Steam page shows 3 announcements coming

[tviceman]

Basically, Steam OS exists for monetary reasons - if they essentially lock an audience into steam os they will ensure that they monopolize PC digital distribution. This will be a tough sell, though, because they have to convince developers. I don't imagine that will happen aside from a few indie titles because the great majority of PC gamers are using Windows 7 and 8 and do not have a compelling reason to switch.

I don't entirely agree with all of this. Windows licenses are sold at a discount to tablet sized PC's only. The cost for system builders is always ~$100. Besides that moot point, the overarching strategy is money yes, but it's more broad than you imply.

 

[BD2003]

I still don't understand the overwhelming negativity surrounding it. We've been gaming on an OS primarily designed for business for several decades now, and they've let the gaming side it languish for the better part of the last decade. The company most responsible for picking up that slack and making PC gaming viable again, is taking a step back and creating an OS that's first and foremost about games. A chance at a fresh start that can remove all the cruft that's built up over the past few decades of windows. And under terms that should be agreeable to the entire industry, both hardware and software. I don't understand how anyone can hear that and not be excited.

 

[Lonyo]

I don't entirely agree with all of this. Windows licenses are sold at a discount to tablet sized PC's only. The cost for system builders is always ~$100. Besides that moot point, the overarching strategy is money yes, but it's more broad than you imply.

Dell does not pay $100 for a copy of Windows. If it pays at all, in net terms.
The Ubuntu version of one product was $50 cheaper.
Some Linux versions are more expensive because Dell gets paid by other companies to bundle their products e.g. trial versions of Norton, which reduces the net cost paid for Windows.

http://readwrite.com/2013/03/07/mic...rs-windows-8-in-trouble#awesm=~oimm15vNEbpWlM

Usual bundle price of Office AND Windows is $120. Windows alone is not going to be $100 even for "regular" pricing to a big OEM like Dell etc.
And it's being discounted to $30 for some systems.

 

[Stringjam]

From pc it will stream to box and lets just say have 100ms of latency.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here, but there should be less than 1 ms latency on your home network.

You can send a round-trip ping packet almost halfway across the country and back in 100ms.

 

[darkewaffle]

I still don't understand the overwhelming negativity surrounding it. We've been gaming on an OS primarily designed for business for several decades now, and they've let the gaming side it languish for the better part of the last decade. The company most responsible for picking up that slack and making PC gaming viable again, is taking a step back and creating an OS that's first and foremost about games. A chance at a fresh start that can remove all the cruft that's built up over the past few decades of windows. And under terms that should be agreeable to the entire industry, both hardware and software. I don't understand how anyone can hear that and not be excited.

Because these are things "everyone says" and yet my games still work great as it is. I don't have any problems with Windows but swapping my HTPC to "SteamOS" would take not an insignificant amount of time, force me to find compatible copies or substitutes for the codecs/programs/utilities that I use regularly (if they exist at all), and (imo so far) re-learn something for no reason other than change for the sake of change.

If nothing else I'd rather be "locked into" a Windows environment than a Steam environment. Microsoft has a far better track record in terms of actual program performance and usability to me. Steam has nice sales, but the program itself is really unimpressive to me at this point and has been stagnant on the features that I'd care about for ages. No UI customization, no bandwidth control, no library management, requires a startup service, constantly schilling social tie-ins and developing faux-features (cards, levels, badges, achievements, etc) to hook people to their product without actually making it better. I don't want a Steam OS because I don't trust Valve to deliver a good product when it comes to something outside their wheelhouse, games.

 

[Red Storm]

Because these are things "everyone says" and yet my games still work great as it is. I don't have any problems with Windows but swapping my HTPC to "SteamOS" would take not an insignificant amount of time, force me to find compatible copies or substitutes for the codecs/programs/utilities that I use regularly (if they exist at all), and (imo so far) re-learn something for no reason other than change for the sake of change.

If nothing else I'd rather be "locked into" a Windows environment than a Steam environment. Microsoft has a far better track record in terms of actual program performance and usability to me. Steam has nice sales, but the program itself is really unimpressive to me at this point and has been stagnant on the features that I'd care about for ages. No UI customization, no bandwidth control, no library management, requires a startup service, constantly schilling social tie-ins and developing faux-features (cards, levels, badges, achievements, etc) to hook people to their product without actually making it better. I don't want a Steam OS because I don't trust Valve to deliver a good product when it comes to something outside their wheelhouse, games.

