Steambox is real

[Erik_Twice]

what Valve is going after is the restricted console market. The people who refuse to play PC games ... because it's at a desk.

Yeah, that's totally not alarming!

You said it yourself. The premier PC retailer is forgoing the mouse and any semblance of customization to make yet another walled garden in the form of a console. This won't give us any more cool games, all it means is that the more popular it gets, the less of a chance we have of playing another Starcraft, Quake or Cilization because playing in the couch doesn't support it.

And that's incredibly worrying.

[Cronozilla]

Right now games aren't even being made for PC. Games are being made for consoles, then maybe ported and only this last year were we seeing any ports worth much. The commercial games developed for PC primarily are far and few between.

We have a really large problem in the PC gaming space, namely, there's a lot of bloat. What Valve is talking about here is giving an excuse to developers to develop more on PC as hardware and not specifically just Windows. This is a good thing.

Creating a baseline for games on PC would be, in general, a good thing ... because PC games are already, largely, being limited by console hardware standards. And the different ranges of components is the biggest hurdle when it comes to creating commercial products (not to mention the ludicrous software differences)

PC standards make sense. They allow you to branch out to be API independent, they give you a bare minimum standard for development ... not a restriction, and it starts building some standardization.

This is eliminating barriers, not creating them.
PC games are already limited by bloated software (Windows' device management, Drivers, APIs that aren't properly written) and consoles. Right now, even some of the best ported games of last year, like Borderlands 2 are pathetically under-utilizing the hardware. These applications are still 32-bit, for example. They can only access 4GB or so of memory space before relying on the hard drive ... this is ridiculous when you have 16GB sitting in the system and only 2GB is being used outside of the game. We need a standard specifically for PC ... not an adopted one where everything just gets crammed in when stuff is moved over.

Nothing about this is going to stifle what people can do on the platform ... it's just going to open more avenues. And all the work Valve is doing getting this stuff working in, for example, the Linux space, is only going to benefit PC gamers. The fact that they're producing some dedicated hardware is no big deal ... it's just an extension of this idea. I really doubt just because they made a dedicated box that will help getting more developers on board with PC, and more users on board with PC will ultimately eliminate the PC gamer market. The work that they do on this device will help free up games on the PC platform, in general. If there's 27 different steam boxes all with different hardware in them ... but following a cohesive standard that developers can aim at ... you're going to get games that are more scalable than what's already on PC up and down. And, you're going to increase the PC market-share so that PC games will get more focus and attention when being developed.

Unless you'd like the eventuality of having no PC exclusives and the only games that show up are bloated ports that only run well because your hardware is 15x more powerful than the original target hardware and is only accessible with proper software authorization through the Microsoft store ... because that's where we're heading, currently, and there's no reason to think Microsoft won't do for software what they did for drivers.

So, I say that anything that helps create a PC unique standard outside of the console space and helps eliminate those software barriers that are placed for no reason but to control content on the platform, and increase the user base at the same time ... is all the better.

And if this looks like an anti-Microsoft post ... it is, because they're the primary problem when it comes to PC gaming. From what I can tell, they have one part of their company sort of supporting PC gaming ... and the majority of their company working against it. It would be nothing but beneficial for Microsoft to get games out of the PC space entirely ... or to control them more. And it looks like they're going after the latter option. Which is going to lead to less content showing up and a more closed environment on an open platform. No thanks.

[Erik_Twice]

The Steambox revitalizes PC gaming the same way Resident Evil 6 revitalized Survival Horror. It won't get more PC games made because they won't be PC games anymore.


If it were just a good desktop computer running Linux or whatever, I would be very happy with it but, alas, it isn't. It's another console designed for your living room and won't offer me anything Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony already give me other than shinier graphics in a standarized TV.

[Betamax001]

I think the real question about it is, is this what Valve was working on instead of Half Life 3?

[Erik_Twice]

I think the real question about it is, is this what Valve was working on instead of Half Life 3?

It wouldn't surprise me if HL3 was released on this thing to lure costumers in the same way HL2 was used to lure people into Steam.

[isiolia]

If it were just a good desktop computer running Linux or whatever, I would be very happy with it but, alas, it isn't. It's another console designed for your living room and won't offer me anything Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony already give me other than shinier graphics in a standarized TV.

It really remains to be seen. I think a lot of what's been announced could be interpreted as expanding what Steam does, coupled with a logo program of sorts. As a parallel, you install iTunes, and it includes drivers/support for iOS devices and Bonjour. Right now, Steam is more or less a launcher with community features. Maybe they're looking at rolling in support for input devices, network protocols, and so on that they feel are off the radar for OS makers. Doing that could make it more of a platform in and of itself that is more independent of the host OS.

Making maybe a yearly "standard" for gaming PC specs makes some sense too. Not that developers would need to build directly for it. We already have that kind of thing. Multiple times. Remember MPC? Or how about the system ranking in modern Windows?

PC games already get built for minimum configurations, recommended ones, and so on. Valve is already quite aware of what people have, or obviously might benefit from having considering they list the minimum configs for the games they offer. It could be less of a "this is the machine for 2014" and more of a "you will want a machine at least this good for 2014" kind of thing.

Right now games aren't even being made for PC. Games are being made for consoles, then maybe ported and only this last year were we seeing any ports worth much. The commercial games developed for PC primarily are far and few between.

Depends on the genre. Nearly all MMOs are developed exclusively for the PC. True simulations, strategy in both real time and turn based forms, MOBAs... you don't have many sky-is-the-limit FPS games and whatnot coming out, but there are definitely made for PC games.

If you want to be technical about it, quite a lot of fighters n' things are actually PC-first games since that's what the arcade versions run on

[fastbilly1]

If you want to be technical about it, quite a lot of fighters n' things are actually PC-first games since that's what the arcade versions run on

That can actually be a really good thing:

[Erik_Twice]

I know there's an entire network of fans who smuggle Beatmania hard drives from Japan and hack them so you can run them on your computer.

[ZenErik]

That sounds awesome. I want Beatmania on my computer! where can I get in on this?

[Forlorn Drifter]

I don't know what they plan to do here, but I love the idea of a steam box. Due to a previously mentioned physical ailment, I will finally be able to play a larger variety of PC games without having to jump through a huge amount of hoops just to get the damn thing to run with a controller.


Ideally, I see a smallish PC with the major components broken down into various "boards" that can be easily removed and then replaced. The come color coded, with different colors meaning different levels of power. This way, one will be able to buy the power they want/need/can afford. This system will also be able to use M&KB, I'm sure, for those looking in that direction.

Might not be explained well, I'm not running on all cylinders right now.