dragonelite
Member
Exactly
What did you expect anyway? 10 times better code quality than Windows and OSX combined
How can we know man windows and OSX are closed source.
Exactly
What did you expect anyway? 10 times better code quality than Windows and OSX combined
I bet using Windows would force the price of the device up significantly in order for it to w able to both run Windows and render the graphical fidelity that customers would expect from the product.
Linux? sounds awful.
That's exactly my first thought, but then I thought how hard/impossible it was for SONY to sell the PSP Go - because retail knew they would not make any additional $ on games afterward.
Imagine how hard it will be to distibute those boxes? Especially if you are NOT Sony and does not have +250M playstations sold...
If I was VALVe I would not let that critical part of the business to partner just crossing my fingers...
I'd choose a key one and I would chose him as much for it's hardware building history as for it's distribution network.
Like Google did with MOTOROLA or the NEXUS brand.
Just my 2 cents
If it can't play my wife's games (World of Warcraft, Diablo 3), it's not going to even be an option for me.
Your existing Steam catalog likely won't run on the thing. And if it's a traditional console business model where the hardware is sold at a loss I wouldn't expect those famous Steam sales on this box for quite awhile either.
This system will probably fall on its face. If it doesn't, one of the other three will be knocked out. The market cannot sustain 4 consoles. I guess it'll come down to specs vs MS/Sony, price, and how the third-party support is. Half-Life 3 exclusive would be huge, but Valve will have to grow their first-party.
Linux? sounds awful.
That's their most profitable time. Both Valve and the devs.
Depends on how it's sold. If it's sold as a console that can play PC games but can't play all PC games, it will bomb hard and fast. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they wont do something that dumb.
I'd imagine the user never even sees anything of the OS. It'll boot straight to an X server running just Steam Big Screen - no desktop environment. The Steambox default installation will probably not even include a DE. Just the kernel, the X server, all required libraries and Steam itself.If they really polish stuff, it's fine. Ubuntu is a pretty easy OS to use. It's when drivers don't work and other apps don't work is when Linux is a problem. Which is why I mostly use Windows.
I'd imagine the user never even sees anything of the OS. It'll boot straight to an X server running just Steam Big Screen - no desktop environment. The Steambox default installation will probably not even include a DE. Just the kernel, the X server, all required libraries and Steam itself.
Valve could've used BSD, which is actually more under a more commercially friendly license/more stable/well-coded, but their decision to use Linux is a clue that they intend this to be an Android-esque hybrid platform with "official" hardware (think Nexus devices) as well as third party options because BSD is not compatible with a lot of hardware. I would also assume that Valve would let PC gamers install it on their built PCs.
Also, significant portions of OSX are open source.
Yep. It'll also keep the memory footprint and OS overhead to a minimum, getting quite a bit more performance out of whatever configuration they're targeting compared to running Windows on the same machine.This is what I was thinking.
A Desktop Environment seems pretty dumb for something that is only meant to play games on a TV.
1) There is next-to-no market for it.
2) If the specs are too weak then nobody will care about the Steambox. If the specs are too strong (e.g. far better than next-gen Sony/MS consoles) then the Steambox will be very expensive, and thus will be DOA.
3) Development costs are already through the roof. Steambox will just cause dev costs to rise even more, to make Linux/OpenGL compatible versions of their games. It'll be a hard sell for publishers.
4) Valve is a small company of only a few hundred employees, and they also don't have the financial resources of companies like MS, Sony, etc. Can they devote the significant amount of R&D necessary to Steambox to make it work. I'm skeptical. Much of their staff is focused on making games and managing Steam. Now if Valve is partnering with another company to make Steambox a reality, that's a different story.
5) Due to Linux, it won't have much of a library initially. Sure, the available library could possibly grow quite a bit after a couple of years...but since Steambox is a new player to the game, I think it has to make a positive commercial splash early on for it to catch on with gamers and devs. Most of them will take a skeptical wait-and-see approach. I do not think Steambox makes that splash. Valve can attempt to entice with sweetheart deals and whatnot, but those will only go so far.
i'd actually prefer Valve's exclusive stuff over Microsoft's.
Valve stuff that i like = Left 4 Dead, Counterstrike, Half Life, DOTA 2, Portal, Team Fortress.
Microsoft stuff that i like = Halo is decent ...then what? Forza maybe, but i don't really care about that. Fable is okay, i guess.
Microsoft is by far the worst out of all the console space for exclusive titles, imo.
I don't get what this would offer? Everyone interested in Steam already has a PC. And Windows is compatible with all the games, whereas Linux isn't. So, what's the point?
Good job forgetting about the tons of great XBLA titles. I got a Steambox over an Xbox, I'd want those games too.
No, I'm saying the opposite. They're going to embrace the stock Linux kernel because of the breadth of hardware it supports, as well as the open development since they're not big enough to support an operating system on their own in addition to the other things they do. If they wanted to make a "console" then there'd be little reason to use Linux.I'm not sure what you mean by this, unless you think that they are going to modify the kernel. I doubt they will. I mean, at most, they will probably make drivers (which can be closed source.) As far as commercial viability goes, the license doesn't matter. But Linux is more popular, which is probably why a lot of things use it (servers/home routers/etc.)
Good job forgetting about the tons of great XBLA titles. I got a Steambox over an Xbox, I'd want those games too.
What will be hilarious is if this thing is a success and all of a sudden MS decides to finally put all the Halo games on Windows.
I don't get what this would offer? Everyone interested in Steam already has a PC. And Windows is compatible with all the games, whereas Linux isn't. So, what's the point?
Most indie XBLA titles are MS published because they had to be to get on the service.
Most seem more than happy to self publish on Steam when their arbitrary exclusivity period is up.
I don't really think you can use XBLA titles as 'Microsoft exclusives' to be honest.
I don't get what this would offer? Everyone interested in Steam already has a PC. And Windows is compatible with all the games, whereas Linux isn't. So, what's the point?
steams indie/arcade section would blow XBLA out of the water
So why not have the sales 24/7/365?
I think you have it backwards.
Everyone (almost) interested in PC gaming has Steam.
They want to increase the amount of people using Steam. To people who only play games on consoles.
So why not have the sales 24/7/365?
So why not have the sales 24/7/365?
...I wouldn't expect those famous Steam sales on this box for quite awhile either.
it looks like Microsoft's direction with Windows 8/Xbox is to make them playable on those two platforms only. If so, that immediately negates any reason I have to buy a Steambox.
If it doesn't have the XBLA games I want/love, it wont blow anything out of the water.
No, I'm saying the opposite. They're going to embrace the stock Linux kernel because of the breadth of hardware it supports, as well as the open development since they're not big enough to support an operating system on their own in addition to the other things they do. If they wanted to make a "console" then there'd be little reason to use Linux.
And yes license matters, but that's really a different discussion.
I dont see why this is the case. The kernel has a low footprint and it works. Perfect for a console.If they wanted to make a "console" then there'd be little reason to use Linux.
I don't get what this would offer? Everyone interested in Steam already has a PC. And Windows is compatible with all the games, whereas Linux isn't. So, what's the point?
Yeah, I dont get it.
Why don't you give some examples? Because its pretty much Fez at this point in time, and that exclusivity period is ticking down.
But this is "Steam." It's not the same without that huge library.
Why don't you give some examples? Because its pretty much Fez at this point in time, and that exclusivity period is ticking down.
1. The idea is to make new people interested in Steam.
2. Using Windows would mean reliance on a competitor who has the potential to pull the rug out from under them.
3. The point is to expend Steam's reach.