So then don't use it? Continue gaming on as you have been...

 

[evident]

On a PC with an SSD, you could swap OSes in 10 seconds or so. All they'd need to do to convince people those ten seconds are worth it is to show the same game running faster on SteamOS than Windows.

on a modern pc, most games run pretty fast... I see this as using the die hard linux base to support a vendor lock in attempt. installing steamos just to play games that i can already play under windows would be a big hassle for no value added :thumbsdown:


now, if this steamOS can be a replacement for windows media center, with cablecard and tv tuner support, that's a whole different story! but i highly doubt that valve wants to invest that much money for those features.

 

[BD2003]

on a modern pc, most games run pretty fast... I see this as using the die hard linux base to support a vendor lock in attempt. installing steamos just to play games that i can already play under windows would be a big hassle for no value added :thumbsdown:


now, if this steamOS can be a replacement for windows media center, with cablecard and tv tuner support, that's a whole different story! but i highly doubt that valve wants to invest that much money for those features.

Well, that's the thing. Valve doesn't have to. It's still an open platform, and it's still Linux. I'm pretty sure that kind of software already exists on Linux, it's just a matter of tweaking and packaging it to work with the specifics of SteamOS. I'm sure the XBMC team and whoever else is working on Linux media software is going to be all over this.

 

[smackababy]

Well, that's the thing. Valve doesn't have to. It's still an open platform, and it's still Linux. I'm pretty sure that kind of software already exists on Linux, it's just a matter of tweaking and packaging it to work with the specifics of SteamOS. I'm sure the XBMC team and whoever else is working on Linux media software is going to be all over this.

Like they've been all over Linux for the past how many years?

And driver support is still awful. Valve had better leverage hardware vendors to make drivers that aren't complete crap on Linux by giving them money, because that is what speaks to them. They know that Linux has a fraction of the marketshare and thus there is no incentive to develop / support it. Unless it gets a larger percentage, they won't. On the other hand, users won't support Linux because it doesn't have the support of hardware vendors. Thus, we have a big problem Valve can solve by throwing money at, but will they?

Valve had better announce some real value added features for their OS, because right now, it looks like a "Windows hate bandwagon" OS and not a real gamer OS. People cry about Windows 'bloat', but as soon as MS removes something like legacy drivers or BitLocker, gamers freak out and cry. So, the OS gets bigger without losing support.

 

[BD2003]

Because these are things "everyone says" and yet my games still work great as it is. I don't have any problems with Windows but swapping my HTPC to "SteamOS" would take not an insignificant amount of time, force me to find compatible copies or substitutes for the codecs/programs/utilities that I use regularly (if they exist at all), and (imo so far) re-learn something for no reason other than change for the sake of change.

If nothing else I'd rather be "locked into" a Windows environment than a Steam environment. Microsoft has a far better track record in terms of actual program performance and usability to me. Steam has nice sales, but the program itself is really unimpressive to me at this point and has been stagnant on the features that I'd care about for ages. No UI customization, no bandwidth control, no library management, requires a startup service, constantly schilling social tie-ins and developing faux-features (cards, levels, badges, achievements, etc) to hook people to their product without actually making it better. I don't want a Steam OS because I don't trust Valve to deliver a good product when it comes to something outside their wheelhouse, games.

Sure, that's all fair criticism. But some of that stuff is due to legacy from windows...it's impossible to just move a game from one drive to another because so much gets tied up in registry, user folders, etc...and Microsoft seems to change how that works with every release. I mean seriously, do my game saves really belong in "my documents"? I'm not crazy about the social tie ins either, but windows isn't exactly light on ecosystem tie- in BS with windows 8. It's like the entire start screen is one gigantic ad for Microsoft services.

