Valve Steambox

[KallDrexx]

Apparently it's been confirmed, Valve is working on a steam home console system.

Most likely it'll be a Linux box (only reason their Linux push makes much sense at all, it would cost more for it to be a windows box, and would be much harder to lock down enough since they won't have full control of the OS), so that means they'll have to push devs to make more linux ports (or it'll be heavily indie based).

[Kageru]

It has the potential to work both ways. They can use Linux as an operating system they have the freedom to modify, no licensing fees and it's not owned by their competition. And if the platform takes off it also helps make linux a viable steam platform elsewhere and helps weaken Microsofts PC dominance. Or it just fails and neither matter, since it seems a decent jump.

I assume the use of gaming middleware has made porting more viable though compared to the old days of programming directly to DirectX or OpenGL.

It's a ballsy move, but it's pretty well timed and playing the long game. The PC market is languishing, there's no leadership since Microsoft is distracted and has irritated the hardware providers. If they can put out a reference standard for a really integrated and open gaming console, media centre and lounge room social network via steam, plus potentially apps as well, it has a shot and it probably doesn't cost them that much to give it a try. And owning a slice of the living room would be rather nice plus some protection against the decline of dedicated PCs.

[Wasted]

I don't care so much about the hardware but if they make a good OS I will drop windows on all my home PC's.

[Kageru]

I only have windows around for games. If steam on linux has even a moderate range of games its gone.

I also think it's capitalizing on the fact that a lot of the tablet users and those with casual computing needs are realizing they really don't need windows. Microsoft has never been this vulnerable before.

[Quinton]

Windows is sort of the big, clunky, Hardware Abstraction Layer for Steam.  I install it just so I can install Steam and use that to install games.

Microsoft is also toying with a more walled garden approach with their store stuff (most significantly on winphone and windows rt / surface), but still... maybe not the ideal time to telegraph to their users and content providers (like Valve) that they're thinking about making the platform more restrictive... just more reason for people to jump ship.

I still am seriously hoping Valve saves me from having to upgrade to Win8...

[eldaec]

If they are aiming at PC gamers this will be an incredibly difficult market to gain critical mass with.

If they are aiming at Xbox/PS crowds then ekeing out market share will be a nightmare.

But if anyone can do it I guess it would be valve.

[Fabricated]

Godspeed to Valve if they think they somehow turn Linux into a gaming environment that won't require any technical knowledge to use. I mean who needs hardware sound support?

[Kageru]

If they are aiming at PC gamers this will be an incredibly difficult market to gain critical mass with.

If they are aiming at Xbox/PS crowds then ekeing out market share will be a nightmare.

I don't think they are. I would suspect the market is a combination of media-PC, light computing and casual gaming crowd. The "serious" people will buy whichever console has the exclusives they care about and if they care about PC gaming have a real PC. But there's a lot of people who aren't going to have a dedicated PC and valve is moving to them. PC gamers will gain from it too.

The problem will be reaching a critical mass of games and installed compatible machines, since they pretty much have to go for linux or microsoft will price them out of the market.

[eldaec]

So only competing with apple, google, and your home telecoms provider then.

Its braver than steam ever was.


I assume the Linux bit will be completely hidden from the end user, in practice this sounds like a brand new platform that has an easier path for indie development to transfer from the PC.

[Kageru]

They might be competing with apple, or they might be collaborating. Both would gain a lot from breaking microsoft's stranglehold. I'm not sure how they're competing with google (though it would be funny if it shipped with google web-apps) and most of the telecoms providers don't have the scale or skill to make it work from what I've seen (though Aus is probably very different from the US).

And yeah, it will almost certainly boot into steam in big picture mode. But since steam is coming out for linux too there's little reason for linux people to care. The fact it's making nvidia and AMD write decent drivers is already paying off.

The real trick is their investment won't be that large because they don't necessarily want to own the platform in the same way MS does. More likely they come out with a spec and sign up one of the PC makers to put out a reference platform. Those guys are seeing very poor PC sales, weak windows 8 sales, they'd probably be keen for a new open platform where they don't have to pay microsoft for the privilege.

[apocrypha]

I've been using a self-built PC in the living room, attached to the TV, for a few years now. It's mostly been used for media playback and web surfing but for gaming it blows the PS3 out of the water.

The issues making consoles better for living room gaming are possibly easily solved, namely controllers and cost. Mouse & keyboard aren't ideal for non-table/desk gaming, but just using a £30 Xbox360 controller for the PC solved that problem for many games.

Steams Big Picture helped a lot with windows UI issues, but something more at the OS level would be even better.

The cost issue is a thornier one IMO. Decent PCs with good gaming graphics cards are expensive, a lot more so than consoles. If you can make gaming from the sofa on a PC user-friendly then it's awesome, but £800 PCs are always going to be a limited market in competition with £200 consoles.

[Amaron]

The cost issue is a thornier one IMO. Decent PCs with good gaming graphics cards are expensive, a lot more so than consoles.

