Gabe Newell - PC/Linux gaming and Steambox

Danger781

Danger781 wrote: »

So it is actually going to be a fully functional distro of Linux?

I assume that when you boot you'll be straight into Steam Big Picture. Steam already has a web browser and they're bringing music and video services. That gives you music, game and video plus basic browsing, which is all that most people want in their living room. Its intended to be an appliance like experience.

Maybe you'll be able to quit out to a desktop environment, I doubt it though. If not, there's nothing stopping you from using Steam on whatever Linux distro you want.

jumbobreakfast

Just a thought, can you keep your Steam library on an NTFS drive and access it from SteamOS? If so, would it be worth dual-booting SteamOS and Windows for those with low-spec PCs? - perhaps SteamOS will be more efficient for certain games on low-spec PCs.

Genghiz Cohen

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

Just a thought, can you keep your Steam library on an NTFS drive and access it from SteamOS? If so, would it be worth dual-booting SteamOS and Windows for those with low-spec PCs? - perhaps SteamOS will be more efficient for certain games on low-spec PCs.

You can do that on Windows anyway. I don't see why the Linux version would be any different.

jumbobreakfast

I don't think I was clear enough. I'm talking about keeping your library on one NTFS drive that can be accessed by either SteamOS or Windows depending on which you boot. The thinking being that SteamOS might run certain games better for those with low-spec machines

jumbobreakfast

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

I don't think I was clear enough. I'm talking about keeping your library on one NTFS drive that can be accessed by either SteamOS or Windows depending on which you boot. The thinking being that SteamOS might run certain games better for those with low-spec machines

No, the game files for a Windows game and a native SteamOS game would be totally different.

AlmightyCushion

jester77 wrote: »

Either that, or release it as a free exclusive for Linux users. That way they don't piss off any customers and lots of people will jump to Linux to get it at no cost. It would be a win/win for Valve. Those that switch to Linux would probably stick with Linux for new releases as the Linux OS will be a better performer if what Valve are saying is to be believed.

It would have to be a lot better and noticeably so to get people to live with the hassle of dual booting and switching OS. If it performs a few percent better in benchmarks I doubt many would care that much and would just stick with Windows.

Akrasia wrote: »

Announcement number 3 will be that Half Life 3 will be exclusive to this new platform (at least for the first few months)

Given that the platform is free to download, this will be a pain in the ass but not a deterrent to millions of gamers installing the platform on their gaming PC.

I really can't see that happening. It would cause a backlash from their fans even if it's only a timed exclusive.

Akrasia wrote: »

Once the platform is on their PC, other games developers will be able to develop compatable versions of their new releases safe in the knowledge that there are millions of gamers with high end PCs as an installed userbase

A lot of people will dual boot just for HL3, use Steam OS for it and then just continue to use Windows for everything else. Even if millions did install and keep Steam OS, games developers will see that most just installed it for HL3 and are dual booting so there is no point incurring the extra cost of porting to Steam OS as it will get them no additional customers.

The only way it would work is if Steam OS is much better than Windows that it makes it worthwhile to dual boot and do some things/play some games in Steam OS and do everything else in Windows. Basically, Valve need to get Steam OS to the position where Steam is now, so that if someone sees a game and they notice that it doesn't support Steam OS, they're disappointed and contemplate just skipping it.

Akrasia wrote: »

After this, it gets really exciting!

We will see a huge number of 'steam box' compatable pcs on the market, all stripped down PCs that only have the essential components for PC gaming in a range of specs and prices. We will see price wars similar to those in the Tablet and phone market and very quickly, we will have machines on the market for less than the price of a PS4/XBOX 1 that will be capable of playing all games at higher resolution and higher frame rates than the next gen consoles

Because it's open source, gamers will have fantastic choice in peripherals and apps and there will be mods that will allow the steam OS to do anything that Linux can do

What components can be stripped out? The optical drive, sure enough, although some with poor broadband or who watch a lot of DVDs would still prefer to have it there but they are probably a minority now. PS2 connections as well (good riddance). Both of those will save a few euro, €20 or €30 max. Apart from that pretty much everything else is needed for a gaming PC. Steam OS doesn't really change anything there.