I'm sure there will be growing pains, and the first few releases will probably be missing enough functionality that it'll be hard to justify a total swap. But whenever MS tries out a new input style, they ALWAYS half-ass it. Pocket PC and Windows mobile was total garbage, because they couldn't let go windows and rethink the UI to be phone first - apple came along and did it. Windows media center was always kind of meh, you'd still need a kb/mouse to configure it. The original tablet PCs were garbage, anyone remember UMPCs? Now they went ahead and ruined desktop windows by shoehorning a tablet OS on top of it. Theoretically SteamOS is built from the ground up for living room/HTPCs. If they get that right, it'll probably be as transformative to HTPCs as the iPhone was for smartphones. I'm just glad to finally see someone put the HTPC first and foremost, and Valve is really the only company with the clout to make it happen.

 

[chadashcroft22]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here, but there should be less than 1 ms latency on your home network.

You can send a round-trip ping packet almost halfway across the country and back in 100ms.

I agree but I was factoring in the encoding time it will take on the pc too because I don't see them making this an nvidia 500+ series only console. And I am no engineer but the way nvidia makes it sound it could be magnitudes worse for implementations that aren't done directly on the gpu. I mean valve can't be that stupid to lock it down to just top end nvidia cards right?

 

[Staples]

Just another thought. Steam OS will not have Origin or the Windows store on it.

 

[showb1z]

Considering how people apparently seem to dig this streaming business on places like reddit I'm surprised Nvidia Shield didn't dwarf the iPhone 5S launch.

 

[BD2003]

Like they've been all over Linux for the past how many years?

And driver support is still awful. Valve had better leverage hardware vendors to make drivers that aren't complete crap on Linux by giving them money, because that is what speaks to them. They know that Linux has a fraction of the marketshare and thus there is no incentive to develop / support it. Unless it gets a larger percentage, they won't. On the other hand, users won't support Linux because it doesn't have the support of hardware vendors. Thus, we have a big problem Valve can solve by throwing money at, but will they?

Valve had better announce some real value added features for their OS, because right now, it looks like a "Windows hate bandwagon" OS and not a real gamer OS. People cry about Windows 'bloat', but as soon as MS removes something like legacy drivers or BitLocker, gamers freak out and cry. So, the OS gets bigger without losing support.

Well it's chicken and egg. The hardware support isn't there because the games aren't there, because the users aren't there. Valve is at the center of all of that, they can totally bring it together given a few years. Don't underestimate how quickly things can change. People said the same thing about Android (which is also Linux based), and less than 5 years later it absolutely dominates global smartphone market share. The first android release had almost no hardware or software support, tons of people predicted its absolute failure. Now there's a new android phone every other week, app support is up there with iOS, and the old players in the smartphone biz like blackberry are basically irrelevant. The VAST majority of android users have no idea it has anything to do with Linux, and they don't need to, because it just works.

I can totally see a day where people can just walk into best buy, pick from one of many SteamOS devices, bring it home and start gaming within minutes.

 

[werepossum]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/6/3958162/valve-steam-box-cake

1. Gabe himself has already said he wants 3 tiers of Steam Box hardware, "good, better and best." Also remember it is simply a standard. How companies implement the standard will greatly affect the cost.

2. Not any more.
http://www.themortonreport.com/home-away/gadgets/gadget-review-amimons-whdi-stick/

That article is from 2011, and concerning wireless HDMI it states "Video quality was only negligibly lower than that achieved via a wired connection and showed no perceptible lag, stuttering or pixilation."

So if it was working in 2011, I imagine it's come up another notch or two in the last couple of years. Remains to be seen if it can be competitive with twitch shooters, but I don't think the problem's as insurmountable as you make it out.

3. Given that you can already launch most outside games through steam, would make sense to extend similar support to the linux version.

4. Perhaps, but this isn't for those people. Plenty of people out there who would want to play their PC like a console but haven't invested for whatever reason.

5. At this point an exclusive would backfire, and I'm pretty sure that's not on the agenda (unless Gabe has gone completely nuts).

Above all, assuming this takes off it could bring PC gaming to the console gaming masses. That would be awesome.

One of the greatest things about PC gaming is the huge title of dirt cheap titles, many of which have fan-based mods to bring quality up to modern standards. If those could be brought to a console-like state, where there is nothing to configure or play around with or hunt down to make the game play properly, that would be a great boon to PC gaming. However, looks to me like a Steam Box or SteamOS PC would be a competitor rather than an implementation of PC gaming as we know it. How many developers are going to spend the money to recode for SteamOS games that sell for $5 or $10? Even if they already have a Linux version, there will be some coding required for SteamOS, and on cheap games I can't see how that cost gets rewarded even if your target office wasn't people who object to spending $100 for an OS. If it's only streaming and it does that very well, then that's all well and good, but it will have to compete with WMC and ChromeOS as Google also wants to be the next Evil Empire.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

maybe it's the steamos that runs on the steambox that connects to the steam portable that can run software off local storage or remote in to the steam box so you can plate remotely.

 

[BD2003]

Most smaller games are going to be using engines like unity that handle the vast majority of that nonsense for them. If anything the smaller games like limbo or bastion are the ones first to push into uncharted territory like this.

 

[irishScott]

Except by having tiers of products, with the lowest one almost certain to be more expensive than a console (if it's an actual gaming system, rather than one which simply streams from your main PC) then you're already having issues.
Developers are going to do what they already do and games won't be optimised, which means consoles will enjoy a price/performance advantage and unless you spend a lot you won't really get a great experience.
People already have tablets, so they don't really need a full computer hooked up to their TV.
Their console can also access streaming movies/music etc, so they don't need SteamOS for that.

The idea of a dedicated PC hooked up to your TV for gaming made more sense 2 or 3 years ago than it does now, given that a console+tablet combination is probably both more powerful, and more typical of what consumers would go for.
It's a product which has arrived too late to market.

From the article:

A Good platform might run you around $99, but Newell told he he hopes they’ll eventually be offered for free. For such a low price, there’s a catch: these Steam Boxes are intended to be a "very low-cost streaming solution," which means you'll need another more powerful PC in the house to stream games. Newell also said casual gaming could quickly be available on this end, which means a Good box will probably play casual games — games like the ones you might play in your browser, or on your smartphone. There’s still a lot we don’t know about devices in this tier, but the impression we got from Newell is that a Good box could be something like the Ouya, which is a small, $109 Android-powered game console that plays mobile games on the TV.
Valve_patent_wireframe_d_405px

A Better device is expected to cost around $300, which is about what a basic Xbox 360 cost when it launched. Newell told us this tier will feature advanced processors and graphics cards, which means that it should be able to play most PC games, with graphics that could be better than anything Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo have (or will) offer. He also said that, like consoles, devices in this tier should be small and quiet; "[Valve’s position is:] let’s build a thing that’s quiet and focuses on high performance and appropriate form factors," Newell told us. There’s no obvious catch we’re aware of yet for this tier, except that it might be tough to actually sell a capable machine for just $300 (more on that later).
Valve wants to define three types of Steam Box hardware: "Good, Better," and "Best"

Based on what Newell told us, the Best tier really just seems like what PC gamers are already familiar with; it’s basically a PC with whatever Steam Box manufacturers want to throw in — whether that’s a ridiculously expensive graphics card, an optical drive, a huge case, or something else that can’t be sold for $300 or meet Valve’s Better specifications. That means gamers and manufacturers will still be able to build their own crazy PC gaming systems.

 

[irishScott]

I don't think it is so much just the wireless that will add a lot of latency as the nvidia shield works fine. Just think about the chain of commands to make this work (Numbers are guestimated).

From pc it will stream to box and lets just say have 100ms of latency. Then from the box to the tv can be 1000s of ms of latency depending on tv model. Then from there you react on your wireless control to jump and this has probably another 50-100ms of latency. Then the box has to send this input back up to the pc to start this whole chain of events over.

When you add television latency which is already a problem on most tvs and add latency of a control and a wireless stream it will not be a pleasant experience no matter how much valve has optimized it. Just remember nvidia had to put a special decoder in the chip of there high end gpus just to get the latency low enough for the encode part. And they have the benefit on the display being built directly into the controller to solve two latency issues alone.

The only close thing I can compare this to would be trying to do a first person shooter on a satellite internet connection. I think they would have a better chance of releasing an actual console and trying to go head to head with the big guys because once reviewers get a hold of this they will tear valve a new one.

1000 ms? Not even close, at least on a modern TV. Hell if your TV has a full second of lag you shouldn't own any video game console.

CNET tested 20 models and got results from 16.9 ms to 129.8 ms.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57587317-221/game-mode-on-cnet-tests-tvs-for-input-lag/

If the descriptions Gave gave in the article are accurate, "good" will be a pure streamer, "better" and "best" will effectively be HTPCs with presumably adequate - top of the line graphics and storage. So if you invest in one of the higher tiers, would make sense to simply store any latency-dependent games locally.

 

[irishScott]

Also, this is conveniently timed:

"Nvidia seeks peace with Linux, pledges help on open source driver"
http://arstechnica.com/information-...ith-linux-pledges-help-on-open-source-driver/

 

[smackababy]

1000 ms? Not even close, at least on a modern TV. Hell if your TV has a full second of lag you shouldn't own any video game console.

CNET tested 20 models and got results from 16.9 ms to 129.8 ms.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57587317-221/game-mode-on-cnet-tests-tvs-for-input-lag/

If the descriptions Gave gave in the article are accurate, "good" will be a pure streamer, "better" and "best" will effectively be HTPCs with presumably adequate - top of the line graphics and storage. So if you invest in one of the higher tiers, would make sense to simply store any latency-dependent games locally.

The problem is 'good' is pretty much such a niche machine PC gamers won't buy it. They hate consolization enough as it is, why support a product that is made for it? The 'better' and 'best', in order to compete with the PS4 and Xbox One will need serious power, thus will cost a lot more. Why would I buy a $600 Steam Box when I can buy a $400 PS4 and get arguably better console games? Sure, the Steam OS is likely to have more functionality than a PS4, but exactly how much? We don't even know yet. The majority of things people want to do on their PCs have an app on Xbox / PS4. They are even including a browser IIRC.

 

[irishScott]

The problem is 'good' is pretty much such a niche machine PC gamers won't buy it. They hate consolization enough as it is, why support a product that is made for it? The 'better' and 'best', in order to compete with the PS4 and Xbox One will need serious power, thus will cost a lot more. Why would I buy a $600 Steam Box when I can buy a $400 PS4 and get arguably better console games? Sure, the Steam OS is likely to have more functionality than a PS4, but exactly how much? We don't even know yet. The majority of things people want to do on their PCs have an app on Xbox / PS4. They are even including a browser IIRC.

Valve might be able to subsidize the costs Amazon-style, Gabe even hinted at something like that we he said he hoped "good" boxes would eventually be offered for free. But yeah, we don't know at this point. I agree that if it's not price-competitive it'll fall flat.

According to The Verge's compilation, Gabe expects "better" to cost around $300.

 

[fixbsod]

Still scratching my head on why this SteamOS is even news. As said ad nauseum -- if you wanna game on your TV then hook up an HDMI cable. I bought some cheapy $7-8 cable off Amazon and it works wonders. Where it does fall apart is the wireless USB keyb/mouse seems to have shite range. I haven't bothered looking for a better setup as I still prefer gaming at the desktop 100x over couch. I am curious how streaming over lan is going to work as even gigabit setups seem starved for bandwidth. I'm seeing 2-4 gigabit/sec required for 1080p??

http://www.avsforum.com/t/996218/how-to-calculate-hdmi-bandwidth

If they're dropping bw then they're dropping quality in which case what is the point at all?? Have a super computer stream something but in order to stream it drops quality so you may as well just rig up an HDMI cable in the first place?

This seems to me just a way to increase the NUMBER of announcements. I anticipate SteamBox #2 and HL3 #3 (gasp). Hence the O+O (big eyes). I know Valve is crazy tight lipped about stuff but I can't help but feel the "3 announcements" was a hinting they were about to announce HL3. HL2 was used to get steam into every PC and it worker, HL3 can be used to get SteamBox into ea living room.

Aside-- can anyone point me to where valves announcements are being posted? their news feed last update is family sharing, their blog is about collectible trading cards. valve's main webpage? big picture. Talk about a fractured fucking mess...FOUND it -- op post derr, but still what a mess.

 

[Kalmah]

Apparently these are showing up at Best Buys.

 

[Childs]

Apparently these are showing up at Best Buys.

More than likely this is just a PC with Steam maximized, not an actual SteamBox. If not, then I've had a SteamBox for around 10 years. :biggrin: