The SteamOS/Steam Machine thread

I'm always interested when you smart people speculate on how stuff like this will turn out. Is this the one, true console of the future? Will it exist alongside XBox One and PS 4, but take market share away from Windows as a gaming platform? What will the controller look like? Will Half-life 3 ever come out?

Answering my own question to kick this off, I can see the Steam Machine concept being pretty cool if you're a Team Fortress player. But is it really suitable for Real-time Strategy games? RTSs usually have mini-maps and other tiny display items that would be invisible if displayed on a TV to a couch-bound gamer across the room.

This might not be a problem is the controller is an iPad, or something like it, but that would add to the total cost of the system.

If they have a $99 device that streams games from a PC, plays simpler games natively, AND runs Netflix, I'd consider unhooking my Roku.

I also think this will not hinder MS or Sony in any way.

As for HL3... I could not care less about such tightly constrained FPS games.

Too early to tell, really, because there's such limited information. But that never stopped speculation before...

What they are doing could be INCREDIBLY disruptive to the current console market. As in, it could destroy it. By releasing a unified, open OS that any manufacturer can build a console around, they are basically unhooking the console market from being saddled to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. This is a big deal, and it could literally be the defining moment of the next generation. Because Valve may have just made the concept of closed architecture, proprietary consoles obsolete.

I think it's incredibly exciting. The door is open for all kinds of Steam Machines from all kinds of manufacturers. Ultra high-end models, $99 ones, Smartphones running SteamOS streaming to TV...this could be amazing.

It's something I've been thinking of for a while...that we don't need more corporate, closed architecture consoles...we need something UNIFIED so that a developer makes a game, you choose which piece of hardware you want (since they're all standard and cross-compatible), and not only is their install base potentially exponentially larger resulting in broader sales overall.

I did expect them to announce a Valve-branded, traditional console so at first I was disappointed a bit- I would have ditched the PS4 preorder for it. But then when I thought about how it matched up with my idea that there would be a single OS and the differences would be strictly between hardware manufacturers, I realized that their strategy could, in fact, be The One.

It's really not any different than PC...you buy an OS, you choose the hardware. They're moving that concept into the living room console arena. And I think it's brilliant.

There is another potential thing that could come out of this. There really isn't any reason that PS4 or Xbone couldn't run SteamOS, at least not that I'm aware of. Think about how tremendous it would be if Sony came out and said "PS4- it's a Steam Machine".

As for RTS minimaps and what not, that will be a challenge but in games moving forward, you'll see developers taking into account living room play in designing UIs.

So yeah, very interested overall...friday's announcment is going to be Half-Life 3, SteamOS exclusive. MEGATON BOMB.

My BIG question: Will I be able to enjoy the thrills and chills of Football Manager on my TV with this?

Michael Barnes wrote: So yeah, very interested overall...friday's announcment is going to be Half-Life 3, SteamOS exclusive. MEGATON BOMB.

Nope, it will be the announcement of several Valve-themed nightclubs, called the CrowBar.

Food for thought, but why is Valve not a corporate overlord? I get that it's on Linux on an open platform, but with Valve at the head you have to wonder why they have more trust.

My argument against it would still be this: by making a non-standard machine they STILL haven't solved the main thing that keeps consoles in the lead. There are going to be high spec Steam boxes and low spec Steam boxes, as I understand it. So people are still going to have to scratch their heads and think about their hardware and capabilities, framerate, etc to play a game. Now you and I can do that, in fact in some ways I prefer it, but this will never be OMFG HUGE CONSOLE while that factor is still there.

\Devil's Advocate End

All that said, I am very excited myself. I am LOVING the PC environment right now, and Steam is a large part of that. I've given up a lot of rights to them, but they've given me a lot of service and utility in return. I would like to game more easily on the TV, and this could be a great way to do it.

I think part of it might be from the direction that Windows is heading, given that it is the primary platform for games on Steam. Windows 8 was really geared towards mobile devices, touchscreens and the like. People have been predicting the death of the desktop (and the laptop to a certain extent) for years.

If SteamOS can provide a powerful yet stable platform, especially for drivers, they might really be able to appeal to developers by letting them know they won't have to change with the OS just because Microsoft wants to push into a different market. The big trick will be how fast they can get a AAA title on it (likely their own, and very soon) and how well they will do in porting the back catalog. Given the fact that a large portion of most people's Steam library will run on lower end systems, if they can do a good job of porting they will solve the content problem that most new OS/consoles have when they launch.

They already have Big Picture mode for people that want to hook a PC up to their TV and play- but it sounds like some of the sharing options listed for the OS actually take a realistic view on households that have more than one PC for gaming, home theater and the like. I envision a slew of low priced steam boxes making their way from across the Pacific ocean in the near future.

SteamOS is a bigger deal than a box to put it on, I think.

I was thinking about how'd they get anyone to actually switch, as dual-booting is a pain in the ass.

