SteamOS

[ZeroAX]

From what I read online this is like onlive only with your own computer being the server. So a streaming service for all your house devices. Sounds cool . I can see smart tvs using this.

[Hatta]

They hadn't already announced the steambox? Didn't they show off the prototype at CES?

[noiseredux]

alright so what we're thinking is this: it used to be assumed that the SteamBox would be a sort of mass-produced living-room-centric PC that was powerful enough to run all our Steam games. But now we think that we need to already have our own PC's powerful enough to run the games, PLUS we need to buy a SteamBox which is just used to stream the game from said PC?

I'm pretty on the fence about whether this is awesome or not. And I think price-point will be the deciding factor.

[fastbilly1]

It's pretty obvious. A computer can't do anything without an OS. If Valve is shipping a SteamBox they need a SteamOS to go on that box. Just like if Sony ships the PS3, they need system software to go with it. Since they have the OS, and it's built on Linux which supports just about any combination of PC hardware you want, it's not a whole lot of work to just publish their own OS.

Now the question is why I would want SteamOS on my HTPC instead of just running the Steam client on my existing Linux install.

Actually, I was wondering why they announced the OS before the box, if that is what they are doing.

The OS may be instead of the box

[fastbilly1]

alright so what we're thinking is this: it used to be assumed that the SteamBox would be a sort of mass-produced living-room-centric PC that was powerful enough to run all our Steam games. But now we think that we need to already have our own PC's powerful enough to run the games, PLUS we need to buy a SteamBox which is just used to stream the game from said PC?

I'm pretty on the fence about whether this is awesome or not. And I think price-point will be the deciding factor.

Think of it this way. It is an OS that runs some games now, more games later. And can stream from your gaming pc to your tv if you are so inclined. It is a HTPC that can function like a Thinclient. To me, this is awesome (mostly since that is what I was about to build anyway).

[ZeroAX]

This is valve we are talking about. I'd trust them to raise my children.

[Hatta]

alright so what we're thinking is this: it used to be assumed that the SteamBox would be a sort of mass-produced living-room-centric PC that was powerful enough to run all our Steam games. But now we think that we need to already have our own PC's powerful enough to run the games, PLUS we need to buy a SteamBox which is just used to stream the game from said PC?

Hopefully it's more flexible than that. Here's what it sounds like to me: If you have an existing HTPC, you can put SteamOS on it, and it will run games that your HTPC can handle. If you don't have an HTPC, you can buy a Steam box, and run games that the Steam box can handle. If you already have a powerful desktop in your office, you can run games that your powerful desktop can handle, and stream it to either of the above options.

The OS may be instead of the box, but enough people don't have HTPCs that I think it makes sense for them to produce a box. We'll see.

[noiseredux]

The OS may be instead of the box, but enough people don't have HTPCs that I think it makes sense for them to produce a box. We'll see.

yeah, I always figured the idea of the SteamBox was to make a PC that was sort of console-in-thinking. Kind of like the whole Games For Windows thing where you kind of knew that if you had a certain PC setup then you could definitely run any game that said that on the box. I thought that basically the idea was "here's a standardized PC that can play any games released on Steam (maybe not at highest settings, but would maybe auto-detect that you were using that hardware and configure accordingly)."

[fastbilly1]

noise that was just a commonly held theory. The only details we had on a steambox was some vague comments made by people at Valve and the fact that they hired a lot of Hardware guys.

[isiolia]

Hopefully it's more flexible than that. Here's what it sounds like to me: If you have an existing HTPC, you can put SteamOS on it, and it will run games that your HTPC can handle. If you don't have an HTPC, you can buy a Steam box, and run games that the Steam box can handle. If you already have a powerful desktop in your office, you can run games that your powerful desktop can handle, and stream it to either of the above options.

It'll definitely be flexible, as it'd make no business sense for it not to be. The streaming capabilities give it an immediate relevance - they could easily offer a low end Bay Trail box that'd just do that for relatively low cost. Even if that's all it winds up doing, that expands the appeal of Steam - end users want games on Steam because they can stream them, and in turn publishers want their games there to fill that demand.

What it also means is improving the tech needed to use a thin client like that for gaming. From the user end, they're just accessing their games via Steam. In time, that could mean locally run Linux versions. That could mean normalizing the OnLive style cloud streaming - or a local variant of it that sees us buying a home server that does all the heavy lifting. Maybe in a few years, you'll add PC gaming to your network like you can add storage now with a NAS.