Confirming the industry’s worst-kept secret, Valve CEO Gabe Newell has confirmed Valve is working on its ‘Steam Box’, a Steam-powered HTPC geared towards console-like gaming. It’ll most likely run Linux. “Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment,” he told Kotaku. “If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that’s what some people are really gonna want for their living room.” Steam has 50 million subscribers, so there’s a market here. As a comparison: Xbox Live has 40 million subscribers.
There does seem to be a somewhat “minor” problem. Are they likely to be able to convince enough developers to port games to Linux to make it viable?
It wouldn’t be that difficult, actually. If they provide the environment and tools (as they are saying they will be doing) it all comes down the end-user price and feature set. Game engines will be ported just like they are to other platforms.
Also, Steam has enough games to make the platform potentially more mature when first appearing than the original XBox.
Then there is the additional advantage of also being available to install on your computer (as an optional OS) – should they choose to permit that. You also have the potentially MASSIVE advantage where Steam will allow you to play the game on your PC – in Windows or Linux (maybe only with a special distro, though) and also on your Steam box in the living room without throwing discs around, or buying additional copies (though they may charge a little extra – I’d think they’d lose a selling point by doing so).
–The loon
I think this would be awesome
It’s being marketed as almost a console, and they manage to convince studios to develop for those every generation.
The hardware limitations should be less here, and the stack is tried and tested, with many major engines already supporting it.
Seems inevitable, especially given that major players like Sony and Nintendo are actually in negative profits according to wiki.
There are 38 Linux games listed on steam which is nothing compared to the amount of games listed for Windows.
Even so, I’m quite happy to put my money on Steam/Desura and skip the next console generation. This is from a 360 owner who has spent almost 10,000AUD on console gaming since 2005.
Have you realized that Steam hasn’t even been officially released for Linux yet? The fact that there’s 38 games for Linux even before the client has been released is actually pretty well. Comparing the number to a platform that has been officially supported for YEARS is unfair and a lot like comparing apples and oranges.
Or that the first 34 were easy. Windows Phone had 700 apps before launch. These things need context. What kind of momentum is there behind the ports?
Alas, apples and oranges. Applications can be almost anything, including your typical fart – apps, whereas games are a very definite subcategory of applications.
Also, yes, the ones that have been ported over have likely been the easy ones: the small-time, Indie developers generally have source-code to their own engines and the engines are specific to the game in question, so porting them over is much easier. Contrast that to popular engines that are not specific to any game type or content and which ones are only licensed by the developers of the games; it’s the job of the owner of the engine itself to do the porting first, and only then can the licensee port the game.
We do not know. Most of the developers do not reveal such information, so we’re mostly flying in dark here in regards to this question. I’ve heard rumours that the new Unreal engine would support Linux and that would be big news, but alas, they are rumours only and I cannot find anything official. Their own website doesn’t mention Linux at all. That said, they sport in-engine support for Steamworks and OpenGL, they support OSX and Android — both of which are Unix-like platforms — and so on, so doing a Linux-port wouldn’t be too far-fetched.
The humble bundle ported most of those well before steam and the rest were indie.
I like the idea of having a Steam Box as a “controlled environment” (I bet it will be hackable, if you want to), while at the same time having the possibility to just use a normal PC to run it. It’s a way to please both crowds, enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts.
I have zero interest in Steam, but if somebody puts out a PC-like device in a console form factor that is hackable for around $300, then I could load a bunch of emulators on it, and hook up an X-arcade Tankstick
Sure, you can build your own one of those, but I’d rather not do the work, and most ‘off the shelf’ models I’ve seen that are decent quality tend to run $500+.
As for Steam, I might be into it, if they ever put their promise to ‘unlock’ games if the servers go out of business down in righting, and make it legally binding. Until that happens, I’m not ‘buying’ games that I’ll never own. Some of you are going to be out hundreds of dollars when/if Steam ever goes away, and they give all their users a big ‘f**k you’ in regard to promises that they made.
Edited 2012-12-11 03:40 UTC
That used to be a great argument for me. But almost all games older than 5 years I don’t play anymore. Either because they aren’t fun anymore or because they don’t work anymore on new computers. So if steam would disappear I would miss the games I am currently playing but other games that I am done with I would not miss.
At best, steam can give me a pathetic fuck you.
Not counting multiplayer (which I don’t play) – not really, I’ll just torrent the ones I care about then and burn them on blurays.
Unless you need to run very CPU hungry emulators like Dolphin, PCSX2 and FS-UAE with AGA games, the $99 Oyua with an overclocked Tegra 3 might just be what you’re looking for.
I don’t see where this fits in today. Maybe they’ll spend a year getting games ported to Linux so there is something to do with it
Even then though, it would have to be dirt cheap to sell well, and that means poor hardware, which again begs: what’s the point?
