Valve with Steam Box News?

[Cobra]

To save me time on researching this, is it just a mini-PC with Steam's own flavour of Linux running everything in Wine? Or is it an actual OS that games will all have to be ported to from scratch?

At any rate, it'll probably live or die with how fluent it is. If you can easily just download and play games without a care in the world like an actual console it may go far, if it has enough software backers. If you have to worry about installing, configuring, etc, etc... why bring the PC headaches into the living room?

[SirPsycho]

I haven't commented on here yet but I will make a few quick analyses on how I think Valve can be successful.

1. Push the same sales that PC already gets.

It will be completely impossible for the other three to have any truthful comeback if Valve pushes 50-75% off sales just a couple months after a popular game releases.

2. Download architecture can appeal to developing markets.

One thing fantastic about the PC client is the ability to pause downloads. It also pauses automatically when the connection is disrupted or a game is started. This can appeal greatly to markets where internet connections are shitty at best.

3. Major indie support.

Like it or not the indie market is becoming a bigger reason for people to support systems. Lately Valve has been courting a lot of up and coming studios and giving them an avenue to market their upcoming projects.

That said the controller looks like crap. Mouse + keyboard support will be needed.

[bombatomba]

To save me time on researching this, is it just a mini-PC with Steam's own flavour of Linux running everything in Wine? Or is it an actual OS that games will all have to be ported to from scratch?

At any rate, it'll probably live or die with how fluent it is. If you can easily just download and play games without a care in the world like an actual console it may go far, if it has enough software backers. If you have to worry about installing, configuring, etc, etc... why bring the PC headaches into the living room?

To sum it up, a Steam Box will be a computer with SteamOS that will play Steam games out of the box (plug in, download, and play) from a television.  SteamOS is a heavily customized version of Linux, but will play games in native Linux on Steam, something that is already happening right now (there are over 300 Linux native games on Steam now).  Steam games are just download and play.  These days pretty much every game shows you how to play it.  No headache, bro.

I think the real question here will be how Valve will manage to get the rest of the games, or at the very least the most popular games running on SteamOS.  Should be interesting.

[Cobra]

Provided they don't take the easy way out and use Wine, this could well be the best thing to happen to Linux if it sees a huge influx of titles ported to it and possibly eventually even released for it along side their PC counterparts. Wine would be cost effective, but as it is emulation, the performance and visuals of games would suffer if they took this path.

Anywho, good luck to 'em. While I'm not a Steam fan, any competition is good, something like this trying to steal away from both, the home console market and PC sales will surly shake things up a bit if done well.

[bombatomba]

Provided they don't take the easy way out and use Wine, this could well be the best thing to happen to Linux if it sees a huge influx of titles ported to it and possibly eventually even released for it along side their PC counterparts. Wine would be cost effective, but as it is emulation, the performance and visuals of games would suffer if they took this path.

Anywho, good luck to 'em. While I'm not a Steam fan, any competition is good, something like this trying to steal away from both, the home console market and PC sales will surly shake things up a bit if done well.

Exactly.

[CoinCollector]

That controller looks super intriguing... maybe the biggest change since the Wiimote!  Certainly is unique.

Lots of people are ready to write it off since today's trackpads aren't exactly gamer friendly, but this sounds totally different.  Weighted electro-magnets, super precise haptic feedback... sounds fancy.  And I'll bet it's pretty good, since they've likely been designing for months, going through dozens and dozens of iterations no doubt, trying to find something that could rival specifically mouse + keyboard.  Nothing points to this being an afterthought.

Dev feedback is quite positive! [1], [2]

Provided they don't take the easy way out and use Wine, this could well be the best thing to happen to Linux if it sees a huge influx of titles ported to it and possibly eventually even released for it along side their PC counterparts.

Yeah!  It doesn't sound like they're using Wine, just native Linux games and streaming from another Mac/Windows machine in your house.  Will be interesting to see how many more titles support Linux in the future.

[bombatomba]

That controller looks super intriguing... maybe the biggest change since the Wiimote!  Certainly is unique.

Lots of people are ready to write it off since today's trackpads aren't exactly gamer friendly, but this sounds totally different.  Weighted electro-magnets, super precise haptic feedback... sounds fancy.  And I'll bet it's pretty good, since they've likely been designing for months, going through dozens and dozens of iterations no doubt, trying to find something that could rival specifically mouse + keyboard.  Nothing points to this being an afterthought.

Dev feedback is quite positive! [1], [2]

It's nice to see that it isn't just a touchpad, but rather you actually have to press on it.  The little circles will also help you remember where your fingers are on it, I guess.  Actually a good chunk of the US PC Gamer Podcast is about Valve's announcements this week.  The called it, The GabeCube.  It is an interesting listen.

[Fleach]

I read those Gamasutra articles too, but I'm sold yet. I don't think I'll be able to wrap my head around the controller's set up. At one point in reading one of those articles I started questioning my interest in the future Steam consoles. If anything, I hope their box has USB ports so I can plug in a 360 controller receiver.

[wildbil52]

I read those Gamasutra articles too, but I'm sold yet. I don't think I'll be able to wrap my head around the controller's set up. At one point in reading one of those articles I started questioning my interest in the future Steam consoles. If anything, I hope their box has USB ports so I can plug in a 360 controller receiver.

That's the idea, Fleach.  Since the OS is open, anybody can make a driver for it the same way they do for PCs now.  If you want to use a 360, One, or PS3 controller, anyone who can write a driver can add that support.