This Steam Box will use exactly the same kind of parts as any other console.  NVidia will license them a cheap mass produced GPU.  It won't even have a graphics card.  They'll cook up a custom mobo and slap the GPU straight on it.  The HTPC market has made all the other hardware for this kind of thing dirt cheap.  I just built my mother a $150 box that would make the 360 cry like a little girl.

[Sky]

good gaming graphics cards are expensive

a cheap mass produced GPU

[Ingmar]

There's like zero chance I'd ever drop Windows just for this, there are still plenty of games not available through Steam that I want to play, and there will continue to be.

[Amaron]

good gaming graphics cards are expensive

a cheap mass produced GPU

What exactly do you call the GPU's that go into other consoles?  Expensive?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20051123214405.html

In 2005 Microsoft was already only paying $150 for GPU + video ram.  There's no way a modern console needs to spend more than $100 on a good GPU/ram combo.  Game development costs have almost completely bottle necked the idea of a super powerful console.  The idea that PC gaming systems have to be expensive is just flat out wrong now.

[Sky]

Put an xbox next to a good gaming pc. The bottleneck is console limitations.

But your opinion is right again.

Do you drink screw top wine? Whatever gets you drunk, right?

[Ingmar]

There's a lot of good screw cap wine these days.

[Sky]

Yeah, I was thinking that as I typed it.

Dammit!

[Amaron]

Put an xbox next to a good gaming pc. The bottleneck is console limitations.

I'm fine if you ignore my post but don't just make shit up and reply.  I never said anything about a performance bottleneck on current software.  I said development costs are a bottleneck on the IDEA of a brand new powerful console. 

Why exactly does Steam need to beat the Xbox 720/PS4 on hardware?

[Ingmar]

Yeah, I was thinking that as I typed it.

Dammit!

I'm pretty sure box wine is still a good go-to for that sort of comparison.

[Sky]

I'm fine if you ignore my post

Ok.

I'm pretty sure box wine is still a good go-to for that sort of comparison.

Not even, the two wino librarians have found some good boxes, too.

[Quinton]

Godspeed to Valve if they think they somehow turn Linux into a gaming environment that won't require any technical knowledge to use. I mean who needs hardware sound support?

I doubt they're worried about turning any arbitrary Linux distro into a gaming environment... and hardware sound support is not actually all that bad if you bypass all the crap audio middleware in Linux and just roll your own...

Think of Linux as a toolkit for building dedicated platforms (Android, Sonos, Roku, etc), instead of an end-user product and it makes more sense.

[Kageru]

Linux is not paying 100$ on each console to compete with microsoft who doesn't need to and can screw you over since you are dependent on them. That's partly why the Microsoft surface was such a great way to irritate the hardware manufacturers.

I wasn't aware the linux audio system was crap, but even if it is you can roll your own or fix it and give those fixes back to the platform so someone else does the integration and maintenance work. Apparently valve's involvement is already helping getting some drastic improvement in Nvidia drivers.

[Kageru]

Various hardware sites commenting on the fact that Xi3 is making an (extremely) small form factor system using an investment from Valve and to Valves specs. It's called the Piston and based on some of the tech used in their thousand buck, same form factor, top end system. Though I assume the piston will be dialled back a bit in specs because that price is too high, although building up their volume would probably help bring down costs too. It's pretty cute, but they never show these things with the power brick and external devices they need.

I hope this is going to be more a reference system for a valve-box PC standard other vendors can build to, though it seems rather specialized for that purpose.  Maybe valve is also trying to drum home the point that it doesn't need to, and indeed shouldn't, look like a typical PC.

Lot's of tech-porn videos but this one from machinima is short and too the point, if a bit breathless.

[Fordel]

It looks super neat, dunno how useful it is in practice, but it looks cool!

[apocrypha]

While that does look awesome I'm starting to feel that there may be too many people chasing an increasingly crowded market over the next year or so.

Ouya, Project Shield, next-gen consoles from all the big players, Steam box, etc etc. Diversity is a good thing, for sure, but not all of these projects are going to succeed and with the sums of money being invested there may well be some big, big failures.

[satael]

It looks super neat, dunno how useful it is in practice, but it looks cool!

It looks nice but I wonder how nice it is once it has a dozen cords and cables attached to it 
I have that problem with my computer case, all sleek and matte-black but the jungle of cables attached to its back just ruins the visual (unless you hide the back)

[MrHat]

RPS.com has a good post on it with a bit more info:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=isfqiYG7wiI

I really love the idea of modular design, but I have no idea how they're going to fit a proper graphics card in there.  Maybe external graphic card too?

It looks nice but I wonder how nice it is once it has a dozen cords and cables attached to it 
I have that problem with my computer case, all sleek and matte-black but the jungle of cables attached to its back just ruins the visual (unless you hide the back)

That's a really good point.  Its going to be a struggle to have a tiny box that is a 9" cube and then having all these cables sticking out of it.  Shit, my Apple TV practically gets lifted by just the 3 cables I have plugged into it.

[Kageru]

There's pictures of it being bolted to the back of a monitor (it has a VESA mount) which keeps it out of the way. But yeah, there's a reason all the display artwork is of just the box itself. I'd consider it but I'd need it sitting on top some real hard-drives and worry that small fan is actually audible.