This thing will have fewer and worse and older games than both the new and the old consoles next year. It will cost more than the old consoles. And the hardware might be worse than the new ones, which when combined with poorly optimized computer games means everything on it looks worse than on the new consoles.
Yep I’m having a hard time seeing where this fits in!
Maybe in a year there will be a cpu with onboard graphics that can run skyrim at 30fps and costs them $200 to build with a small hard drive, which they can sell at cost, ala amazon kindle and google nexus. Maybe that would work. If the selection of games for linux explodes….
Nope I still dont get it
You’ve never heard of a loss leader? The other console makers never make a return on the hardware itself in the first year of a particular revision, and sometimes they never do at all. They make their money through accessories, licensing and, more recently, subscriptions. Eventually they get the build cost of the console down to the point where they break even or (rarely) profit a few pennies on it. But no successful console manufacturer goes into it thinking they will immediately profit on the hardware.
Bottom line, this is just a way to get Steam into the consciousness of of console-only gamers. I’m all for it!
What I said stands. Even if it is sold at a loss (say a $300 box for $200), and even if it includes Half-Life 3 for free (and CS: GO and TF2), I still don’t see why people buy this. It will run games minimally well and have a minimal game selection and will compete for your $200 with not only the new and old consoles, but also a $200 upgrade to your computer so all windows games run even better. Yep, still don’t get it
I shall counter your argument with the following statement: “Half Life 3, only available on Steam Box”
Do you know something the rest of us don’t? I can build a pretty fast gaming box for under $300 that will play any current Steam game very well, and that’s with retail priced parts. Now enter Valve, who can put together a deal to get the hardware far below retail costs. You’ll either have a kick-ass console for the same price, sold as a loss leader, or else a very capable console with a slim profit line of its own.
I really don’t understand why you refuse to acknowledge the possibility that Valve can do this and do it well. It’s almost as if you have a personal grudge.
do you have a different definition of “minimal” than the dictionary?
that’s minimal, and it’s also bullshit
I don’t get you. You seem to want Valve to build a $1000+ gaming rig but sell it for less than a last-gen console. You set the bar so high no one would be able to succeed.
I definitely get the impression that Valve has somehow pissed you off, or that at the very least you don’t like Steam or even gaming in general. I’m a casual gamer myself, but I think something unique like this would be a boon to both the console gaming arena and to GNU/Linux itself. I could be wrong of course, but I’m not going to hold the company to an expectation that no one out there, including the established players, could meet.
you’re weaving tales. steambox doesn’t make sense today, and I don’t see how it makes sense in 12 months. this is not an extraordinary opinion.
No, I’m not lying about anything. I’m giving examples of why I think this is a good thing. You obviously feel it isn’t, but you don’t have to resort to name calling just to prove your side.
I may be wrong too, it wouldn’t be the first time. But honestly, why so much grief over it? If they put it out and it flops, you can say “I told you so!” and go on with life. If they put it out and it succeeds, you can shrug your shoulders and still go on with life.
It’s not like Valve is shoving this thing down your throat and making you buy one. Lighten up a bit or you’ll do yourself an injury, man.
I was replying to a post about me. You weren’t talking about why you think steam box is a good idea, you were talking about moi
Does Valve have the money to become a loss leader? Microsoft, yes. Sony, yes. Valve?
It’s a huge risk to absorb an entire console generations worth of losses to maybe one day take on the giant elephants in the room that are Microsoft and Sony.
The console market isn’t attractive. It’s cutthroat, margins are razor thin, and it’s hard to establish a presence. Ask Microsoft how much it cost them to loss lead.
Microsoft needed it to ensure that no one found a back door into Windows’ territory via the living room, but what does Valve need this for?
I won’t argue that this is a huge gamble for them, but someone has to step up and try it first. Succeed or fail, this is an awesome concept and Valve will be the first to really give it a go.
Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to make Windows into an Xbox “experience”, and Apple continues to make OS X into iOS. Succeed or fail, those are also gambles and I’m really curious to see where each company goes.
And the key point for Valve is that both are firmly committed to moving their respective desktop infrastructures to the “walled garden” model in which consumers must buy software through the OS vendor, which gets a cut of the action.
They really have no choice that I see – either build their own platform (and support Canonical’s as a side bet) or re-route the lion’s share of their profits to Microsoft and Apple.
The most dangerous breed of dog is the cornered dog.
Nintendo have never lost money on a console sold, that allowed them to survive the relatively poor sales through the N64 and GameCube years.
That also explains the slower pace that their tech has advanced at, compared to the competition. They have innovated in other areas, mainly with the Wii’s motion control and the DS touch screen, and their games generally have higher playability and a more unique feel, but they continue to lag behind the rest when it comes to pushing pixels.