There is nothing that would have stopped any of this happening now or before now with gaming PCs yet ones made by OEMs are still very expensive. I don't see how Steam OS will change this. Plus, there are hundreds of different peripherals for Windows PCs. Microsoft and Windows don't limit this in any way. You want to make some cool assed peripheral you just need to build the hardware and code the software. That's the same for both Windows and Steam OS. In fact, because of it's larger user base I'd say most peripheral designers will make their stuff work for Windows only or first. Imagine you just started a company making something like the Oculus Rift and you sunk millions into the product. You're going to prioritise development for the OS that has a larger user base so that you get a quicker return on your investment. For the foreseeable future, that's going to be Windows.

jumbobreakfast

Deleted User wrote: »

No, the game files for a Windows game and a native SteamOS game would be totally different.

lol of course, I got a bit ahead of myself there

stevenmu

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I really can't see that happening. It would cause a backlash from their fans even if it's only a timed exclusive.

There is some precedent for that. HL2 was one of the first major games to require online activation (I still remember having to cart my PC into work to activate it there). There was a pretty big backlash at the time.

But the game was still a huge success, and it forced a ton of people to sign up for Steam initially. It could be argued that it was a major factor in making Steam the success it is today. They could try to repeat history and use HL3 as the 'killer app' to get people to at least install and try SteamOS, which is the hard part, once they have it running keeping them there is easier.

danthefan

stevenmu wrote: »

There is some precedent for that. HL2 was one of the first major games to require online activation (I still remember having to cart my PC into work to activate it there). There was a pretty big backlash at the time.

But the game was still a huge success, and it forced a ton of people to sign up for Steam initially. It could be argued that it was a major factor in making Steam the success it is today. They could try to repeat history and use HL3 as the 'killer app' to get people to at least install and try SteamOS, which is the hard part, once they have it running keeping them there is easier.

Brilliant!


That 4Chan thing is bull****, no way it's true. Valve has a surprisingly small number of employees, doubt any of them would risk that.

AlmightyCushion

stevenmu wrote: »

There is some precedent for that. HL2 was one of the first major games to require online activation (I still remember having to cart my PC into work to activate it there). There was a pretty big backlash at the time.

But the game was still a huge success, and it forced a ton of people to sign up for Steam initially. It could be argued that it was a major factor in making Steam the success it is today. They could try to repeat history and use HL3 as the 'killer app' to get people to at least install and try SteamOS, which is the hard part, once they have it running keeping them there is easier.

I still don't see it happening. I bought HL2 not long after release and I had to take my PC up to my brother's house to activate it. I wasn't even a HL fan, I never even played the first one or really knew much about it but I heard 2 was good and I fancied a new game. I wasn't techy at all then, I didn't even have an email account but I still managed the activation fine although it was annoying. If I had to install a linux distro back then to play HL2, I wouldn't have bothered even if I had known how. A large part of the PC gaming market aren't that techy and being asked to install a new OS just to play the game will piss them off. Some will buy it anyway and either not get it working or screw up their PCs and that's gonna piss them off even more.

Setting up a Steam account back then was a minor inconvenience compared to the hassle involved in installing a whole new OS even now especially for the less techy people.

Dyr

installing a linux distro is pretty much a piece of pish,


configuring/tweaking/fixing things is going to kill non technical people.

valve would need to either nail **** down or make their OS far less obtuse than most linux flavours.


as a matter of fact if linux becomes the focus of peoples attention theyve lost the customer IMO

AlmightyCushion

Bambi wrote: »

installing a linux distro is pretty much a piece of pish,


configuring/tweaking/fixing things is going to kill non technical people.

valve would need to either nail **** down or make their OS far less obtuse than most linux flavours.


as a matter of fact if linux becomes the focus of peoples attention theyve lost the customer IMO

For me and you installing Linux is a piece of piss, but it's difficult for non techy people. You could hand a game disk to any teenager in the country and the vast majority could install the game, it'd be even easier if it was a Steam game. Do the same with the Linux distro and a lot wouldn't even attempt it for fear of messing up their PC. Of the ones who do a lot would fail and some would mess up their PC.

Dyr

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Steam runs fine.

