• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Valve engineer confirms Linux-based Steambox for 2013, could appear at GDC or E3

Teletraan1

Teletraan1

Banned
I don't have much interest in the actual hardware itself. I hope it does foster more Linux support so I can dump Windows for good since the only thing that tethers me to Windows is gaming.

I have had a few Linux boxes over the years. Tried out various distros. Really like the OS but I am a PC gamer and that means Windows. Sure there are a few native Linux games and WINE but they aren't ideal. Hopefully this changes that.
 
DiscoJer

DiscoJer

Member
Jhriad said:
Will my current library of Steam games work on this box?

No? Then I don't give a fuck. Come back when your game development actually has the output of Nintendo or SCE.

Yes? Day 1. Of course that won't happen so I don't need to prep the wallet.
Click to expand...

When your next PC is simply a tablet running Windows 10, will your current library of Steam games run on it?

Valve is trying to future proof themselves - they see MS trying to transition into the tablet market, trying to turn PCs into tablets, which obviously is not ideal for PC games.

Look at ads for PCs or Windows these days, it's always people using a touchscreen monitor. How is that going to work for gaming? (I'm not even sure how it's an improvement over a mouse)
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
DiscoJer said:
When your next PC is simply a tablet running Windows 10, will your current library of Steam games run on it?

Valve is trying to future proof themselves - they see MS trying to transition into the tablet market, trying to turn PCs into tablets, which obviously is not ideal for PC games.

Look at ads for PCs or Windows these days, it's always people using a touchscreen monitor. How is that going to work for gaming? (I'm not even sure how it's an improvement over a mouse)
Click to expand...

This makes a good deal of sense :)
 
B

Basileus777

Member
DiscoJer said:
When your next PC is simply a tablet running Windows 10, will your current library of Steam games run on it?

Valve is trying to future proof themselves - they see MS trying to transition into the tablet market, trying to turn PCs into tablets, which obviously is not ideal for PC games.

Look at ads for PCs or Windows these days, it's always people using a touchscreen monitor. How is that going to work for gaming? (I'm not even sure how it's an improvement over a mouse)
Click to expand...

Is Microsoft going to abandon the enterprise market? Fears of a tablet only Windows future in the near future are pretty silly.
 
A

AniHawk

Member
oh shit! i thought the hl3 thread was all speculation. this is great!

i'm probably day one on this bad boy. i don't have a gaming pc, so this will be awesome.
 
O

onipex

Member
d1rtn4p said:
This will turn the console world on it's head. If Valve can bring Steam to the common person's living room, that'll be about game over for everyone else.
Click to expand...

A popular steam box would be game over for PS3/720 since they will likely be PC lite boxes like the 360/PS3 and a steam box could be a better PC lite. Any exclusive games for consoles will hold greater weight of course so they could hold their own with those.
 
E

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
PS4
Xbox 720
PS3
Xbox 360
PC
Wii U
Linux

That's a lot of platforms to support. My guess is if developers start porting to Linux in a regular fashion, it will invite others to make their own consoles. Which means over time, it could really open up game distribution. Until it's all server-based.

edit: Valve worried? lol. Valve is "online", it won't disappear, it can adapt. Wherever online content is offered, Valve can be there. Let's see MS and Sony try to convince people to buy another "video game console". The next consoles could be a bigger clusterfuck than the PS3 was.
 
J

jerry113

Banned
FatalMuzza said:
Valve knows the new consoles are coming. This move, and the Steambox early release in the first quarter would indicate they are seriously concerned for big shift away from PC's coming this year. This of course would be detrimental to their distribution model.

Valve is attempting to hang on by moving their content to the living room and not be left behind. I cannot imagine this being successful for them, going head to head with the established giants of the industry. Smells of desperation.

Now putting that aside, I'll probably get one - gamer!
Click to expand...

I doubt that the millions of people playing games on PC will suddenly abandon steam and their pcs once the new consoles come out.

Every time new consoles come out, there's always a shift to the consoles. But PC gaming always survived, and the longer the console generation lasts, the pendulum swings back a little towards the PC again. I don't see why this time will be any different.