But, graphics aren’t everything. I still have more fun with my DS than I ever did with a PSP.
We’ve seen this play many times before.
1. “We like open”
2. Is not open.
The proof will be in the pudding: if you can have the same experience as the Steam Box by installing your own choice of Linux on your own hardware, then it’ll be open enough. If however this truly is just another console trying to claim to be a PC, just because it’s x86, then it’s just double-standards on Valve’s part — they don’t like Windows 8 because they can’t control the experience, yet they want to release their own device, where nobody else can control the experience.
Well to be fair, they never said they were the new champions of the Free computing movement. They are a business and they are looking for a new, unique way to get their product out to as many people as possible. Windows 8 was going to be a problem for them, so this is their end run.
I try to see the positive from it: This will surely put GNU/Linux in the big picture, and people will start wondering about it and wanting to try it out. “Why buy a Steam box when I can build my own?” said the intrepid gamer teen, etc.
Is that realistic though? The Steam hardware would have to compete with the consoles, which are already sold at loss. Valve would have to at least part subsidise the total cost, so it would be in their interest to ensure that you can only / would only want to buy games through their interface — if any other interface is present at all!
Let’s call it what it is: a gaming console made by Valve.
I can remember the gaming community thinking it was odd (and doomed to failure) when Sony wanted to enter the firmly established gaming market (with unbeatable titans like Sega and Nintendo) with a console with a silly name “Play Station”.
Sure, but they all use custom hardware that they either build and designed themselves or purchased from someone. Valve will have the benefit of being able to use mostly off-the-shelf stuff. That alone is a big cost difference.
Uh yes, of course it is. Did anyone say otherwise?
They are both same
And no one knows whether valve eventually use custom designed components or use generic commodity software.
Purchasing custom designed stuff and purchasing off-the-shelf stuff is not the same.
They aren’t going to do the moronic console thing and use CPUs that are cutdown versions of custom server/mainframe class CPUs.
Why when you can get someone like AMD to slap together a single board design quad core CPU, 7700-7900 class GPU and 4-8Gb of standard DDR3 ram?
Aside from the fact that it’s a custom mobo doesn’t increase the price much considering they will be ordering them in lots of a few hundred thousand at a time, what saves cost is that the chips themselves will be bog standard consumer parts with a custom UEFI that only allows for Valve’s SteamBox version of Linux to be booted.
All they need is to have the console reliably hit between 30-60FPS at say 1920×1080 which is fairly easy for today’s high end GPUs when you don’t turn on anti-aliasing, especially when the game devs can tweak their ports for that specific hardware since they know a large portion of their customers will be using that exact setup.
Or, remember how many people (particularly the “l33t” subset of PC gamers) cherished the arrival of “PC console” with the first Xbox? Now they whine about hybrid games (they call them “console ports” …but since when first-person-shooters, with the simplistic core game mechanic of pointing at things, are a console genre?)
Their aim isnt to be open, its to make a console to provide their games – it happens to be based opensource.
Also, disagree about them having to make sure it can run on any user hardware.
Its exactly BECAUSE you have a fixed hardware platform that makes the console attractive to developers. (one of the reasons at least). Saves a lot of time testing various combinations of hardware and adding in workarounds for driver bugs.
I’ve come to the conclusion that game devs today are pussies. Back in the 80’s there where a shitload of different platforms and most games appeared on most or all of them.
(Yes I know, it’s not exactly the same thing. Just saying)
It is a matter of saving money.
Porting to other systems has always been done by outsourcing to game studios specialized in a given platform.
If you only target a specific set of platforms then you save costs.
Same with Web developers, they complain about everything these days … it is nothing compared to the bad old days.
Yeah, and most of the games were rather horrible – quite possibly more than now, on average (vide how too many promoted stinkers brought the 1983 video game crash)
+1, it is indeed ironic if they start to complain about how Windows 8 is heading us towards locked-down PCs, then proceed to release yet another one locked-down device.
Seriously, expressions like “very controlled” is something which I have only heard in the mouth of Apple fans trying to defend iOS or Microsoft reps trying to defend Windows 8. This choice of words makes me extremely pessimistic.
If we are unhappy, we can buy more general-purpose PCs, they say… Right, but where will those be in a few years? By attempting to transition the remaining loyal PC gamers to a console-ish device, they are kind of not helping with answering that question…
Edited 2012-12-11 06:54 UTC
This is what I have been saying from the beginning.
Sure it is nice that Valve is raising awareness for Linux as a target platform for game studios, but in the end they want to save Steam profit from other App Stores, as simple as that.