Games on the other hand ... hmm. Valve can say all they want about Linux being the future of PC gaming, but if the developers of the games that they have on Steam are not as enthusiastic as Valve about the concept then it is all just rhetoric.

I am pretty sure that less than 5% of all Steam users are using the Linux client. The Linux client has been out for nearly a year at this stage.

EDIT: According to the latest Steam Hardware survey results, 0.93% of Steam users are using the Linux client. The survey result lists all Linux distributions as being on the decline, with not one distribution showing growth. I remain somewhat sceptical about the "Linux Gaming Revolution". Users will not switch to Linux just because the Steam client runs on that platform. That is useless when the vast majority of games in your games library don't run on Linux.

Valve HAVE to give their users and developers some fairly compelling reasons to switch to the steamos/steam box. I don't think they're going to manage that with the first iteration of steamos/steambox. If they try to do a microsoft and hope that their sheer size and momentum will force everyone else to change direction then they'll probably fail. I reckon they're smart enough to know this.

bear in mind that while Valve might be scared ****less of microsoft killing the PC market or closing off windows to other stores, game developers have less to fear from that (they will just be switching middleman plus they still have the console market) . They really need to give developers strong incentives to start building games for steamOS.

Time will tell

Dyr

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

You could hand a game disk to any teenager in the country and the vast majority could install the game,

I havent gone near a linux client in a year or two but I think you could probably hand an Ubuntu install disk to any teenager and it will pretty much install itself too. Things have moved a pace in that regard

NTMK

Bambi wrote: »

Valve HAVE to give their users and developers some fairly compelling reasons to switch to the steamos/steam box. I don't think they're going to manage that with the first iteration of steamos/steambox. If they try to do a microsoft and hope that their sheer size and momentum will force everyone else to change direction then they'll probably fail. I reckon they're smart enough to know this.

bear in mind that while Valve might be scared ****less of microsoft killing the PC market or closing off windows to other stores, game developers have less to fear from that (they will just be switching middleman plus they still have the console market) . They really need to give developers strong incentives to start building games for steamOS.

Time will tell

Valve can probably make a good enough reason for switching by cutting their store fee to 15%-20% for early AAA adopters and some developer tools

Valve will take a hit but they do need to expand their options beyond MS

MS are building a pc gaming platform and have headhunted one of the guys responsible for steam and with MS slowly locking down the os it could get to a stage where valve need some cards to play

I would gladly switch to SteamOS if the following were available

• Most of my library available (wont be much of a problem with all the indie games i own having linux alternatives
• Chrome, Spotify and netflix(wont happen until netflix moves away from silverlight)
• Nvidia build linux drivers (which they seem to be looking to now after the announcement
• its light on resources

I try it but it would be nice to have an option other than the abomination WIN9 will be given MS current form

Tar.Aldarion

Bambi wrote: »

I havent gone near a linux client in a year or two but I think you could probably hand an Ubuntu install disk to any teenager and it will pretty much install itself too. Things have moved a pace in that regard

Yeah ubuut is even starting to look OSXy, its piss easy by this stage.

Genghiz Cohen

NTMK wrote: »

[*]Chrome, Spotify and netflix(wont happen until netflix moves away from silverlight)

Chrome is dropping Silverlight support so Netflix best get a move on.

bur

Bambi wrote: »

I havent gone near a linux client in a year or two but I think you could probably hand an Ubuntu install disk to any teenager and it will pretty much install itself too. Things have moved a pace in that regard

Dual booting can get a bit messy though.

Tar.Aldarion

how so, especially with ubuntu, it just takes care of everything for you and takes like 20 mins to install.

C14N

Bambi wrote: »

I have a razer naga/logitech G510 as a keyboard/mouse and then two HOTAS joysticks, a flight yoke and rudder pedals and a web cam for head tracking. The whole living room sales pitch aside. I don't see steamOS supporting that many peripherals anytime soon. I don't see them even supporting the keyboard/mouse at first.

That might be true in your case but you do need to at least realise that you're a niche customer for wanting to use all those peripherals. Most people playing games on PC (in my experience) just use a bog-standard keyboard and mouse.

Dravokivich wrote: »

I'm not missing it, I just think they are miss representing the idea behind "Streaming," and looking to catch some hype from a buzzword.

I don't think it's a misrepresentation at all. If I send music from my computer or NAS to play on another device, I have always referred to it (and heard it referred to) as "streaming". When I was trying to figure out how to watch movies from my PC on my PS3 over the network, everyone called it "streaming". What else would you call it? I mean, something like Netflix or Spotify is really the same idea, it's just that the computer you're streaming it from is further away.

Also, "streaming" is becoming such a common and mundane term that I think it's hard to call it a buzzword, especially amongst PC gamers. It's got all the loaded excitement these days of the words "MP3 support".

danthefan wrote: »

That 4Chan thing is bull****, no way it's true. Valve has a surprisingly small number of employees, doubt any of them would risk that.

Wait, did anyone think it was real?

stevenmu

ARS have clearly been reading this thread: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/09/analysis-can-steamos-drag-the-pc-game-industry-over-to-linux/

It has been 3 or 4 years since I tried to install linux. The last few times I did it was very easy, the installer basically did everything. I'd imagine Valve could throw a bit of development weight behind the process and make it easier. But, when it comes to partitioning and messing with the MBR there's always the potential for something to go badly wrong.

Magill

I really love the sound of steamOS tbh, i've been wanting to build a mini pc to keep in the living room so i'll definitely be building my own steambox. Really excited to see what sort of new controllers etc they'll come out with now and hopefully some source 2 games.

Also it'll be nice to actually see games running at their true potential with whatever hardware is under the hood. Not having to overcompensate for a poorly optimized OS will be great when building an PC used exclusively for gaming.

Dyr

C14N wrote: »

That might be true in your case but you do need to at least realise that you're a niche customer for wanting to use all those peripherals. Most people playing games on PC (in my experience) just use a bog-standard keyboard and mouse.

Take the swanky joysticks aside and you're still left with a gaming keyboard and mouse which, given how crap big picture is for peripheral support, I don't hold any great hopes for steamOS ti support for stuff like logitech macro software or razer support

But there's a bigger point here. PC gaming is all about niche customers of one type or another. We all happily exist on the same ecosystem from the casual gamers to punters playing with tricked out peripherals. Gaben keeps singing the praises of that level of scalability but I'm not sure Valve can deliver that anytime soon.

Grumpypants

If Valve can sell imaginary hats to people, they can sell this.

C14N

Bambi wrote: »

Take the swanky joysticks aside and you're still left with a gaming keyboard and mouse which, given how crap big picture is for peripheral support, I don't hold any great hopes for steamOS ti support for stuff like logitech macro software or razer support

But there's a bigger point here. PC gaming is all about niche customers of one type or another. We all happily exist on the same ecosystem from the casual gamers to punters playing with tricked out peripherals. Gaben keeps singing the praises of that level of scalability but I'm not sure Valve can deliver that anytime soon.

True, but Steam has always kind of been going after the opposite of that. It standardises PC gaming online and acts like our version of XBL or PSN. It makes games much easier to install and attracts a much more casual audience than PC had before.

The idea of "Steam on your TV" was always going to be a controller-based experience. Obviously many PC gamers are ardantly anti-controller and want to play games exclusively on their PC monitors but a Valve announcement about expanding their living room experience was never going to be of interest to those people anyway. They aren't taking anything away from that stuff, they're just also now giving the option to play stuff on your TV with a controller if you want. I have some games that I would rather play this way (like Fez or Mark of The Ninja or Batman Arkham Asylum) and I'm just glad that now I can buy these games at the low PC price and get the high-performance version instead of the console version.

Sierra Oscar

Twenty seconds!

Sierra Oscar

There we go - http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/

Entertainment is not a one-size-fits-all world. We want you to be able to choose the hardware that makes sense for you, so we are working with multiple partners to bring a variety of Steam gaming machines to market during 2014, all of them running SteamOS.

C14N

I called it!

Sierra Oscar

Anyone hoping to get their hands on a prototype?

Dyr

So, tldr version is: 300 prototype steam boxes being handed out for testing willy wonka style by end of the year. F**k all else that we didnt already know.


I called it a steam machine way back when it was first announced, youse and yizzer steam boxes.