I really love the idea of modular design, but I have no idea how they're going to fit a proper graphics card in there.  Maybe external graphic card too?

It has integrated ATI graphics. There's no space or ports for a traditional graphic card. Which is fine, the chip vendors are doing a lot of work on integrated graphics for all the tablets and ultrabooks, and it's probably more than powerful enough to run a console box. But it won't have enough power or ventilation to compete with a real PC I would imagine.

[Kageru]

Interesting, but somewhat rambling, interview at The Verge. Pretty much confirms that the "steambox" is more about creating a new standard to push PC's forward. So the xi3 box is a third party supplier but they'll be coming out with their own, linux based, steam box at some point. There's even some picures of their prototype which basically looks like a compact media-PC.

So basically between PC's getting marginalised and Microsoft wanting to be apple I think he believes someone has to point a direction forward for it to survive, which is also pretty important to his business.

[Quinton]

I think we're going to see some definite shakeups in the battle for the living room in the next year or two.   The existing strong platforms (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) are facing competition from the low cost space (inexpensive Android based devices like Ouya, media-playback platforms like Apple TV, Roku, etc, that could easily expand into gaming in their next generation), and the PC manufacturers are definitely interested in finding markets to expand into with mobile starting to eclipse the PC space.  Lots of opportunity for a strong contender with a solid content library (like Valve) to step in.  Harder for the tiny platforms like Ouya, or the oddball form factors like Shield, but who knows.

[Margalis]

I think we're going to see some definite shakeups in the battle for the living room in the next year or two.   The existing strong platforms (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) are facing competition from the low cost space (inexpensive Android based devices like Ouya, media-playback platforms like Apple TV, Roku, etc, that could easily expand into gaming in their next generation), and the PC manufacturers are definitely interested in finding markets to expand into with mobile starting to eclipse the PC space. 

In theory I agree but in practice all these emerging competitors appear to be awful Frankenstein's Monsters of random technology put together with little thought.

The upside of a PC is that it is upgradeable, can be easily tinkered with and plays PC games. Steam Box variants appear to be not upgradeable (or at least not much) and being Linux-based don't play most Steam games...also we are at a point where a decent PC plays console games better than consoles do, but that is going to change relatively soon.

Then there are Android machines that aren't very portable and have a controller instead of a touchscreen. In theory they run every Android game, in practice most Android games are designed for touch screens and aren't the kind of games you want to sit down and play at a TV. Android / iPhone is all about playing games because they are cheap and you are taking a dump - I can't imagine a lot of people thinking "man if only I could play this Android game on a TV with a controller!!"

Then there is the whole copying of the WiiU streaming angle. The thing is a PC game designed to run on a large screen at high res, if you shrink that down to a 5-inch screen a lot of games are going to be unreadable. (Turbo Express had this exact problem) And PC games are designed for mouse/keyboard, but for these streaming devices to be portable they have a controller.

The idea of a lower cost console that plays steam games or android games and/or connects to a tv and/or can have games streamed to it makes some sense but it doesn't seem to me that anyone has hit on the right combination.

I'm also a little skeptical that with the rate of revision of mobile devices these aren't going to be dogged with "this isn't even released yet and already more powerful machines are just around the corner."

I suspect most or all of these are going to fail pretty hard. That said I also believe that either Sony or MS is going to fail pretty hard as well. Fails all around!

[Fabricated]

A good PC is expensive compared to a console despite the fact that building a good PC is cheaper than ever and gets cheaper pretty much every year.

Without customized hardware like a console has, being sold by a company with incredibly close contact with the companies that fabricate every part of it, how are you going to do better than a mediocre microitx PC?

[Kageru]

The upside of a PC is that it is upgradeable, can be easily tinkered with and plays PC games. Steam Box variants appear to be not upgradeable (or at least not much) and being Linux-based don't play most Steam games...also we are at a point where a decent PC plays console games better than consoles do, but that is going to change relatively soon.

Most of the steam boxes we've seen so far are just manufacturers doing what they do and calling it steam-box compatible because they desperately need to pretend they have a large stable of content. Xi3 wants to make small PC's, Nvidia really wants you to stream video from some hulking PC with one of their grunt video cards and razor wanted to make a gaming tablet with a silly price tag. The box valve are using to demonstrate the concept is apparently an off the shelf mini-ITX PC. And they can pretty easily compete with the next gen consoles with that since most of those are PC hardware based anyway this time round.

But perhaps that's the point. Valve isn't going to / can't afford to spend the billions microsoft did on making the x-box stick and buying exclusives, they don't really want to own the platform (they just want it to run steam). They're more likely to point out some directions (eg. "PC's in the living room!"), have some sort of standardisation / branding process, and see if they can't convince other vendors to stop copying apple/google and see if they can come up with some products that stick. With Valve having a go themselves when they release their own steam-box (eventually).

I don't think being upgradeable is that core to the PC. With hardware being more integrated the only real upgrading that happens in most cases is a new video card or some more ram. And even that counts as enthusiast I suspect. The most important thing about the PC is that no one vendor owns it and gains a huge competitive advantage thereby. