Steam Consoles

[Skel]

Console cycles are stretching (the PS2 lived forever, as does the 360) while ARM is accelerating at a break-neck pace. Eventually the lines will cross.

I get the impression that you're one of those phones/tablet devices will replace everything kind of person so I doubt anything I say will convince you but... Neither MS or Sony would allow their stuff to be so old that a phone would overtake them. There's too much money to lose there. I also doubt AMD and Intel are just going to throw up their hands and let ARM take everything from them.

One of the things I thought should happen is that valve should provide a config.ini or similar settings file that already has the optimal settings for your box for each game. It would be a lot of work to do, but it would go a long way toward the kind of "plug in the game and start playing" experience that people think will be missing in steam boxes.

For instance, if you are playing Call of Duty: whatever on a low end steam box, steam will detect that and drop a configuration file with medium to low settings directly in the appropriate game folder during the install process. Then when you start the game, those settings will be loaded and you know you're getting a good experience for your system without touching any settings. On a high end box you'd get a different config file with higher detail settings.

I doubt this will happen, but it seems possible to me for a lot of games. There are some games that use another method of storing graphic settings that may not lend themselves to this idea though.

If they wanted this to do anything more than being a niche product they'd have to put something like that in there. If most people really wanted to fuss with a bunch of settings then consoles wouldn't be so popular.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Unfortunately steam missed their window imo. These should have launched 1.5 years before the ps4/xbox one to take advantage of the longer generation.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

what they need to do is make the streambox a tablet device that you can take with you. something like a winbook. maybe using one of those new intel chips.

 

[Aikouka]

I do own a gaming PC and all three next-gen consoles, but I would still consider myself more of a PC gamer. However, even with that proclamation, I really do not think the Steam Box is a very good idea. Now, whenever people talk about PC gaming vs. console gaming, price will inevitably come up. I tend to defend the PC's higher price tag because I don't see the PC as purely a gaming device. In fact, gaming is maybe half of what I do on my PC or less. In other words, PCs are a multi-purpose device, and a "gaming PC" is nothing more than a PC that is tailored more toward being able to play games at a higher framerate. It's that added benefit that makes me okay with saying the higher price isn't necessarily as bad as people make it out to be.

The reason why I went into that is because any dedicated product tends to hamper the multi-purpose nature of a PC. A different example of this is the fact that I use HTPCs. They are still capable of doing a lot of the non-gaming things that my desktop does, but they don't do it nearly as well. So, for a lot of people, it makes far more sense to go for the cheaper, more concise solution like an Amazon Fire TV than a HTPC. This is the exact same issue with the Steam Box, and I'd argue that it's even worse. The first issue is that Steam OS runs off Linux. I don't think it's just an issue with game compatibility, but also with presenting a different OS to people that are probably used to Windows. Look at how much people complained about the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 8, and now you want them to use Ubuntu (I believe that's what Steam OS is based off of)?

In short, the Steam Box is too niche.

One of the things I thought should happen is that valve should provide a config.ini or similar settings file that already has the optimal settings for your box for each game. It would be a lot of work to do, but it would go a long way toward the kind of "plug in the game and start playing" experience that people think will be missing in steam boxes.

It would probably be easier to just leverage NVIDIA's GeForce Experience program to handle this. What NVIDIA does is perform testing with various setups as part of their driver validation, and they started keeping track of the performance. They took this data to help compute the best settings, and now users can easily apply settings for (some) games without ever going into the menus.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I get the impression that you're one of those phones/tablet devices will replace everything kind of person

No way, that is ridiculous. Phones and tablets will only replace computers in the consumer market, and that is a long time from now. Business will need PCs for decades.

Neither MS or Sony would allow their stuff to be so old that a phone would overtake them.

They don't have the market power they once did. This generation of consoles got overtaken by PCs faster than any recent generation. Both the 1 and PS4 still command premium prices, and the "entry point" older generation consoles can be bested in power by set top boxes near their retail price. The PS2 never had that problem.

Most consoles hit critical mass at lower price points. Neither the PS4 nor the XB1 will be "mainstream" until they are $200-$300 dollars new. That is the point when the PS3s and 360s die out and are replaced by non-hardcore gamers. If it takes two years to get to those price points this generation of consoles might never become mainstream (aka sell a hundred million units) because some AppleTV-ish box stole the casual 360 crowd with a device that is half the power for a third the cost.

The game library is what prevents that from happening now, but Halo wasn't a thing until MS bought someone and made it a thing. Someone like Apple, Amazon or Google buys Nintendo or an EA and put their games on a future AppleTV/FireTV/AndroidTV and look out traditional console game market. Heck we will see 2016 ARM SoCs that best the Wii U in overall power. If someone outside of Sony or MS wants to disrupt the gaming market they can.

The best hope as I see it is MS. Eventually getting their asses kicked by the PS4 won't sit well with them, and they might race to $299 to try and get to the casual market first. A $250 after giftcard Xbox One during Christmas 2015 would close the ARM window on this generation.

There's too much money to lose there. I also doubt AMD and Intel are just going to throw up their hands and let ARM take everything from them.

No one said they would go willingly in the night, but right now ARM looks like x86 did a decade ago.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

There doesn't seem to be any market for this. Console gamers can already buy consoles cheaper than this, all the games work right out of the box with zero configuration needed, and they don't have to worry about not being able to play online with other people on their friends list because they have different systems. PC gamers already have gaming PCs; a long HDMI cable and a wireless controller turns any PC into a "Steam console," costs a hell of a lot less than a new "Steam Console," and gives you the benefit of being able to customize it to your liking and upgrade at your leisure. Who on Earth is going to buy this thing?

And, hey, while we're talking doom and gloom, if these things ARE successful, they're going to be a big negative for PC gaming. One of the things that PC gaming has always had over consoles is more rapid technological innovation, since it's not tied to a box that can't be upgraded, which means games can take advantage of faster processors and better graphics cards in a quicker cycle. A game that comes out for Xbox 360 at any point has to be geared specifically for hardware released in 2005. How many current PC games run on PC hardware that came out a decade ago? Developers don't have to constrain themselves because the technology is always advancing.

So if the new Steam Consoles become successful, developers are going to start neutering their PC game releases so they'll be playable on the hardware that the Steam Console was released with. You can't expect people to upgrade their "consoles" every 24-36 months, and developers aren't going to ignore a large demographic of "PC gamers" if it means adding features that the Steam Console effectively can't do technologically... So if the Steam machine is a massive success, it stifles innovation in the one area of gaming that hasn't been bound by the same 7 year refresh window that consoles typically work under.

How on Earth is this a good idea for anyone?

 

[Aikouka]

There doesn't seem to be any market for this. Console gamers can already buy consoles cheaper than this, all the games work right out of the box with zero configuration needed, and they don't have to worry about not being able to play online with other people on their friends list because they have different systems. PC gamers already have gaming PCs; a long HDMI cable and a wireless controller turns any PC into a "Steam console," costs a hell of a lot less than a new "Steam Console," and gives you the benefit of being able to customize it to your liking and upgrade at your leisure. Who on Earth is going to buy this thing?

I would see home-built models being more popular. Silverstone has two cases that work well for this: Raven RVZ01 and ML07. They both accept full-fledged video cards as well as a decent amount of storage and even an optical drive. I was considering building a HTPC that could play some games, and I was going to go with the ML07 before I decided against building one.

 

[smackababy]

I would see home-built models being more popular. Silverstone has two cases that work well for this: Raven RVZ01 and ML07. They both accept full-fledged video cards as well as a decent amount of storage and even an optical drive. I was considering building a HTPC that could play some games, and I was going to go with the ML07 before I decided against building one.

That's exactly what I want: spend $500+ on a PC just to play it as a console, only I get all of Valve's 5 games and a few others from 2001!

The issue is Linux and no DirectX. There simply isn't an incentive for developers to release OpenGL games as there is little to no market. Although, Apple is changing that somewhat with their increasing popularity.

I get Valve trying to build the market and hope their "brand" of Linux leads the way, but it just isn't happening unless they either get some extreme first party support (meaning they buy some development studios) or they shell out money to get people on board. I mean, it isn't that hard. Just tell studios for every AAA title they port to Linux and distribute through Steam, Valve will buy like 1 million licenses up front for what the company would make. Valve can then resell them to consumes, but the studios get paid and games get made. Now, that costs money, but Valve can afford it.

 

[Skel]

No way, that is ridiculous. Phones and tablets will only replace computers in the consumer market, and that is a long time from now. Business will need PCs for decades.

Fair enough..

They don't have the market power they once did. This generation of consoles got overtaken by PCs faster than any recent generation. Both the 1 and PS4 still command premium prices, and the "entry point" older generation consoles can be bested in power by set top boxes near their retail price. The PS2 never had that problem.

Most consoles hit critical mass at lower price points. Neither the PS4 nor the XB1 will be "mainstream" until they are $200-$300 dollars new. That is the point when the PS3s and 360s die out and are replaced by non-hardcore gamers. If it takes two years to get to those price points this generation of consoles might never become mainstream (aka sell a hundred million units) because some AppleTV-ish box stole the casual 360 crowd with a device that is half the power for a third the cost.

The game library is what prevents that from happening now, but Halo wasn't a thing until MS bought someone and made it a thing. Someone like Apple, Amazon or Google buys Nintendo or an EA and put their games on a future AppleTV/FireTV/AndroidTV and look out traditional console game market. Heck we will see 2016 ARM SoCs that best the Wii U in overall power. If someone outside of Sony or MS wants to disrupt the gaming market they can.

The best hope as I see it is MS. Eventually getting their asses kicked by the PS4 won't sit well with them, and they might race to $299 to try and get to the casual market first. A $250 after giftcard Xbox One during Christmas 2015 would close the ARM window on this generation.

Here's where I start breaking down on what you're saying.. I haven't a clue how MS and Sony "They don't have the market power they once did." We're talking consoles here and they're the two biggest players in the space.. so big that most gamers (that use consoles) ONLY consider them in the space. I'm also a bit confused where you say "This generation of consoles got overtaken by PCs faster than any recent generation".. are you talking speed? I assume you're talking speed because sales wise both consoles have done very well for themselves. I'd have to dig around for numbers on it all but it's a bit off to compare PC sales to consoles unless it's straight gaming machines, at that point I'm willing to bet both consoles outsold them. If you're talking speed, of course they did. That's how it's always been. The issue with it is no one cares outside of the PC gamer that's bragging about his/her extra FPS. With a few exceptions it's the same freaking game. Yeah, the graphics are a bit crisper, but not enough to make everyone wish they were playing it on a PC, I know this because sales of the consoles and the games tell me so.

As for the price point stuff.. it could prob be cheaper, but they're selling millions of units. If that's failure for you I'd love to see success. The consoles are already on path to reach over a hundred million in sales. More importantly the game devs are moving over to the new platforms. That'll drive sales up way more than the price point will.

Even with all this.. I just don't get how any of that means that suddenly a phone will become a console killer. It would have to jump both the PC and the console makers. I just don't see that happening in my generation. If anything all I really need to do is point to the OUYA. That was a ARM/Android console, look how well it did.

No one said they would go willingly in the night, but right now ARM looks like x86 did a decade ago.

On phones and tablets.. but anything that requires any real muscle still gets x86.. including both Steam and consoles...

 

[mmntech]

Console cycles are stretching (the PS2 lived forever, as does the 360) while ARM is accelerating at a break-neck pace. Eventually the lines will cross.

I get the impression that you're one of those phones/tablet devices will replace everything kind of person so I doubt anything I say will convince you but... Neither MS or Sony would allow their stuff to be so old that a phone would overtake them. There's too much money to lose there. I also doubt AMD and Intel are just going to throw up their hands and let ARM take everything from them.

There's no reason why ARM couldn't replace x86 processors in consoles. Jaguar was designed for low power applications after all. Stuff like ultrabooks and mini PCs.

The A8X (ARM's current golden boy) is twice as fast as Kabini, at a lower clock speed to boot. At least according to Geekbench scores. The problem with ARM though is that nobody's ever really paired it with a powerful GPU. That's where AMD has the advantage. NVidia has never leveraged their GPU experience to build powerful embedded SoCs. Probably because they don't see much of a market for it. Perhaps they didn't have a good working relationship with Sony last generation. A 64-bit ARM based PS4 with a powerful GeForce chip would certainly have been a game changer.

Of course Intel isn't going to throw up their hands either, which is why they've been pushing to get Bay Trail into smartphones and tablets. Intel's GPU tech really lags behind their competition. They'd be unlikely to get a partnership with either AMD or NVidia for a console project.

Of course, that's assuming that stand-alone hardware remains a thing. Sony is really pushing streaming. Microsoft will likely follow suit. Ten years time (an eternity in tech), it could very will be the norm. Which will make game consoles obsolete. The entertainment industry as a whole is already focusing on getting content across multiple screens. The real limiting factor is latency, which fibre would go a long way towards solving.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I haven't a clue how MS and Sony "They don't have the market power they once did." We're talking consoles here and they're the two biggest players in the space.. so big that most gamers (that use consoles) ONLY consider them in the space.

They and Nintendo are the only players in the console space now, true, but my whole point is that mobile-based set top boxes can eventually cut into the console market. People are playing a lot of games on mobile devices:

And it is expected that the mobile device gaming market will probably get close to or even possibly overtake the console market in terms of revenue during the life cycle of this console generation:

There is a reason crappy freemium features are creeping into console games- mobile gaming matters. This is no longer the mid 90s where the gaming market was mostly consoles or a PC. That means that by definition Nintendo, MS and Sony have less market power overall as far as control of the future of gaming. In 2015 the fastest growing gaming segment, and some the highest revenue generating games, are on mobile platforms. Developers follow the money and growth potential, which means mobile. Google and Apple provide good development platforms for gaming (especially Apple with Metal) and right now there is a lot of focus on the segment.

I'm also a bit confused where you say "This generation of consoles got overtaken by PCs faster than any recent generation".. are you talking speed?

Yes.

The 360 held its crown against PCs longer than its successor did, because it did and the 1 never did. And people do care, or otherwise the 1, with a better initial exclusive library, wouldn't be getting its butt kicked by the more powerful PS4. At least hardcore gamers seem to care, especially when comparing the differences is as easy as comparing PCs.

As for the price point stuff.. it could prob be cheaper, but they're selling millions of units. If that's failure for you I'd love to see success.

The PS4 so far has sold 18.5 million units since 2013. The iPhone 6 sold 20 million units in a month. Apple sold somewhere between 16 and 20 million iPads last quarter, which they are getting hammering on because that is a huge drop for them. The Playstation 2 sold over 160 million consoles in its life of 12 years and is the biggest console success ever. In comparison Google sold over a billion Android devices last year. A lot of those are low end, but in 2015 low end means Xbox 1 level. AndroidTV is soon going to be in every smart Sony Tv as well as a pile of sub $150 set top boxes- many more powerful than the 360. The same Xbox 360 that is good enough for millions of gamers right now who haven't made the switch to the next generation yet.

I just don't see that happening in my generation.

You might be right if the timeline for your generation has it ending within the next five years.

If anything all I really need to do is point to the OUYA. That was a ARM/Android console, look how well it did.

All that showed is that you can't just throw crap hardware out there and expect developers to do the work for you of making a killer app. The killer app of that "console" was emulated ROMs, which isn't a business model. Amazon already learned from that, so when they launched the FireTV they built a development studio. Gamers are extremely brand loyal though, so it will take buying off a major player somehow like MS did with Rare way back when. Get a AAA brand on your platform either first or as a cross platform release and the tide turns.

Companies like EA already release games on the Android and iOS platforms. With a $ nudge in a few years when AndroidTV is ready I could easily see Google paying for some console ports. With so many cross-platform games nowadays it would be easy to survive just on those and let your exclusives be the rest of the massive Android app store.

That is what Valve needs to get in on today. Make it so when the cross platform games come over they come in through Steam. Google is weak enough now they would cut a deal like that. Scrap Linux and make it all on Android instead. Get ahead of the curve and maybe they own the console market before the PS5 ever hits.

On phones and tablets.. but anything that requires any real muscle still gets x86.. including both Steam and consoles...

What is "real muscle?" Enough to do "work?"

My iPad Air 2 has performance pretty much equal to my 2010 Macbook Pro on both the CPU and GPU side. I have done a lot of work on my Macbook over the years. The iPad can also software decode a 1080p Blu Ray on the CPU and has the gaming capacity beyond a 360 in its GPU. Five years ago we called that real muscle. In five years ARM will be what you call real muscle today.

The ARM space is moving twice as fast as the old PC market did. We went from Pentium 3 level tech in 2010 to Core 2 Duo level tech in my iPad Air 2 in 2014. Four years to do what the PC market did in 9-10. That means in 3 more years, a sub-$150 AndroidTV 4.x or whatever device will have good enough power when compared with the 1. That could change things on consoles, especially because Google has close control of AndroidTV.

On the flip side x86 is slowing down. The rise of ARM is cutting into PC sales, and Intel has somewhat hit an IPC wall a few years ago. At around 2010-ish laptops and cheap desktops found a good enough computing plateau for many people, the same level my 2014 iPad just hit on mobile devices. I expect ARM will hit a good enough level for gaming soon. Its not like those PS4 CPUs are monsters.

 

[Aikouka]

That's exactly what I want: spend $500+ on a PC just to play it as a console, only I get all of Valve's 5 games and a few others from 2001!

The issue is Linux and no DirectX. There simply isn't an incentive for developers to release OpenGL games as there is little to no market. Although, Apple is changing that somewhat with their increasing popularity.

I never suggested to use Linux nor was my planned build attempting to use it. Frankly, I agree with you that using SteamOS would be a waste of time in regard to game compatibility. Hell, you're probably better off using OSX than SteamOS, and that says a lot! D:

NVidia has never leveraged their GPU experience to build powerful embedded SoCs. Probably because they don't see much of a market for it.

NVIDIA's Tegra K1 uses Kepler and their latest Tegra X1 uses Maxwell. The problem for console developers is that NVIDIA doesn't do x86. It most likely isn't worth it for them because of possible licensing issues with Intel. Remember the fights between Intel and NVIDIA over their nForce motherboards? NVIDIA sticks with ARM because it's less problematic, and they can make inroads into the (arguably) less saturated, less mature mobile market.

 

[smackababy]

I never suggested to use Linux nor was my planned build attempting to use it. Frankly, I agree with you that using SteamOS would be a waste of time in regard to game compatibility. Hell, you're probably better off using OSX than SteamOS, and that says a lot! D:

You suggested the best option would be to build your own SteamBox, which would include the SteamOS, I assumed.

 

[Skel]

They and Nintendo are the only players in the console space now, true, but my whole point is that mobile-based set top boxes can eventually cut into the console market. People are playing a lot of games on mobile devices:

<sniped graphic>

And it is expected that the mobile device gaming market will probably get close to or even possibly overtake the console market in terms of revenue during the life cycle of this console generation:

<sniped graphic>


There is a reason crappy freemium features are creeping into console games- mobile gaming matters. This is no longer the mid 90s where the gaming market was mostly consoles or a PC. That means that by definition Nintendo, MS and Sony have less market power overall as far as control of the future of gaming. In 2015 the fastest growing gaming segment, and some the highest revenue generating games, are on mobile platforms. Developers follow the money and growth potential, which means mobile. Google and Apple provide good development platforms for gaming (especially Apple with Metal) and right now there is a lot of focus on the segment.

It's a phone first and formost.. People buy a these devices to be mobile. Those games are a add on. With our consoles it's a dedicated device, it's designed to get as much out of it as the game devs can get without worrying about battery life and such. The casual market that's playing candy crush don't buy Playstations. The guys that want the high end graphics/game play/story lines do. It's that market that drives the consoles (and in many ways the PC), it's those people that won't allow the mobiles to replace consoles/PC.

Yes.

The 360 held its crown against PCs longer than its successor did, because it did and the 1 never did. And people do care, or otherwise the 1, with a better initial exclusive library, wouldn't be getting its butt kicked by the more powerful PS4. At least hardcore gamers seem to care, especially when comparing the differences is as easy as comparing PCs.

I'm still sticking with few people care. So PCs can give me a few more FPS.. wheeeeeee

The PS4 so far has sold 18.5 million units since 2013. The iPhone 6 sold 20 million units in a month. Apple sold somewhere between 16 and 20 million iPads last quarter, which they are getting hammering on because that is a huge drop for them. The Playstation 2 sold over 160 million consoles in its life of 12 years and is the biggest console success ever. In comparison Google sold over a billion Android devices last year. A lot of those are low end, but in 2015 low end means Xbox 1 level. AndroidTV is soon going to be in every smart Sony Tv as well as a pile of sub $150 set top boxes- many more powerful than the 360. The same Xbox 360 that is good enough for millions of gamers right now who haven't made the switch to the next generation yet.

Apples and Oranges.. You're comparing phone sales, which are more a utility to a gaming device which is is used for mainly one thing.. that appeals to only a set of users. Also you're comparing a OS to three devices with Android sales... unless you're saying Google personally sold over a billion Nexus devices, even then it's really a odd here's why reason.

You might be right if the timeline for your generation has it ending within the next five years.

That's a very aggressive time frame. There's a chance we won't see a new Xbox/PS in that time frame, yet somehow we're going to have such a shift that a mobile device is going to cause them to go away? That I think is where I disagree with you the most. There's just no way in that time frame it'll happen.

All that showed is that you can't just throw crap hardware out there and expect developers to do the work for you of making a killer app. The killer app of that "console" was emulated ROMs, which isn't a business model. Amazon already learned from that, so when they launched the FireTV they built a development studio. Gamers are extremely brand loyal though, so it will take buying off a major player somehow like MS did with Rare way back when. Get a AAA brand on your platform either first or as a cross platform release and the tide turns.

Companies like EA already release games on the Android and iOS platforms. With a $ nudge in a few years when AndroidTV is ready I could easily see Google paying for some console ports. With so many cross-platform games nowadays it would be easy to survive just on those and let your exclusives be the rest of the massive Android app store.

That is what Valve needs to get in on today. Make it so when the cross platform games come over they come in through Steam. Google is weak enough now they would cut a deal like that. Scrap Linux and make it all on Android instead. Get ahead of the curve and maybe they own the console market before the PS5 ever hits.

At the moment it's two different markets and two different ideologies. You have the mobile casual gaming market which concerns itself with things like battery life (rightfully so!) and touch interfaces. The other is the (I really hate to use this phrase but more people get it) "hard core gaming" market. That market is squeezing every drop out of that GPU and doesn't care about batteries and laughs at touch interfaces. MS/Sony/Valve are all aiming at that market and I don't see that changing. Until there's a massive (and I mean beyond massive) shift in batteries you won't see a mobile device come close to a stationary plugged in device.

What is "real muscle?" Enough to do "work?"

My point here is you won't get GTA V in all it's HD glory on a phone anytime soon. As mmntech mentioned you haven't seen a phone with a solid GPU. My guess would be it's just not going to play well with power and no one is willing to trade a much shorter battery life for better graphics on a phone. I also don't think you're going to get much out of a 'gaming docking station' as what's the point of plugging your phone into a device like that if it's not needed? I think you'll see more of what MS has been attempting to do which is merge things between devices so my settings/stuff replicates around them.

My iPad Air 2 has performance pretty much equal to my 2010 Macbook Pro on both the CPU and GPU side. I have done a lot of work on my Macbook over the years. The iPad can also software decode a 1080p Blu Ray on the CPU and has the gaming capacity beyond a 360 in its GPU. Five years ago we called that real muscle. In five years ARM will be what you call real muscle today.

The ARM space is moving twice as fast as the old PC market did. We went from Pentium 3 level tech in 2010 to Core 2 Duo level tech in my iPad Air 2 in 2014. Four years to do what the PC market did in 9-10. That means in 3 more years, a sub-$150 AndroidTV 4.x or whatever device will have good enough power when compared with the 1. That could change things on consoles, especially because Google has close control of AndroidTV.

On the flip side x86 is slowing down. The rise of ARM is cutting into PC sales, and Intel has somewhat hit an IPC wall a few years ago. At around 2010-ish laptops and cheap desktops found a good enough computing plateau for many people, the same level my 2014 iPad just hit on mobile devices. I expect ARM will hit a good enough level for gaming soon. Its not like those PS4 CPUs are monsters.

Even if the ARM CPU becomes a viable contender for a console you're blowing past the GPU. I also still will stick to Intel and AMD aren't just going to throw their hands up and say fuck it while going out of business. When a Iphone can play the latest version of GTA as the current PC/Console can, maybe then you'll see it. I just seriously don't see a 5 year cycle for it..

 

[sweenish]

The ARM space is moving twice as fast as the old PC market did. We went from Pentium 3 level tech in 2010 to Core 2 Duo level tech in my iPad Air 2 in 2014. Four years to do what the PC market did in 9-10. That means in 3 more years, a sub-$150 AndroidTV 4.x or whatever device will have good enough power when compared with the 1. That could change things on consoles, especially because Google has close control of AndroidTV.

On the flip side x86 is slowing down. The rise of ARM is cutting into PC sales, and Intel has somewhat hit an IPC wall a few years ago. At around 2010-ish laptops and cheap desktops found a good enough computing plateau for many people, the same level my 2014 iPad just hit on mobile devices. I expect ARM will hit a good enough level for gaming soon. Its not like those PS4 CPUs are monsters.

The amount of erroneous assumptions right here is astounding.

Why is x86 slowing down? Could it possibly because they need to re-invent transistors every generation now? They can't just shrink what they have anymore, new technologies are being invented, and that takes time.

Why is ARM so fast right now? Smartphone boom, they had a lot of ground to catch up on because of said boom (they weren't fantastic before, with the sole exception of low power). You're also comparing an iPad running iOS to a laptop running a "full-blown" OS. Compare Surface Pro 3 benchmarks to your iPad Air 2. ARM is "fast" in no small part to the limited capabilities expected from the devices using their hardware.

Will it not slow down when it hits the same milestones as x86? That answer is yes, but you don't take it into account.

There's already a crossover, AMD has revealed their first ARM server solution. x86 is getting low power enough that it's showing up in more and more mobile devices. PC games are getting mobile releases (with easily noticeable graphic compromises), and nvidia is putting Maxwell in the X1.

I don't think one will ever crush the other. And that's a good thing, as it will keep both on their toes and force them to keep innovating.

As for Steamboxes, they'll sell a few. They'll have a following. But the idea was stupid from the beginning. Each part of the idea (big picture, SteamOS, Steam controller) is great. More choices for gamers is always good. But the whole package of a Steam machine is just stupid, and has been since they announced it. The fact that they left their OEM partners hanging big time last year will only help ensure that it never really takes off. Steam will not be taking over the living room anytime soon.

 

[poofyhairguy]

It's a phone first and formost.. People buy a these devices to be mobile.

No, something like a FireTV is not a phone. AndroidTV products are not meant to be mobile. The ARM market is not just phones. Amazon made the FireTV pretty much as a console with games in mind. There is no power requirements, or need to sip a battery.

The casual market that's playing candy crush don't buy Playstations.

Yeah but they are still paying money. EA has no soul, no heart. If they could make more money cranking out freemium games next year rather than traditional console games they would drop console in a heartbeat. That is not the case, but the point is one type of gaming is not more noble than another type. Your money is just as green as someone paying to cheat in Candy Crush.

It's that market that drives the consoles (and in many ways the PC), it's those people that won't allow the mobiles to replace consoles/PC.

This "hardcore" market isn't as powerful as you say, or there would have been NO WAY the Wii would have won that generation. Fact is most gamers are casual gamers. The hard cores have been insulated in console land but my whole point is that bubble is about to pop in the next five years.

I'm still sticking with few people care.

You hurt your own point there. If people don't care that a console is weaker than a PC, why would they care if a 2016 ARM set top box is a little less weaker than a console? It will be half the price, which inspires them not to care.

Apples and Oranges.. You're comparing phone sales, which are more a utility to a gaming device which is is used for mainly one thing..

I also threw in tablets, which are primarily a entertainment consumption device.

That's a very aggressive time frame. There's a chance we won't see a new Xbox/PS in that time frame, yet somehow we're going to have such a shift that a mobile device is going to cause them to go away? That I think is where I disagree with you the most. There's just no way in that time frame it'll happen.

Oh I still see a PS5 happening, it just will be fighting MS for the 40% of the console market that isn't served by ARM set top boxes.

At the moment it's two different markets and two different ideologies. You have the mobile casual gaming market which concerns itself with things like battery life (rightfully so!) and touch interfaces. The other is the (I really hate to use this phrase but more people get it) "hard core gaming" market. That market is squeezing every drop out of that GPU and doesn't care about batteries and laughs at touch interfaces. MS/Sony/Valve are all aiming at that market and I don't see that changing. Until there's a massive (and I mean beyond massive) shift in batteries you won't see a mobile device come close to a stationary plugged in device.

Again battery life doesn't matter on a ARM set top box. You are correct that phone gaming is touch based, but Amazon created a controller for the FireTV, and AndroidTV has controller support for a reason.

My point here is you won't get GTA V in all it's HD glory on a phone anytime soon.

My 2012 tablet could play Xbox 1 level games. My 2014 tablet can play 360 level games. Given how fast the market is moving my 2017/18 tablet will be able to play GTA5 in all its glory.

But again, phones and tablets aren't a threat. I only point them out to show how massive those platforms are. The real threat is sub $150 ARM set top boxes. Something like the Razer Forge TV, or more likely a sequel of it, could disrupt the market.

 

[sweenish]

This post acts like Halo, CoD, BF, Uncharted, FF, ME, DA, The Witcher, HL, Persona, CS, GTA, etc. will magically make their way into set top boxes.

Another baseless assumption. People game for the games, not just to game. Console exclusive franchises are obviously not going anywhere. PC-centric devs might port some stuff (as we've already seen), but definitive versions will still be on PC, leaving mobile gimped or worse, riddled with shoddy P2W.

Your constant comparison to 360 games "on mobile now" also never takes into consideration how graphically inferior they are. They have next to no post-processing and far worse textures in general. We still don't have 360/PS3 quality games on mobile, we have games that came out on those platforms and have been downgraded to run on mobile, certainly.

Not to mention that there is still not even a candle to PC gaming.

I do see cheap set top gaming catching on and getting more powerful, but the argument that they will replace consoles I find hard to believe. And that's without even taking the Vita TV into consideration (because it can be easily argued that the Vita TV's shortcomings are everything about it except hardware).

 

[Skel]

What Steam needs is a way to get on Android. Leverage the Linux base and go for it. In four years we will see mobile devices that compete with modern consoles in gaming for $100. Stick Steam on a FireTV 3 and you got a console killer.

I reposted what you had originally said and bold where I disagreed. You seemed to have changed from mobile devices to set top boxes with ARM processors. I'm saying that you won't see mobile devices overtake consoles. It's too different of a market. The internal guts of the console is something else. PS3 had a off the wall CPU in it so who knows what the makers will put into them. My bet though it'll follow a more PC friendly direction as they're making it easier on game devs.

No, something like a FireTV is not a phone. AndroidTV products are not meant to be mobile. The ARM market is not just phones. Amazon made the FireTV pretty much as a console with games in mind. There is no power requirements, or need to sip a battery.

There's still no GPU. That is what breaks the market from the casual phone based game from the hardcore (shutter.. I really hate that phrase) that is GTA and the like. Those games are pushing the limits of processing and graphic processors. When the FireTV gets graphics to the point it can do GTA V, the gaming market will have already moved on driven by Devs making the most out of the new Nvidia and AMD stuff.

Yeah but they are still paying money. EA has no soul, no heart. If they could make more money cranking out freemium games next year rather than traditional console games they would drop console in a heartbeat. That is not the case, but the point is one type of gaming is not more noble than another type. Your money is just as green as someone paying to cheat in Candy Crush.



This "hardcore" market isn't as powerful as you say, or there would have been NO WAY the Wii would have won that generation. Fact is most gamers are casual gamers. The hard cores have been insulated in console land but my whole point is that bubble is about to pop in the next five years.

It's still two markets, and those markets may overlap but don't over write each other. The fact remains that the casual mobile market has little to do with the 'hardcore' market the PS/Xbox target. The Wii came from a different time before the Iphone was released, and offered something different. If the that casual gamer was that important to the console market the Wii U would be selling more.

You hurt your own point there. If people don't care that a console is weaker than a PC, why would they care if a 2016 ARM set top box is a little less weaker than a console? It will be half the price, which inspires them not to care.

A set top box is different than a mobile device. My point was comparing the same game between the PC and the PS4 may give me a few more FPS but it doesn't effect the game enough for most people to care. It does matter greatly when compared to a mobile device as those can't currently touch (Nor do I believe will in the next 5 years) a CPU/GPU setup. If you change up to say that the ARM device is now a set top box with a ARM CPU and a GPU then I'm sure we'll start talking about how FPS matter to someone trying to prove that their beloved platform is the greatest.

I also threw in tablets, which are primarily a entertainment consumption device.

Which still require batteries, so it'll lag behind to save power.

Oh I still see a PS5 happening, it just will be fighting MS for the 40% of the console market that isn't served by ARM set top boxes.



Again battery life doesn't matter on a ARM set top box. You are correct that phone gaming is touch based, but Amazon created a controller for the FireTV, and AndroidTV has controller support for a reason.

Complete change up from the "In four years we will see mobile devices that compete with modern consoles in gaming" you started with. If it's a set top box, it's pretty much a console.

My 2012 tablet could play Xbox 1 level games. My 2014 tablet can play 360 level games. Given how fast the market is moving my 2017/18 tablet will be able to play GTA5 in all its glory.

But again, phones and tablets aren't a threat. I only point them out to show how massive those platforms are. The real threat is sub $150 ARM set top boxes. Something like the Razer Forge TV, or more likely a sequel of it, could disrupt the market.

This is why I posted what you originally said kicking my response. This is a switch from the mobile devices to now a set top box that happens to have a ARM processor. I also was pointing out that they would need to be running the current gen of GTA, I'm sure at the point the tablet is running GTA V we'll have a new version that pushes hardware even farther.

 

[Skel]

This post acts like Halo, CoD, BF, Uncharted, FF, ME, DA, The Witcher, HL, Persona, CS, GTA, etc. will magically make their way into set top boxes.

Another baseless assumption. People game for the games, not just to game. Console exclusive franchises are obviously not going anywhere. PC-centric devs might port some stuff (as we've already seen), but definitive versions will still be on PC, leaving mobile gimped or worse, riddled with shoddy P2W.

Your constant comparison to 360 games "on mobile now" also never takes into consideration how graphically inferior they are. They have next to no post-processing and far worse textures in general. We still don't have 360/PS3 quality games on mobile, we have games that came out on those platforms and have been downgraded to run on mobile, certainly.

Not to mention that there is still not even a candle to PC gaming.

I do see cheap set top gaming catching on and getting more powerful, but the argument that they will replace consoles I find hard to believe. And that's without even taking the Vita TV into consideration (because it can be easily argued that the Vita TV's shortcomings are everything about it except hardware).

Isn't a set top box a console?

 

[poofyhairguy]

If it's a set top box, it's pretty much a console.

Fair enough.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I do see cheap set top gaming catching on and getting more powerful, but the argument that they will replace consoles I find hard to believe.

Agreed, they aren't going to replace consoles completely. But I could see them capturing 50+% of the "console market" when judged by revenue in say 2018.

 

[sweenish]

Isn't a set top box a console?

Not by my definition, no.

I suppose if you want to broaden it to the point of meaninglessness, then sure. Anything box-ish shaped that plugs into a screen is your definition? Or is a TV also a set top box? I mean, you do just set it there. It's also box shaped. And it doesn't go under my entertainment stand, that's for sure.

A set top box to me is a fairly limited box, typically single purpose. FireTV, DVR, Roku, Android TV box, etc. It could be argued that some blu-ray players could fit that definition as well.

Or are we talking about how the eventual $20 blu-ray player will replace the Xbox One in four years?

I mean, guarantee that the day will come soon where "casual" gamers will only need to buy a TV. It will ship with a powerful enough SoC that the games available to that TV will be smooth enough and fun enough for them.

History has shown that is not the case for "real" games. And if we're going to use the Wii as an example, it will sell like gangbusters for a few years, and then nobody will buy anything for it ever again. Meanwhile, "console (set-top box?)" and PC (also set-top box?) players will just keep doing their thing.

 

[mizzou]

I have no interest in "SteamBox" because a steam box is exactly the same as a PC. I do not differentiate PC and SteamBox. What I DO differentiate however is SteamOS. If Gabe can squeeze some astounding performance from linux and other open source engines, making SteamOS the preferred gaming platform...I'll be very interested in SteamOS.