft's several one-eighties in the last year came about as the result of customer response to its (terrible) proposals, I don't think there is any doubt that Valve's publicity during that time had some effect, too. Pretty much nobody liked where Microsoft said it wanted to go, and they showed that disdain in a number a different ways.

NKD wrote on May 28, 2014, 11:38:

BIGtrouble77 wrote on May 28, 2014, 11:01:
I don't understand why people would not want a free OSS operating system to succeed if just for the added competition.

Well I imagine its because Windows works fine, and if you pirate it it's free too. And even if you don't, at most you only need to really upgrade it every 4 years or so, so it's a minor drop in the bucket cost wise.

That's the big issue with dethroning anything that's had majority market share for decades: You don't really have a chance until the incumbent product does something drastically wrong or just has massive flaws.

Windows...

Windows isn't the majority market share competitor here. It's the Xbone and PS4. And they've both done something drastically wrong. Both systems are just underpowered PC's. Besides, Windows may be free (or at least much less expensive) before too long, which makes dual booting more palatable.

NKD wrote on May 28, 2014, 11:38:

Well I imagine its because Windows works fine, and if you pirate it it's free too. And even if you don't, at most you only need to really upgrade it every 4 years or so, so it's a minor drop in the bucket cost wise.

This misses the point... The reality is that MS is a terrible gatekeeper for gaming on PC's. MS is more interested in making money with their xbox products, so that's where their resources lie.

On the other hand, Valve has all their eggs in the pc gaming basket, and they are pushing the envelope in every area they are touching. I'd like to see more advancements and optimizations for open standards. Valve is doing this right now, MS almost never does this.

MS has been the pc gaming gatekeeper for decades, it's time for change.

BIGtrouble77 wrote on May 28, 2014, 11:01:
I don't understand why people would not want a free OSS operating system to succeed if just for the added competition.

Well I imagine its because Windows works fine, and if you pirate it it's free too. And even if you don't, at most you only need to really upgrade it every 4 years or so, so it's a minor drop in the bucket cost wise.

That's the big issue with dethroning anything that's had majority market share for decades: You don't really have a chance until the incumbent product does something drastically wrong or just has massive flaws.

Windows doesn't have really have any inherent issues that make it unsuitable or less than optimal for gaming. It's a platform anyone can develop on for free. It has nearly exclusive market share for gaming so a huge potential customer base. It has the best middleware and best game development ecosystem in general. It has the best driver support. It has the most massive back catalog of older games of any gaming platform.

Now are there things Windows can do better? Absolutely, but most of them are irrelevant to gamers. So they don't really stand to gain much from SteamOS.

There's an issue with "encouraging devs to make their titles multi-platform" as well. You see, developers already can barely be fucked to make a WINDOWS port that isn't shit. If the PC platform were to split, we'd get even fewer good ports on our OS of choice whether it be Windows or SteamOS or some other flavor of Linux.

There's just not a lot of reason to get excited unless you're a big time OSS advocate.