Tomorrows will definitely be the steam box if you look at the icon for it.
[0 ]
the first one was just 0, and that was the OS, so they quite literally put it into a box in the icon. So ya. the steam box will definitely run the steam OS natively. The third one, i think is going to be source 2. 0 + 0. If you look at the first announcement Icon, maybe the 0 doesnt stand for OS but just counts as its software. so the third one would be two softwares together, or just source 2. (1 + 1?). And, since its not in a box at all, ya, maybe it will be open source? who knows!
And the whole talk about it not supporting zBrush and stuff. I think you're all missing the point. It's not meant for you to develop on, or replace the computer you use right now. That's not the target application for it. Not at all. It's meant to give you the ability to stream your games to your living room at a much faster rate. And give hardware a higher performance. It's essentially an apple TV but for steam. The only difference is that the OS lets you build your own box for it, rather than having to buy a predetermined one. I think the steam box will just be their predetermined one, should you want to go that route instead, since it will have the specs for all the minimum requirements for steam games (my guess). You`re still going to need to develop on a more fleshed out OS.
And the whole talk about it not supporting zBrush and stuff. I think you're all missing the point. It's not meant for you to develop on, or replace the computer you use right now. That's not the target application for it..
For now.. you may be correct but it might not be so far off in terms of their long term goals. A huge part of the steam platform, and perhaps one of the largest money makers for them is content creation. At linux con Gabe again reiterated that the consumers and users are creating some of the best content at both a rate and level that Valve cannot compete with.
If content creation and delivery is a huge part of what Steam is becoming via the workshop... and Source 2.0 will most likely be in the same ball park as Unity and UDK for open game creation, then it makes sense to have the "source" (pun intended) for content creation be a part of their larger goal. I think part of Valve contacting the Blender Foundation in regards to working together might be a larger indicator of this as well, since its also open source and hits every major OS.
We have a lot to be excited about as content creators.
Well, if source 2 is indeed open source, then maybe they`ll have it working on steam box where people can use game pads, not just mouse and keyboard, to create stuff. But, I do think the box and os are just a bridge. They do love user generated stuff, but that doesnt mean they need to create it on their OS.
It very well could be the plan for the future, but as of right now, it seems like this is all just a bridge for PC - TV.
Well I dont think Source itself will be open source, but as a game creation package it could be "open" to the user base...not just for mods but full on game titles.
Its going to have to be a bit more than just PC to TV streaming though otherwise the change will be minimal.
I think you guys are thinking too hard about this. Reads to me that the point of it being a lightweight OS indicate that it only does games. I thought it was essentially like the XboxOS, iOS, or PlaystationOS. They have social features, run games, can buy games, but other than their determined function they don't do much. It'll probably allow you to browse the web, tweet, facebook, share videos, but doubt it'd expand beyond that. My guess is that it'd never replace your desktop, compete with windows, mac, ect, it reads like an OS that you can install onto a dedicated PC without the hassle of other stuff windows offers. It seems its aimed at taking on consoles, not desktops.
"It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines."
my biggest concern is how difficult/expensive will it be to develop games for Windows, SteamOS, and Mac, if you want to be successful and reach as many players as possible? Users could just buy on PC and stream to the steambox then... but why not just play on the PC? You get to play in "the living room" i guess. People have a difficult enough time making 360, PS3, and PC versions. I realize the architecture of all three of those is vastly different, maybe porting to SteamOS would be made easier with tools they provide.
This sounds cool, but not seeing the huge bonuses of it other than running headfirst into a long-running playstation and xbox dominated living room.
People should also realize that the smaller shark is still a shark and definitely not vegan.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? I get where you're coming from. Valve is another company, and doesn't owe the consumer any favors. If they did manage to convince the world to jump on SteamOS, we would just be trading one corporate overlord for another.
Except that SteamOS is a Linux distro that won't be locked...
...and they aren't going to charge licensing for every copy...
...or every upgrade...
...and because it's open source anyone can develop software for it and distribute that software however they please.
At the end of the day, which company would you prefer as your corporate OS overlord? The one whose first major project was ripping off Apple? Or the one whose first major project was Half Life?
Tomorrows will definitely be the steam box if you look at the icon for it.
[0 ]
the first one was just 0, and that was the OS, so they quite literally put it into a box in the icon. So ya. the steam box will definitely run the steam OS natively. The third one, i think is going to be source 2. 0 + 0. If you look at the first announcement Icon, maybe the 0 doesnt stand for OS but just counts as its software. so the third one would be two softwares together, or just source 2. (1 + 1?). And, since its not in a box at all, ya, maybe it will be open source? who knows!
Yep, I think this Icon (the one you mentioned) is meant to look like an ascii console:
As for the last Icon:
I think that may represent Portal 3 (2 circles)
As for the OS announcement, that struck me as an attempt to start getting market saturation, before MS and Sony get their next gens out. That way, you could essentially have a nextgen system on your TV, before November. Then they will follow it up with their steambox option, later next year.
Notman, the number 3 is heavy in this presentation. I dont think its coincidence that its presented that way.
Though its tough, because it could be about any number of their franchises which just so happen to have a 3rd installment coming along. I'll put my money on Half-Life though, maybe its wishful thinking... Gabe has admitted to working on Richochet, which was a code word for Half Life.
That's my point. I think many people think it's going to be a HL3 announcement (I've been seeing that everywhere), but I don't see any relation to that image, and Half-life... unless I'm missing something. I do see 2 circles, which makes me think of Portal, which I don't see anyone talking about.
I think HL3 is what they SHOULD have, to get the steambox sales kickstarted though. I don't know that portal 3 would do that.
Unfortunately Mark Laidlaw was pretty clear about the announcements being strictly Steam related:
So I don't expect a game announcement, more a new controller. Hopefully in the coming months we will have some game goodness, you can't release new hardware without a proper killer app.
So I don't expect a game announcement, more a new controller. Hopefully in the coming months we will have some game goodness, you can't release new hardware without a proper killer app.
interesting.. I like the portal speculation about the third icon (o + o), but a new controller? I guess you could look at it being two joysticks kinda like how the playstation controllers have. It's not that far fetched!
interesting.. I like the portal speculation about the third icon (o + o), but a new controller? I guess you could look at it being two joysticks kinda like how the playstation controllers have. It's not that far fetched!
Theres an image floating around of what they patented... its a modular controller with interchangable buttons and joysticks. Perhaps thats what it involves?
That would make sense too (since those joysticks look like the circles). I think people are going to be disappointed, if that's what it is, but that's their own fault for jumping to their own expectations
the steamOS announce + icon on site = o
second one is o inside [ ] ie, steam os in a box.
the thrid is o + o, so steam + steam in some way, maybe some enhanced social features, clarity/depth on the partnership with TwitchTV, family sharing detail and break down, reselling old games, speculate speculate speculate etc. With how they beefed up the profiles recently, id be willing to bet it is some more robust social features and improvements on how you play with other people on steam.
Hopefully it's easier to use for non CS majors - I've got years of very hands on computer repair experience, I have no problem fixing & customizing every flavor of Windows, OS9, OSX even OS/2 Warp... I've tried out Linux distros on a yearly basis for almost 15 years and it's still baffeling.
Have you tried Ubuntu 13.04? For several version, Ubuntu has basically worked to eliminated the need to use the terminal to configure linux. It has reached that point, where it is very user friendly, and should only require the terminal when you want to do more advanced functionality. My daughter has been using it for a while, as her preferred OS, and has no idea how to use the terminal. She was disappointed that I couldn't get Ubuntu working on her new Dell laptop, because of UEFI, which has accompanied Win8 on some OEM laptops.
I also use Ubuntu for my primary internet browsing box. I also have my own testing webserver and SVN server set up on it. To be fair though, I DID use the terminal several times in setting up things on it. But I was pursuing some pretty esoteric functionality that the average user is never going to bump up against.
I also installed Steam on my Ubuntu box. It was quite easy, and runs just fine. Several of the indie games in my Steam library already have Linux versions, and run just fine.
The major advantage I see with this console is that it will essentially come with tons of games already on it. It sounds to me that if I went out and bought it right now, I'd have a console with my entire Steam library of games on it. That's huge.
I hear lots of people talking about the XB-one and the PS4 and they say they wanna wait a while to see which exclusive games will be on it. The logic being that buying an expensive console just to play the launch-day titles doesn't really make sense. It's the same way with each console generation. But with the Steam box you could already have access to a bunch of games that you own, AAA-games included.
I have been doing a bit of research into doing a nice living room entertainment PC and this sounds perfect. Cant wait to see what the next reveal has in store.
My guess its the Hardware
Step 1, Provide the Platform
Steam OS
Step 2, Provide the Hardware
Steam Certified Hardware (different tiers and price rangers, something for everybody) + a controller.
Step 3, Provide the Tools
Either Source 2 reveal, or the SteamOS SDK
also, the Steam OS reveal page is stating that there will be AAA game announcements in the following weeks that will be coming to SteamOS in 2014
Hundreds of great games are already running natively on SteamOS. Watch for announcements in the coming weeks about all the AAA titles coming natively to SteamOS in 2014. Access the full Steam catalog of nearly 3000 games and desktop software titles via in-home streaming.
my pc has a UEFI BIOS, i have no problem dualbooting... mind if i ask which laptop model it is?
It's an Inspiron 15r. Not to derail the thread much, but basically, I was able to get it to dual boot, but it didn't 'stick'. Grub would show up, and I could boot to Win8. Then I rebooted, GRUB came up, and I booted into Ubuntu. Then I shut down, and reboot, and no boot sector is found. I was able to get Win8 working again, but when I attempted Ubuntu again, it would have the same result. It was the strangest thing I've ever dealt with, and after wasting a weekend, through various attempts, I gave up. It's still on her laptop, but she can't boot to it.
There were several variants of results, but that was the final attempt, where I felt I was finally getting somewhere (because GRUB actually appeared), but couldn't figure out why it kept getting lost. I thought it was initially because I was trying to change the default options for GRUB. But on the last attempt, I did nothing to change GRUB, and still had the same result. It almost seems to be related to 13.04 too, which was odd to me, because it's the version that is UEFI compatible
@GarageBay9
WINE is pretty shit and never will be reliable, or run at decent speeds.
@notman UB didnt make linux user friendly on there own, there are lots of distros that don't require you to edit configs or use the terminal. Think people feel that about linux because they tried things like redhat, centOS or suse linux enterprise edition, or just really old distros like debian, which are all still used today but pretty much all for web hosting.
When was the last time you used wine? Hell, I use it to host our game servers.
been about 2 years since i used linux for anythign but webservers, but when i tried wine, it would do some things perfect, but than just blow up in your face for other things all the time. And requires a lot more resources than native, not as much as a vm but things weren't as smooth as they should be.
And requires a lot more resources than native, not as much as a vm
That, I agree with. But there isn't anyway around that when its trying to translate. You can't have your cake, and expect it to be exactly the same as the last cake.
I have been doing a bit of research into doing a nice living room entertainment PC and this sounds perfect. Cant wait to see what the next reveal has in store.
My guess its the Hardware
Step 1, Provide the Platform
Steam OS
Step 2, Provide the Hardware
Steam Certified Hardware (different tiers and price rangers, something for everybody) + a controller.
Step 3, Provide the Tools
Either Source 2 reveal, or the SteamOS SDK
also, the Steam OS reveal page is stating that there will be AAA game announcements in the following weeks that will be coming to SteamOS in 2014
exiting stuff
I feel like this is the most likely. You can't announce "Hey everyone, we want you to develop for linux!" without saying "...and here are the tools to do so."
The current trend with liscenced engines is to release them with a limited free license, and this ties so well with the linux open platform message that I expect (even if it's not announced this week) Source 2 will allow free development for linux to make it easier for devs to release natively.
I think that streaming is viewed by valve as a stop gap to get people buying into the steambox, untill there is enough users to justify more companies releasing on linux.
I don't think they are expecting developers to just jump to Linux. It says right on the webpage that SteamOS will stream games from your PC or Mac to play them on the TV. Also if we're speculating on a new engine, my vote is for SteamEngine.
I don't think they are expecting developers to just jump to Linux. It says right on the webpage that SteamOS will stream games from your PC or Mac to play them on the TV. Also if we're speculating on a new engine, my vote is for SteamEngine.
ya this what i noticed, which makes more sense to me to, since if they are doing this way, the steamBox or what ever hardware you got running steamOS in the living room, can be pretty low spec, than for games i can play in my living room, but still take full advantage of my high end desktop computer in my office.
Since a high end computer costs over $1k, and people wont want to spend that twice once for there living room once for there workspace.
I'm so glad I'm not working for Valve....Imagine the PAIN you have to go through, reading forums like these, knowing what you know and no way to correct people.
@notman UB didnt make linux user friendly on there own, there are lots of distros that don't require you to edit configs or use the terminal. Think people feel that about linux because they tried things like redhat, centOS or suse linux enterprise edition, or just really old distros like debian, which are all still used today but pretty much all for web hosting.
I wasn't suggesting that Ubuntu did it on it's own. They are using many of the tools that already existed out there. I just threw it out there as an example of one distro that is easy to transition into, and no longer requires touching the terminal.
I've been through many distros, in the past, and quite a long time ago, you could use linux without touching the terminal, but if you wanted 3D acceleration, or 3rd party drivers/software, you would have to break open the terminal. My point is, I think Ubuntu has finally addressed many of those issues. That isn't to say others haven't though. I do think Ubuntu has become the standard for linux on a personal PC, for non tech types.
Cool. I don't think I would ever get one because my PC is awesome and I am willing to invest in awesome PCs forever but it is another great pre-emptive strike against the long rumored Apple TV (not the current one).
unless they announce HL3 only on the steam box... i dunn think i am interested in this. But i am pretty devoted to my PC and upgrading and keeping up with it. This seems more for people that don't own a pc. But who knows.
So far... i am not very impressed with this. Maybe its because of the way they decided to announce it?
Sounds interesting, though I wonder how they are planning to deal with hardware specs fragmentation, and the issues it causes with pc development.
The same way they're currently doing it.
This is business as usual. "Steam Machines" is more marketing than anything else. Valve is not putting their foot down and defining a fixed target spec for the hardware. So the only thing Steam Machines really means is that there will be boxes that come with SteamOS pre-installed. They may be tinier and branded for the living room, but they are still just PCs at the end of the day.
unless they announce HL3 only on the steam box... i dunn think i am interested in this. But i am pretty devoted to my PC and upgrading and keeping up with it. This seems more for people that don't own a pc. But who knows.
So far... i am not very impressed with this. Maybe its because of the way they decided to announce it?
did you miss this part?
What games will be available during the beta?
The nearly 3,000 games on Steam. Hundreds already running natively on the SteamOS, with more to come. The rest will work seamlessly via in-home streaming.
stream from your pc to your tv. that's a pretty good reason to get it.
I think everyone knew what this announcement would be, so no real surprises. I wasn't expecting variants, but I don't think that's a good thing. It feels like they are following the Google/Android business model, so I'm hoping they do like Google, and closely work with a company to make an 'official' device. That way users can be fairly guaranteed to have compatible hardware.
but i already have my pc hooked up in my living room o_O so all games i play in my living room are steam, or console i hook up to my monitor.
So there is nothing new there....
The idea of not having to use Win8 in the future and just use SteamOS sounds cool. But i dunno if that would ever replace my PC.
Then you're not Valve's target with this product. They're trying to get in on the console market it seems and other people without gaming PCs. Price and modularity will play a huge part in how this plays out
but i already have my pc hooked up in my living room o_O so all games i play in my living room are steam, or console i hook up to my monitor.
So there is nothing new there....
The idea of not having to use Win8 in the future and just use SteamOS sounds cool. But i dunno if that would ever replace my PC.
Ah but what you are forgetting is the performance boost from running games through an optimized linuxOS specifically for games. It all depends on how much you value performance.
One of the reasons for Valve going with Linux and making the claim that its the future of PC gaming is that it performs better. More than just the gaming industry uses linux for the speed boost.
Can I hack this box? Run another OS? Change the hardware? Install my own software? Use it to build a robot?
Sure. I like that they're not locking these in any way. The last question relates to gamepads and input. I'm betting the third announcement will be something in that area. Something with Rift maybe?
The more I read about this, the more I like it. I play almost exclusively from my couch, including PC games with gamepad support, and I very rarely buy console games anymore because Steam has more benefits. If they want to make a dedicated box for my living room, priced to compete with the major consoles, that I can upgrade the hardware for, I'm definitely in the market for it.
Can I hack this box? Run another OS? Change the hardware? Install my own software? Use it to build a robot?
Sure. I like that they're not locking these in any way. The last question relates to gamepads and input. I'm betting the third announcement will be something in that area. Something with Rift maybe?
The more I read about this, the more I like it. I play almost exclusively from my couch, including PC games with gamepad support, and I very rarely buy console games anymore because Steam has more benefits. If they want to make a dedicated box for my living room, priced to compete with the major consoles, that I can upgrade the hardware for, I'm definitely in the market for it.
your very much the target audience of the device it seems. In my case i got a lot of games where even if i did have the option to play in the living room with a gamepad i wouldn't even try, since fps and strategy games are way better with mouse and keys.
But i do see myself playing, puzzle, rpg, and things like gta and saints row in the liveing room.
It's perfect for me (if the price is right), as I prefer to play in my living room, but don't want to deal with the hassle of moving my tower from my office, or building a new machine strictly to have in my living room. If this lets me avoid that annoyance, for a modest price, I'm all in.
In my case i got a lot of games where even if i did have the option to play in the living room with a gamepad i wouldn't even try, since fps and strategy games are way better with mouse and keys.
Agreed. I think multiplayer on PC in general doesn't lend itself well to playing from the couch with a controller because you're either not accurate, too slow, or just can't read text from the couch.
Lack of keys can be fixed with cleaver binding either through something like XPadder, or just in game. The trick is to dedicate two buttons as modifiers for the rest.
Still, you're right that not every PC title works well in a console environment.
Replies
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the first one was just 0, and that was the OS, so they quite literally put it into a box in the icon. So ya. the steam box will definitely run the steam OS natively. The third one, i think is going to be source 2. 0 + 0. If you look at the first announcement Icon, maybe the 0 doesnt stand for OS but just counts as its software. so the third one would be two softwares together, or just source 2. (1 + 1?). And, since its not in a box at all, ya, maybe it will be open source? who knows!
And the whole talk about it not supporting zBrush and stuff. I think you're all missing the point. It's not meant for you to develop on, or replace the computer you use right now. That's not the target application for it. Not at all. It's meant to give you the ability to stream your games to your living room at a much faster rate. And give hardware a higher performance. It's essentially an apple TV but for steam. The only difference is that the OS lets you build your own box for it, rather than having to buy a predetermined one. I think the steam box will just be their predetermined one, should you want to go that route instead, since it will have the specs for all the minimum requirements for steam games (my guess). You`re still going to need to develop on a more fleshed out OS.
For now.. you may be correct but it might not be so far off in terms of their long term goals. A huge part of the steam platform, and perhaps one of the largest money makers for them is content creation. At linux con Gabe again reiterated that the consumers and users are creating some of the best content at both a rate and level that Valve cannot compete with.
If content creation and delivery is a huge part of what Steam is becoming via the workshop... and Source 2.0 will most likely be in the same ball park as Unity and UDK for open game creation, then it makes sense to have the "source" (pun intended) for content creation be a part of their larger goal. I think part of Valve contacting the Blender Foundation in regards to working together might be a larger indicator of this as well, since its also open source and hits every major OS.
We have a lot to be excited about as content creators.
It very well could be the plan for the future, but as of right now, it seems like this is all just a bridge for PC - TV.
Its going to have to be a bit more than just PC to TV streaming though otherwise the change will be minimal.
"It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines."
and a bevvy of other information on the info page. http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/
my biggest concern is how difficult/expensive will it be to develop games for Windows, SteamOS, and Mac, if you want to be successful and reach as many players as possible? Users could just buy on PC and stream to the steambox then... but why not just play on the PC? You get to play in "the living room" i guess. People have a difficult enough time making 360, PS3, and PC versions. I realize the architecture of all three of those is vastly different, maybe porting to SteamOS would be made easier with tools they provide.
This sounds cool, but not seeing the huge bonuses of it other than running headfirst into a long-running playstation and xbox dominated living room.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? I get where you're coming from. Valve is another company, and doesn't owe the consumer any favors. If they did manage to convince the world to jump on SteamOS, we would just be trading one corporate overlord for another.
Except that SteamOS is a Linux distro that won't be locked...
...and they aren't going to charge licensing for every copy...
...or every upgrade...
...and because it's open source anyone can develop software for it and distribute that software however they please.
At the end of the day, which company would you prefer as your corporate OS overlord? The one whose first major project was ripping off Apple? Or the one whose first major project was Half Life?
Yep, I think this Icon (the one you mentioned) is meant to look like an ascii console:
As for the last Icon:
I think that may represent Portal 3 (2 circles)
As for the OS announcement, that struck me as an attempt to start getting market saturation, before MS and Sony get their next gens out. That way, you could essentially have a nextgen system on your TV, before November. Then they will follow it up with their steambox option, later next year.
Though its tough, because it could be about any number of their franchises which just so happen to have a 3rd installment coming along. I'll put my money on Half-Life though, maybe its wishful thinking... Gabe has admitted to working on Richochet, which was a code word for Half Life.
I think HL3 is what they SHOULD have, to get the steambox sales kickstarted though. I don't know that portal 3 would do that.
So I don't expect a game announcement, more a new controller. Hopefully in the coming months we will have some game goodness, you can't release new hardware without a proper killer app.
interesting.. I like the portal speculation about the third icon (o + o), but a new controller? I guess you could look at it being two joysticks kinda like how the playstation controllers have. It's not that far fetched!
Theres an image floating around of what they patented... its a modular controller with interchangable buttons and joysticks. Perhaps thats what it involves?
See: http://tbreak.com/megamers/wp-content/5/files/original-8.jpg
As for the openness and such, I'd wait a bit before jumping to conclusions.
the steamOS announce + icon on site = o
second one is o inside [ ] ie, steam os in a box.
the thrid is o + o, so steam + steam in some way, maybe some enhanced social features, clarity/depth on the partnership with TwitchTV, family sharing detail and break down, reselling old games, speculate speculate speculate etc. With how they beefed up the profiles recently, id be willing to bet it is some more robust social features and improvements on how you play with other people on steam.
I also installed Steam on my Ubuntu box. It was quite easy, and runs just fine. Several of the indie games in my Steam library already have Linux versions, and run just fine.
I hear lots of people talking about the XB-one and the PS4 and they say they wanna wait a while to see which exclusive games will be on it. The logic being that buying an expensive console just to play the launch-day titles doesn't really make sense. It's the same way with each console generation. But with the Steam box you could already have access to a bunch of games that you own, AAA-games included.
I know in my household that'll be a huge deal.
I don't know, looks more like an owl to me.
My guess its the Hardware
Step 1, Provide the Platform
Steam OS
Step 2, Provide the Hardware
Steam Certified Hardware (different tiers and price rangers, something for everybody) + a controller.
Step 3, Provide the Tools
Either Source 2 reveal, or the SteamOS SDK
also, the Steam OS reveal page is stating that there will be AAA game announcements in the following weeks that will be coming to SteamOS in 2014
exiting stuff
It's an Inspiron 15r. Not to derail the thread much, but basically, I was able to get it to dual boot, but it didn't 'stick'. Grub would show up, and I could boot to Win8. Then I rebooted, GRUB came up, and I booted into Ubuntu. Then I shut down, and reboot, and no boot sector is found. I was able to get Win8 working again, but when I attempted Ubuntu again, it would have the same result. It was the strangest thing I've ever dealt with, and after wasting a weekend, through various attempts, I gave up. It's still on her laptop, but she can't boot to it.
There were several variants of results, but that was the final attempt, where I felt I was finally getting somewhere (because GRUB actually appeared), but couldn't figure out why it kept getting lost. I thought it was initially because I was trying to change the default options for GRUB. But on the last attempt, I did nothing to change GRUB, and still had the same result. It almost seems to be related to 13.04 too, which was odd to me, because it's the version that is UEFI compatible
ah yes! O is software. so O + O could mean source 2 or the steam sdk like you're saying. That makes sense. I'm pretty excited regardless.