PC gaming is a niche that's only growing -- I think this long 7-8 year generation of console has opened a lot of eyes to the value of gaming on a dedicated computer -- and it's not going to disappear just yet.
 
L

Lingitiz

Member
FatalMuzza said:
Valve knows the new consoles are coming. This move, and the Steambox early release in the first quarter would indicate they are seriously concerned for big shift away from PC's coming this year. This of course would be detrimental to their distribution model.

Valve is attempting to hang on by moving their content to the living room and not be left behind. I cannot imagine this being successful for them, going head to head with the established giants of the industry. Smells of desperation.

Now putting that aside, I'll probably get one - gamer!
Click to expand...

I don't think they are desperate. You're massively overestimating the impact new consoles will have. Steam wasn't much of anything when this gen started, and in fact PC gaming was in a pretty bad place as a whole. It's a much different space now, and Steam will only grow bigger once DOTA2 moves from beta.

It's more of an experimental move rather than a last ditch effort for survival.
 
E

epmode

Member
DiscoJer said:
Look at ads for PCs or Windows these days, it's always people using a touchscreen monitor. How is that going to work for gaming? (I'm not even sure how it's an improvement over a mouse)
Click to expand...

From what I've used, it's not. But it is new and a bit of a trend so here we are.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
jerry113 said:
I doubt that the millions of people playing games on PC will suddenly abandon steam and their pcs once the new consoles come out.

Every time new consoles come out, there's always a shift to the consoles. But PC gaming always survived, and the longer the console generation lasts, the pendulum swings back a little towards the PC again. I don't see why this time will be any different.

PC gaming is a niche that's only growing -- I think this long 7-8 year generation of console and the growth of steam has opened a lot of eyes to the value of gaming on a dedicated computer -- and it's not going to disappear just yet.
Click to expand...
I don't think they actually fear to "die" or anything cause of this shift.
They simply decided to put some effort into minimizing it (worst case scenario), if not even taking full advantage of it (if they are successful enough).
 
R

Raoh

Member
DiscoJer said:
When your next PC is simply a tablet running Windows 10, will your current library of Steam games run on it?

Valve is trying to future proof themselves - they see MS trying to transition into the tablet market, trying to turn PCs into tablets, which obviously is not ideal for PC games.

Look at ads for PCs or Windows these days, it's always people using a touchscreen monitor. How is that going to work for gaming? (I'm not even sure how it's an improvement over a mouse)
Click to expand...

tumblr_m2wfjlK1Tf1qh2o7zo1_500.gif



Valve has one great ace up their sleeve too.

Curiosity. I've got to see it and judge it for myself. I'm there probably on week one. :)

If this works and third parties are on board, my pc becomes an iTunes/PlayOn server.
 
E

evolution

Member
Interesting news, I'm not sure who would buy this thing though. There gonna have tough competition from well known companies. Maybe it's not meant to be mainstream like a playstation or Xbox.
 
M

Mandoric

Banned
Durante said:
So, what can Valve do to incentivize Steambox ports?
My first ideas would be:
- reduce fees for games that also have a Steambox release
- special storefront space for Steambox-enabled games
Click to expand...

Fees are the biggie, but there's Source engine licencing for some titles to go along with the platform cut.

A porting support team would probably do them a lot of good too.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Didn't Valve suggest they think that other manufacturers will try this kind of thing? I don't know about other manufacturers pre-installing the Linux-based Steam OS, but other manufacturers trying to make their own user-friendly gaming PCs seems possible. Valve may even make their Steam OS installable on any of those machines.

As for dev support, yeah, Valve would have to make it extremely easy to port from Windows over to Linux, like how they convinced many devs to start porting to Mac when they released Steam for Mac. I don't think they'd release anything Linux-exclusive though. If you buy a game from Steam, that money goes to Valve (especially if it's one of their games), no matter what machine you run the game on. The only way Valve loses anything from you buying a game outside of the Steambox is if they intend to sell the Steambox at profit.
 
E

Emitan

Member
DiscoJer said:
When your next PC is simply a tablet running Windows 10, will your current library of Steam games run on it?

Valve is trying to future proof themselves - they see MS trying to transition into the tablet market, trying to turn PCs into tablets, which obviously is not ideal for PC games.

Look at ads for PCs or Windows these days, it's always people using a touchscreen monitor. How is that going to work for gaming? (I'm not even sure how it's an improvement over a mouse)
Click to expand...

Civilization V has touch screen support on Windows 8. I should borrow my sister's laptop sometime and try it out.
 
R

Raoh

Member
Basileus777 said:
If Microsoft going to abandon the enterprise market? Fears of a tablet only Windows future in the near future are pretty silly.
Click to expand...

Enterprise is trying to stay away from windows 8, no need to upgrade, just slap windows 7 on new hardware. We skipped vista on the enterprise side of the world.

LOL I was online at a bestbuy buying a kindle fire hd for my mom for xmas, you should see the people at the store there for a laptop running windows 8 and the first thing the user/customer does is .... try to touch the screen like they would a tablet. I swear bestbuy set that up as entertainment to us poor fools making last minute xmas shopping purchases on long lines.

They felt stupid you could tell, duh, its a laptop, but in a way they were justifyied in their actions as windows 8 is designed as an attractive tablet/smartphone os not a desktop os.

Even Apple doesn't want to merge iOS with Mac OS. Because it currently doesn't make sense.

Got off topic, sorry.


Valve is also getting in on the digital market on the console side of things. If they can compete with pricing, they could be the iTunes of gaming.

And in this economy, we could use a hero.

(yes I am very hopeful and making a bigger deal of the confirmation without any hard details than I should)
 
M

MrNyarlathotep

Banned
RedSwirl said:
how they convinced many devs to start porting to Mac when they released Steam for Mac.
Click to expand...

Its weird how Valve keep stepping in and explaining to other companies how to make money.

"Hey, if you release games for the Mac, people will buy them"

"Hey, sell games cheaper in high piracy regions, and piracy will fall as people can afford to buy titles they couldn't before"

"Hey, sell your games at a big time limited discount, and you'll make more money over time as you build buzz about the game"

"Hey, offer long tail free dlc content updates for titles, and everytime you do a big free expansion you sell a bunch more copies"
 
N

Nuklear

Banned
This reminds me of the time when Google announced Android and everybody decried, "Nobody will make Apps for Android because all the devs will stick with IOS, blah blah blah."

The joke is on those people.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
MrNyarlathotep said:
Its weird how Valve keep stepping in and explaining to other companies how to make money.

"Hey, if you release games for the Mac, people will buy them"

"Hey, sell games cheaper in high piracy regions, and piracy will fall as people can afford to buy titles they couldn't before"

"Hey, sell your games at a big time limited discount, and you'll make more money over time as you build buzz about the game"

"Hey, offer long tail free dlc content updates for titles, and everytime you do a big free expansion you sell a bunch more copies"
Click to expand...

I think it kind of speaks to the stupidity of some of these publishers that they hadn't accepted these first.




Personally I've only purchased one piece of dlc content in my entire life.

I've purchased entire games because of content or mod support.

Which one has a much higher profit margin?
 
O

outunderthestars

Banned
Nuklear said:
This reminds me of the time when Google announced Android and everybody decried, "Nobody will make Apps for Android because all the devs will stick with IOS, blah blah blah."

The joke is on those people.
Click to expand...

Android is poised to cross 1 billion activations this year. That said, it still struggles to maintain app parity with ios.
 
S

soulassssns

Banned
I'll stick with my custom PC builds.

Too many consoles. Just got a Wii U and the 720/PS4 are just around the corner. They only way I would even consider it, is if it had Half Life 3 as an exclusive (as in not even on standard PC Steam).
 
G

GillianSeed79

Member
DiscoJer said:
When your next PC is simply a tablet running Windows 10, will your current library of Steam games run on it?

Valve is trying to future proof themselves - they see MS trying to transition into the tablet market, trying to turn PCs into tablets, which obviously is not ideal for PC games.

Look at ads for PCs or Windows these days, it's always people using a touchscreen monitor. How is that going to work for gaming? (I'm not even sure how it's an improvement over a mouse)
Click to expand...

Aren't PC sales down overall compared to tablets? I could be wrong, but, outside of PC gamers, I think businesses are really the only major buyers of PC desktops these days. I'd wager a guess that traditional laptop sales outside of Macs and ultra thin laptops and ultra books are probably sagging too. When's the last time you heard of someone purchasing a traditional PC desktop computer over a tablet? I don't think it's so much that MS is trying transition into the tablet market, it's that they and computer manufacturers as a whole are being dragged kicking and screaming into the tablet market to make up for lost sales. Again, I could be completely wrong about that though.
 
S

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
DiscoJer said:
When your next PC is simply a tablet running Windows 10, will your current library of Steam games run on it?

Valve is trying to future proof themselves - they see MS trying to transition into the tablet market, trying to turn PCs into tablets, which obviously is not ideal for PC games.

Look at ads for PCs or Windows these days, it's always people using a touchscreen monitor. How is that going to work for gaming? (I'm not even sure how it's an improvement over a mouse)
Click to expand...

That makes no sense. Microsoft it trying to expand the PC market, not simply move the sales into a different form factor. The idea situation for them is for everyone to own a Windows desktop PC, a Windows laptop or tablet, a Windows phone and an Xbox. If you're a PC gamer you're going to buy a computer capable of playing games, you're not going to buy a tablet just because Microsoft is promoting the fact their new OS is tablet friendly.
 
M

-MB-

Member
Coolwhip said:
Only 8 pages so far. If even GAF isn't excited about a steambox, then it's doomed.
Click to expand...

Seems to me allot of them are threatened by it,because it's another potential big competitor to whatever system/platform holder they prefer already.
 
K

kuroshiki

Member
Eh. If price is around $199 then it might have a chance.

If it is priced against PS4 or X720 then I really don't think 1) it is going to be a powerful machine 2) can compete with those machines.

Seriously though you can just build a super powerful custom PC right now and put steam on it. and I bet you it can do WAY more than steambox will ever dream of.
 
N

Nuklear

Banned
Nirolak said:
Yeah, I feel this is largely targeted at expanding PC gaming to a more console focused audience.
Click to expand...

It's actually more towards expanding Steam than anything about PC Gaming. If they can get this box into the living room it's more sales on Steam that they didn't have before.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
Derrick01 said:
Besides this isn't something most PC gamers would be interested in.
Click to expand...
Well, sort of.
I'm not interested in buying the console, but I'm definitely interested in what they are going to do with the software and -more generally- with Linux support.
i wouldn't miss the chance to jump out of the Windows bandwagon if they can make Linux a strongly viable alternative for a gamer.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Nuklear said:
It's actually more towards expanding Steam than anything about PC Gaming. If they can get this box into the living room it's more sales on Steam that they didn't have before.
Click to expand...

Right, I'm just considering them somewhat paired things at this point due to Valve's market share on traditional game digital sales.

The original concept last year though did allow outside systems like Origin on the platform, though I'm no longer sure if that's true.
 
M

M3d10n

Member
Nirolak said:
Yeah, I feel this is largely targeted at expanding PC gaming to a more console focused audience.
Click to expand...

This. I know some people who know about Steam and how much cheaper they can get games there, but don't get into it because they don't like gaming on PCs for various reasons.
 
B

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
really exciting. if it is less than $400, has decent support from normally pc exclusive developers, is compact, and easily hooks up to an hdtv, i am on board day one. i love steam but my computer is shit and i will pay someone to help me not think about the degree to which it is shit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Poll
[The Verge] It’s time for Microsoft to build an Xbox Steam Deck
2 3 4
189
11K
Xion_Stellar replied
  • Poll
SONY/SIE: The Balance Of Chasing Margins, Multiplat Expansion, And Maximizing The Console
Opinion Business Analysis 2 3
101
7K
vaibhavpisal replied
The State of Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks: A breakdown of all the Confirmed Projects, Leaks, and Rumors
Opinion News Rumor 2
84
9K
Ozriel replied
Phil Spencer interview - Says that their intent is for all Xbox games, including Call of Duty, to be available on Xbox Game Pass Day One
2 3
102
6K
Kenneth Haight replied
The "I survived development hell" club (7 years+) of games.
2
62
7K
Ozriel replied
Top Bottom