One way is a SteamOS console. Ta da! But it's not free, so some folks will still be unmoved.

Another is this: HALF-LIFE 3. Not exclusive to SteamOS though, that's too much. It'll be on Steam and have SteamPlay and so forth and cost $60.

...but it's free on SteamOS.

That will get everyone to at least try the fucking thing out.

Gary Sax wrote: My argument against it would still be this: by making a non-standard machine they STILL haven't solved the main thing that keeps consoles in the lead. There are going to be high spec Steam boxes and low spec Steam boxes, as I understand it. So people are still going to have to scratch their heads and think about their hardware and capabilities, framerate, etc to play a game. Now you and I can do that, in fact in some ways I prefer it, but this will never be OMFG HUGE CONSOLE while that factor is still there.

Old model: buy Windows PC game on CD, install it on home computer, maybe upgrade Direct3d driver, hope everything works.

New model: SteamOS knows the capabilities of the host Steam Machine, can update OpenGL driver automatically if necessary, can refuse to allow download (or purchase) of game whose hardware requirements exceed those of the box, can automatically adjust game settings otherwise.

In other words, the Steam part of SteamOS can manage this for the user. No? The consumer can be advised as to whether the game will run before she purchases the game.

Agreed, it will be much better than PC gaming.

But I still think the fact they can play some and not other games is STILL overestimating the market's tolerance for technical details. I have an almost 0 belief in the appetite of average folks to think about "can I run this?" even if it will straight out tell you if it can or not. I think that will piss people off and they'll stick with one size fits all consoles.

Michael Barnes wrote: So yeah, very interested overall...friday's announcment is going to be Half-Life 3, SteamOS exclusive. MEGATON BOMB.

I think you're close. My prediction is that they'll split the difference: Half-life 3 will be cross-platform, but the SteamOS version will feature superior performance (Left 4 Dead 2 had a higher frame-rate on Linux than Windows). And they'll have built some cool effect into the SteamOS OpenGL driver that won't be possible on Windows, because the DirectX drivers won't handle it. And there will be SteamOS-exclusive content that highlights this effect.

In other words, you will be able to buy Half-life 3 for Windows, but it will be lacking some of the awesomeness of the SteamOS version.

A later release date for the Windows version is possibly something they considered, too.

Anyway, just my wild-ass guess.

Oh, Valve would still be corporate overlords...don't get me wrong, they're not off the hook. But they're definitely not Microsoft/Sony league.

Part of the key to making all of this work is making SteamOS as opaque as possible- like IOS. It seems weird that something is more accessible by it being LESS transparent, but that's kind of how it works with Apple. Living room consumers don't want to see the inner workings or get involved with them. They need to be able to plug and play- that is the one key advantage consoles have over PCs. No fuss at all (usually). If SteamOS operates like IOS or one of the front ends for the 360 or PS3, jackpot. If it operates like regular Linux or Windows, it won't make the cut.

I know the PC Gaming Master Race (ha) thinks that PC gaming is easy and painless, but it's not. It's not like it used to be when you had to fool with DMRs and IRQs and all of that, but there are still a lot of barriers- like the dual booting thing. None of that is going to fly in the living room. The Steam Machine has to have a power button, you push it, it comes on, and you download/play games right there. No complicated graphics settings or any of that.

I suspect that system specifications/standards will be built into each version of SteamOS. So a game a couple of years from now may require SteamOS 2 and a Steam Machine capable of running SteamOS 2...rather than having discrete hardware requirements. Of course, with this architecture, it would be possible to have scalable requirements so a game could run Steam OS 1 with reduced settings (all of which are automatically set by the OS- not the user).

Gary Sax is 100% correct. The average user does not want to consider if a game will run. They want to see the SteamOS logo and KNOW that it will run with no fussing around. Hopefully this is one of the goals Valve is looking at.

Maybe a timed exclusive for Half-Life 3...SteamOS for a year, then other consoles. I think it would be an extremely smart idea to have some kind of OS exclusivity tied to either HL3 or L4D3 as a built-in "killer app" to lure customers away from MS and Sony. If HL3 were packaged with SteamOS, that would be a massive sales opportunity to get people on board with it. I don't even really like Half-Life but I'd be interested in seeing it in that kind of setting.

As I said elsewhere, I don't view the increasing centralization of the PC market on Valve's hands as a good thing. What we need is more competition not more vertical monopolies and closed gardens.

Also, you can take my triplehead setup and gaming mouse from my cold, dead hands.

There's always going to be a market for folks that know what "triplehead setup" means, but I believe most gamers just want to play games. If you make that easy, like iOS, they will give you business.

People that care about GHz, vRAM, framerates, fan speeds, &c are miniscule in comparison to the number of people that want to play games. It's like comparing people that are concerned about gear ratios, foot-pounds of torque, and intercoolers to those that want to drive.