WINE is pretty shit and never will be reliable, or run at decent speeds.
@notman UB didnt make linux user friendly on there own, there are lots of distros that don't require you to edit configs or use the terminal. Think people feel that about linux because they tried things like redhat, centOS or suse linux enterprise edition, or just really old distros like debian, which are all still used today but pretty much all for web hosting.
LOL
[ame="
When was the last time you used wine? Hell, I use it to host our game servers.
been about 2 years since i used linux for anythign but webservers, but when i tried wine, it would do some things perfect, but than just blow up in your face for other things all the time. And requires a lot more resources than native, not as much as a vm but things weren't as smooth as they should be.
I feel like this is the most likely. You can't announce "Hey everyone, we want you to develop for linux!" without saying "...and here are the tools to do so."
The current trend with liscenced engines is to release them with a limited free license, and this ties so well with the linux open platform message that I expect (even if it's not announced this week) Source 2 will allow free development for linux to make it easier for devs to release natively.
I think that streaming is viewed by valve as a stop gap to get people buying into the steambox, untill there is enough users to justify more companies releasing on linux.
ya this what i noticed, which makes more sense to me to, since if they are doing this way, the steamBox or what ever hardware you got running steamOS in the living room, can be pretty low spec, than for games i can play in my living room, but still take full advantage of my high end desktop computer in my office.
Since a high end computer costs over $1k, and people wont want to spend that twice once for there living room once for there workspace.
I've been through many distros, in the past, and quite a long time ago, you could use linux without touching the terminal, but if you wanted 3D acceleration, or 3rd party drivers/software, you would have to break open the terminal. My point is, I think Ubuntu has finally addressed many of those issues. That isn't to say others haven't though. I do think Ubuntu has become the standard for linux on a personal PC, for non tech types.
So far... i am not very impressed with this. Maybe its because of the way they decided to announce it?
[ame="
The same way they're currently doing it.
This is business as usual. "Steam Machines" is more marketing than anything else. Valve is not putting their foot down and defining a fixed target spec for the hardware. So the only thing Steam Machines really means is that there will be boxes that come with SteamOS pre-installed. They may be tinier and branded for the living room, but they are still just PCs at the end of the day.
did you miss this part?
stream from your pc to your tv. that's a pretty good reason to get it.
So there is nothing new there....
The idea of not having to use Win8 in the future and just use SteamOS sounds cool. But i dunno if that would ever replace my PC.
I was sorta expecting more from second update. Pictures, ect. Overall I am really excited about this!! But still wishing fore HL3.
Then you're not Valve's target with this product. They're trying to get in on the console market it seems and other people without gaming PCs. Price and modularity will play a huge part in how this plays out
Ah but what you are forgetting is the performance boost from running games through an optimized linuxOS specifically for games. It all depends on how much you value performance.
One of the reasons for Valve going with Linux and making the claim that its the future of PC gaming is that it performs better. More than just the gaming industry uses linux for the speed boost.
Can I hack this box? Run another OS? Change the hardware? Install my own software? Use it to build a robot?
Sure.
I like that they're not locking these in any way. The last question relates to gamepads and input. I'm betting the third announcement will be something in that area. Something with Rift maybe?
The more I read about this, the more I like it. I play almost exclusively from my couch, including PC games with gamepad support, and I very rarely buy console games anymore because Steam has more benefits. If they want to make a dedicated box for my living room, priced to compete with the major consoles, that I can upgrade the hardware for, I'm definitely in the market for it.
your very much the target audience of the device it seems. In my case i got a lot of games where even if i did have the option to play in the living room with a gamepad i wouldn't even try, since fps and strategy games are way better with mouse and keys.
But i do see myself playing, puzzle, rpg, and things like gta and saints row in the liveing room.
Agreed. I think multiplayer on PC in general doesn't lend itself well to playing from the couch with a controller because you're either not accurate, too slow, or just can't read text from the couch.
Lack of keys can be fixed with cleaver binding either through something like XPadder, or just in game. The trick is to dedicate two buttons as modifiers for the rest.
Still, you're right that not every PC title works well in a console environment.