True, but what Valve is able to offer is the ability ot buy your games once and have them on whatever platforms Steam is available on, if their console does in fact run on bog standard x86_64 hardware with a more or less standard Linux dristro and a locked UEFI system then whats the problem to Linux uses if Valve also releases a Steam client for Linux? The games ported to the steamBox would play without modification, the SteamBox’s UEFI would basically only be there for them to appease the MPAA if they wanted to offer things like Netflix.
By doing this Valve basically gets to kill 3 birds with one stone.Get the console gamers on board, get the Linux gaming market, all of it that has been forcing Steam to work in Wine for all these years as well as possibly more games ported to OS X since the leap from Linux to OS X is allot shorter then the leap from Windows to anything else.
All they have to do in convince a few publishers to release games on their platform, which in the case of Windows gaming makes them the 800Lb gorilla in the room. Microsoft doesn’t have allot to stand on since if you look up “Games For Windows” it is universally reviled.
Only until they change their Terms of Service and you actually take the time to go through the mind-numbing legalese, spot some conditions you don’t like and refuse to accept the new rules — only to be locked out of your entire game collection!
Everyone seems to be in love with Valve and it’s easy to overlook one very important detail: even without a monthly fee, STEAM is really a subscription service and you’re not actually buying the games you think you are buying.
Also, I’m somewhat skeptic about a “STEAM Box” being based on any version of Linux. I mean, what would be the advantage from a business point of view? Why go through the trouble of convincing studios to add yet another platform? Why not just put the (existing) pieces together?
RT.
Why convince game dev companies to support yet another platform? Because they already have to do so with every console generation. Each iteration of the xbox or playstation have been incompatible with the previous generation for native software, sure they included specialized hardware to allow for emulation of the previous generation’s hardware to help get more console sold but that hardware eventually gets dropped by later versions of the consoles to cut production costs.
Having a Linux based console is actually easier for many developers anyways since they use Linux internally for development of their Windows games.
Furthermore Valve is a massive force in the gaming industry specifically due to their Steam platform which seems to be the only “App Store” that is actually loved by the Average Joe.
Would you rather see the gaming industry taken over by Microsoft completely with their store and choke out all the cross platform games by saying you you want to sell your game through the Windows store you can’t port to anything else but the XBox?
I don’t like Steam either, but I do like competition in the market.
All PS2 consoles are compatible with PS1 titles – the hardware is used for i/o and such secondary stuff in PS2 games.
OTOH, Xbox1 games were always emulated on X360 (supporting only a subset of Xbox1 games), no dedicated hw. And PAL PS3 consoles always emulated PS2 CPU, they included (for a time) only the GFX chip of PS2. Well, at least PS3 supports PS1 games via software emulation now, downloadable from Playstation appstore…
…speaking of appstores, I think the Apple one is also “actually loved by the Average Joe” – stealing some momentum at least from portable consoles.
And I’ve never heard of devs using Linux specifically for Windows game development…
Though, down the line, I bet Valve also eyes the possibility of Steam on Android…
Steam box will probably not be open. But Steam will be in 2 out of 3 gaming segments – desktop, console but not mobile.
I don’t see any benefits in consoles in general. On the contrary, they degrade the quality of games by limiting their interfaces (which is caused by the lack of keyboard and mouse) and by limiting many other features as well because of consoles’ limited memory and processing power. It backfires back to PC gaming, since some developers produce cross platform games (i.e. targeted for PC and consoles), bringing console limitations right to the PC versions as well, since they don’t want to spend much time on producing different versions, which results in crippled games.
However Valve’s push to improve the situation with Linux gaming in general is a good development.
Edited 2012-12-11 04:20 UTC
Consoles make gaming simple. PC gaming is “My PC can run this game, if I have Graphics card Y, Motherboard Y, that supports Processor and Chipset Z with 20GB of RAM and a custom cooling rig”
Even then its a mess of Catalyst drivers, 200 different DRM schemes, a comparatively weak online experience, etc.
Consoles are streamlined. You go to the store, you buy a box. You turn the box on and pop a disk in. Bam, you’re gaming.
It’s an implicit guarantee. If I buy this Console, I will run this selection of games relatively well.
I think Steam’s push into the living room is stupid, but I think that a standardized “SteamBox” for Linux is a good idea. An on-the-shelf Linux PC you can sell to users and say “This is Linux”.
Most likely, this will be more of an Android scenario. They will base their work on Linux, but brand it as “SteamBox” everywhere, so it’s not as if normal people will be able to tell.
Unfortunately the negative effect outweighs the streamlined ease of use. Some genres (like real time strategies) were even damaged by developers paying less attention to PC gaming. Complexity of setting up a good gaming machine up is paid off with complex and deeper games with rich interfaces, instead of dumbed down consolized stuff.
That’s even besides the bad idea of turning general purpose computer into an appliance which usually comes with all kind of nasty DRM.
Edited 2012-12-11 07:55 UTC
You can do RTS just fine in consoles.
I think the main problem is big studios only doing what might sell, instead of trying out ideas, like in the 80’s.
I’m honestly surprised that all of the big players have taken a back burner approach to indie development.
Indie game development is where the future is. Success stories like FEZ and Braid are signs that its a very rich market.
If the Xbox opened up a “Game Store” with an honest to goodness try (like the Windows Store, NOT like the retarded Xbox Live Indie Games half-effort) then we could see a resurgence of that old risk taking.
I love indie gaming, and its a great tragedy that its almost been strangled to death in consoles.
Windows 8 (or iPad, if that’s your cup of tea) imo is the next, best thing to indie development on Consoles.
God, I hope not. Indie games suck.
Because a 50 millionth entry in the CoD line or, you know, DNF are such signs of quality maintream games….
Considering the fact that I don’t play any of those your snide misses its mark.
Indie games can deliver only a good story.
Halo 4 music and backgrounds were amazing… And it created an atmosphere no Indie will ever achieve.
And vice versa: there are many indie games that create atmosphere no AAA game will ever achieve.
Braid, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery, VVVVV, or flash games like Where We Remain, Looming, The Fabulous Screetch (and his Trained Humans), etc. are just a few of those games. Some of them also have a regular story, but with most atmosphere is king.
Plus with Indy Games – making a game is achievable. There’s a buzz. There’s heart. With mainstream, good luck on that. Community and innovation is surely much better than oppression and domination by major corporations?
Braid sucks? Braid is pretty much the best classic platformer I’ve played in the 5 years. Super Meat Boy sucks? Super Meat Boy out “Marios” Super Mario Bros. FEZ I can take or leave, but then Phil Fish is not as likeable a character as Jonathan Blow and Endmund McMillan/Tommy Refenes. The Binding of Isaac is such a throw away title, but that too is pretty awesome. I actually can’t think of the last non iOS/PSP game I’ve played recently that wasn’t an Indy. I mean, come on, you have games like World of Goo too and all the Ludum Dare and game jams going on. Indy is really the place of innovation.
Being innovative does not automatically mean high quality or fun to play. Yes, Brain sucks. World of Goo, too, along with SMB, Binding of Isaac, Ludum Dare, FEZ and so on. I just do not find any of those games interesting or able to keep me entertained, and I really hate the trend among Indie-devs where they just ride with cutesy, cartoony graphics or “pixelated” graphics in an effort to look edgy. I don’t want innovative or edgy as the only selling point.
Looking through my collection I have only a couple Indie-games that I like: The Witcher, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Deponia 1&2 and The Whispered World. One thing that all these games have in common is the fact that the story itself is the main selling point.
There is always something wrong with most indie games. It’s either they screw up on the story, the game itself is a casual puzzle/brawler(anything casual has issues with drawing you in) or the graphics are pixelated for the sake of being pixelated.
Indie games have gone down hill lately. Gameplay and stories get hit the hardest… Exceptions get through though.
But that is what we should expect with the market being open to more and more people. The average quality drops…
Braid (etc) sucks because…? If we’re using blanked “sucks” with no real explanation, I could counter with “all the games you like that I don’t suck”, but as you’ve not really listed any it’s hard to know.
The Witcher hardly even counts as an Indie game – the people responsible were doing it, on & off, for a ~decade (I have a magazine discussing the game, with first screenshots …from ~1998). The studio is one of the bigger (if not the biggest) in Poland, done plenty of big localisation projects (really big, prominent titles with lots of text – Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment, such calibre)
Oh, and The Witcher is based on one of more popular in PL fantasy book series, that’s where most of the background story comes from.
I think they are trying out ideas to a similar degree …80s were also the times of many mediocre clones of few good games (remember the video game crash of 1983 and what brought it?)
Anyway, the present state of affairs is pretty much what we wanted, when we (nerds) wished for the mainstream to understand and appreciate games …so, now the games have become a mainstream entertainment, with mainstream inertia and priorities of publishers.
Its definitely a trade off, and its been executed poorly at times..but I believe in the general idea of it.
With regards to the DRM situation, some of the nastiest most insidious DRM I’ve ever seen has probably been on the PC.
At least on Xbox it’s standardized and managed by Microsoft, not some Gaming company which licenses a shitty DRM scheme from two bit developers. My experience has been downright infuriating.
I always find this argument hilarious and is usually part of the PC Gamer Snobbery.
There is nothing stopping things like Age of Empires, Rome Total War or Starcraft from being on a console with a decent interface.
RTS’es don’t work without fast high precision inputs(aka mouse+keyboard)
Watch a screencast of an average Starcraft player to see his APS rate…
These are seasoned pro players, most console gamers won’t be going into Tournaments against the Koreans.
Lets try to keep it realistic.
Keeping it realistic a keyboard and mouse are still required to play Starcraft campaign.
Question is, do you really need a ‘complex and deep’ game, along with a $25 million budget, to make it fun?
IMO, games on the downloadable services like Braid, Super Meat Boy, Geometry Wars 2, Pacman CE, Bit Trip Runner, etc are 10x better than 98% of the shit being pumped out at retail these days.
Another poster said that the story and atmosphere that the retail games provide can never be matched by indie titles. But honestly, if I want story and atmosphere, I’ll watch a fucking movie. (Or better yet, read a book.)
No, the question is do you really need $25 million budget to make a game with deep storyline and good interface? Probably not. For example take CD Projekt Red – they made Witcher 1 with very interesting story and brilliant interface. It was targeted for PC and they didn’t care about consoles at that point (see https://youtube.com/watch?v=24qJXgiuO1E ).
In the Witcher 2 the story is also great, but the interface suffered a number of degradations because of their attempt to combine PC and console versions. Other than that, Witcher 2 could be on par with the first game interface wise. Only with later updates some of the annoyances in PC version were fixed. It’s just an example of bad effects consoles can have on gaming.
You don’t need $25mil. What you need is not being pretentious. There is a lot of that coming from a lot of indie games these days. Genuine and original – Trine1+2 and Machinarium. And know your limits.
A movie and a book aren’t interactive and only provide an outsider’s view into the story.
There is also the question of the price…
Yes, price is important, but building general purpose computer is much more useful than buying limited purpose console. So it usually pays off in different ways.
Or you simply get an inexpensive laptop (even with OSS for example) and a console; laptops are already more popular than desktops (“building general purpose computer”? …people don’t do that, they grab a laptop; and an inexpensive console, if they like to game).
Yes but on the other hand, they allow people to buy the console, and not to have to buy new hardware for years. My PS3 from 2007 is still going strong. Instead on the PC, you either have to buy new hardware every once in a while, or try to find graphics settings which balance graphics quality with speed. Which can be tricky because you don’t know how much detail the next levels will have. On consoles, the graphics quality vs speed problem is taken care by the developer, who knows. I personally quit this expensive hobby, and never looked back.
IMO the gaming industry is ruining the PC by constantly bumping up the requirements. Imagine if Hollywood constantly changed resolutions and codecs in the discs they sell, requiring more and more powerful players every now and then.
Essentially, consoles make gaming accessible to the public.
Utter garbage, I bought a 512mb 8800GT (2007, mid level card) and it can (just about) play Skyrim. I will be upgrading the Graphics card and possibly the PSU which is the same price as the console, other than that everything in that PC is the same.
The GPU I used previous to that was a 9800pro, that lasted 4 years, and the machine that it was in saw 2 other GPUs (An Ati X-pert at work and a ATi 9000pro).
While some people decide to upgrade the machines every year for maximum performance, it isn’t really necessary.
Edited 2012-12-11 12:48 UTC
yeah. The whole argument about PC gaming is ridiculous. I’ve been using the same 9800gt video card I bought for $120 like 4 years ago to play games. it runs Skyrim at my monitors pathetic resolution quite well. It also runs Crysis and DiRT3 and anything else I’ve tossed at it.
Only people that want the maximum possible graphics settings at the highest resolutions at playable framerates constantly upgrade :p
My PCs other specs are a stock speed Intel Q9400 (2.66ghz, quadcore, 6mb L2, 1333fsb), 8GB ddr2-800. Nothing that special these days.
I am getting a 660GTX shortly with a new PSU, it going to be about ^Alb250, I will be able to run every game for the next few years at 1680×1050.
yeah, I’m planning on building an entire new machine next year after haswell comes out, if I can afford it. Otherwise I might just max my ram to 16gb, get a better GPU, and some new HDDs. Who knows. My CPU is decent enough, I would just like something faster. I suppose I could put a Q9650 in it :p
Or people who don’t want to mess with graphics settings…
I may be stupid, but on most PC games, I never managed to hit the balance between getting a decent visual quality and speed. When I had just said “that’s it, I nailed it, I am good now”, immediately afterwards the game would throw a level with much higher-that-usual detail at me and I would lose FPSes (i hate it when this happens, it ruins the virtual reality feeling, I can’t believe most PC gamers are fine with their games suddenly going choppy, then back to normal again).
So, most of the time, I decided to stay on the safe side and run my PC games at a lame resolution and with most settings to “low”.
Essentially, the only way to escape the settings hell is to spend a bucketload of money every now and then on upgrades…
Instead, on consoles, the developer (who really knows how much detail each level has) knows exactly what graphics settings are good for the hardware, and can even optimize the levels themselves (read: remove useless fluff that only bogs down the hardware).
In plain English, on consoles, if it loses FPSes, it’s developers fault, not mine. I like that.
Edited 2012-12-12 11:19 UTC
Though it’s sad how some people basically slander consoles …games are now finally decently optimised for oldish hardware largely because of them (well, and because laptops are more and more popular – an average PC caught up to the present console generation, GFX-wise, only a year or so ago)
I’m sorry, since when is the GeForce 8800GT a “mid level card”?
In 2007 it was the newest addition to the high-end lineup and is the equivalent of today’s GeForce 680.
So in short – 8800 is probably the best GPU nVidia has produced up until Fermi(GeForce 4xx series). So no wonder that you can play a lot of games.
The price at launch would have been a good $400+
It’s not necessary to upgrade every few years if you buy the absolute best… But my mobile dual-core Core i7-3520M CPU @ 2.90GHz has a better built in HD 4000 GPU then my desktop with GeForce 9600… and I can barely play games on my desktop now.
Those who build high end computers also don’t upgrade them for years, since they are sufficient to run most of the stuff for a long time. But on the other hand upgrading some part can be done without upgrading the whole thing (like changing the GPU for example without bumping the CPU) which is impossible with consoles. So your comparison above is not to the point.
Edited 2012-12-11 17:41 UTC
We must not go to the same forums, most of the guys I see building high end gaming rigs upgrade them at least every 9 months.
New CPU core revision or new mobo chipset that overclocks 5% higher? they’ll have it within 2 months of release, new top end GPU out? Gotta get it within 3 months of release.
May be those people upgrade just for the sake of upgrading. I doubt they are doing it because of real gaming requirements. And it’s simply too expensive to make such upgrades so often.
Edited 2012-12-12 08:17 UTC
Wrong, as someone who is an avid gamer on all platforms, a keyboard and mouse are only good on exactly 2 types of game that are pretty much crap these days, RTS and FPS. For every other type ff game out ther give me controller with analog input like the PS3 controller. Comfortable enough for an 8 hour gaming session, faster then a KB/M in most game types since the button are pressure sensitive they can act as 2-3 buttons depending on how you hit the button.
When you just want to play the damn game, nothing beats the console, it’s one hardware set that just always works. On the comp I have to ensure I tweak my box for max performance and may have to play with the graphics settings for an hour to find a playable compromise between graphics and responsiveness if I don’t want to sped a small fortune every 2-3 years to make sure I can play the games I want to play when the console will last 5-7 years between upgrades.
Read through the comments slowly. See a pattern? I don’t know if they are just Anti-Linux Trolls or what, but it’s very blatant. Almost as if they are saying: “Nooo please Linux, don’t grow stronger!”
In actuality, this is GOOD news for Linux and good news for Developers. Period. Valve isn’t tied to Shareholders, they pander directly to Human beings. When Valve goes Public, then you can start bashing them.
I could be wrong though, could just be old hats who don’t like attention on Linux. They just want their CLI, and a GUI is evil. It’s just people afraid of change is all. Point is, This is all good news, nothing bad here, yet.
History:
1. Google: “Google Chrome is coming to Linux”
2. Users: “This is good for Linux”
3. Adobe: “Flash Player will only be updated for Google Chrome on Linux, all other support is dropped”
Future:
1. Valve: “Steam Box runs on Linux”
2. Users: “This is good for Linux”
3. NVidia: “Future drivers will only be supported on Steam Box”
So far there is no indication for that (Nvidia is not Adobe).
So far.
Don’t promise to others that which you don’t control yourself. Are you willing to bet that NVidia will honour a gentleman’s agreement?
That’s what I said – so far. I.e. you can observe that currently Nvidia is involved in Linux support with rather decent results (even like Linux for Tegra), which are better than many other manufacturers. Nothing is guaranteed obviously.
Edited 2012-12-12 21:19 UTC
History:
1. NVidia: “Future drivers will only be supported on Steam Box”
Future:
1.Linux users buy AMD GPUs that have Gallium3D drivers or stick with Intel if they don’t game.
Edited 2012-12-12 06:45 UTC
No. of profitable non-geeks > no. of geeks
And how many nongeeks use Linux? Exactly 0.
You’re a bit out of your mind. Ever heard of nVidia Tesla or CUDA? Those are the two reasons why nVidia will support Linux and (whatever)BSD for the foreseeable future. And that is why there is no Optimus.
I think they still plan to fix the Optimus mess, it’s just not their high priority.
Steam is an even more closed garden than the Windows Store. And yet people clamour for it.
We at Valve do not like the control that Microsoft wants to exert over its Windows8 platform, so that’s why we will make our own tightly controlled platform.
Take a hike, Valve.
Oh, god, Valve is panicked and is running around like a headless chicken.
Steam for Ubuntu makes sense, but embarking on a mission to make their own console? So, they will be essentially bulding a full-fledged HTPC, but will sell it as a console. Good luck in finding a way to sell it in the same price range as the PS3 slim.
The reason the Xbox360 and PS3 were sold in the prices they were sold in their first day was not only the loss-leader thing, but also the fact they contained lots of in-house designed hardware. Which is something Valve can’t do. What they can do is repackage a PC. Which will result in a massive cost. Which means they will have to subsidize the thing like hell to sell in the same price range as the PS3 or Xbox 360.
Edited 2012-12-11 11:28 UTC
So, by buying PS3 console, you’ll basically get PC games + PS3 exclusives (ie Killzone 3) + console exclusives (ie Red Dead Redemption).
By buying Steam console, you’ll get what? Half of the PC games?
Amazing indeed.
I’m guessing the difference here will be the ability to buy an upgraded SteamBox-2 a year or two later and have all your games there. Plus you’ll be able to play them in higher quality.
This is either an awesome thing, or a laughably bad idea. The question is whether the games released on the “Steam Box” will also run under Ubuntu (or some other linux distro) on steam (assuming the machine is powerful enough).
If so, then awesome! More gaming for linux! More drivers for linux! A truly cross platform game platform in Steam! YES!
If not then we’re looking at what? Specialized hardware where I can buy games that I could then only run on that hardware, but having no physical copy and without developers being able to fully take advantage of the hardware?
We’ll know soon enough whether this is a great thing or a really stupid idea.
I’d go further. Would that game run on Linux distro plain? (I.e. even without Steam). If yes – than it’s good, of course if you are OK with ignoring all the bad side effects of consolization in interfaces and etc. which were discussed above.
Essentially, the golden age of PC gaming was in 1997-1999, when consoles were pathetic 480i boxes and had so weak graphics capabilities that developers had to remove two-thirds of the game, and make the graphics fugly, in order to make the game work on the console. For example, the PS1 version of Need For Speed High Stakes was half the game the PC version was. But, can anyone claim the Need For Speed Hot Pursuit for the Xbox 360 or the PS3 offers less gameplay than the PC version? Not. It dispenses some minor graphics detail but that’s all.
Consoles are still pathetic when it comes to creating comprehensive user interfaces (unlike PCs which have keyboard and mouse at your disposal).
Ah yes, because you actually need a 96 button controller to play a game?
Try putting all your of spells shortcuts on some gamepad. Have “fun” with that, or switch to normal keyboard.
You must be pretty slow since I can get through the spell lists in the games faster then the animations for them can play all without having to actually read them simply because I knew where the spells where in the list.
I have yet to see a game for any platform that lets you cast spells as fast as you can spam the button.
I used to play FFXI on PS2 and could easily beat the guys on custom gaming PCs. Yes, both PC and PS2 gamers where plaing on the same servers
For many people, good gameplay is about a lot more than shortcuts to spells.
It’s pathetic that you think “mouse & kb” is conductive to creating comprehensive UI …all they do is promote one simplistic core mechanic of pointing at things, that’s the only kind of gameplay they’re good at. This killed few types of PC genres. At least (~arcade-ish, but still) flight sims live on on consoles; unfortunately Descent-like FPP games (which are fabulous on dual stick controller) didn’t survive how “mouse & kb” dumbed FPP games down.
BTW, in Japan ~RTS and adventure games are still very popular …just with different kind of UI, based around hierarchic menus, where joypads work fine.
Generally, it’s also pathetic that you manage to overlook the great variety & innovation going on with console UI methods – did you really miss various types of controllers, custom input methods which happen on consoles? (or even no controller – like with Kinect)
More generally, people limiting themselves to only one kind of interaction, that would be possibly the biggest problem with pushing this kind of entertainment forward… (luckily, there are enough who enjoy gaming on both kinds of machines)
Then it was a problem with that one (bad) game …but, OTOH, PS1 had Gran Turismo which ruled all. Colin or TOCA (multiplatform examples) weren’t cut, and had better GFX on the console in some aspects (unless you had a Matrox G400 with EMBM; certainly the console had better controls, analogue sticks or Negcon)
But let me guess, 97-99 were the years of your youth? It’s always like that, people seeing “golden ages” when they were young, a bias of our memory.
When in fact, there were lots of very bad games also during that 97-99. Furthermore, IMO 3D PC games from 97-99 were more fugly – typically just with huge amount of soap/blur slapped on, making the GFX very uneven and ruining atmosphere; mostly only 2D PC games from that period passed the test of time.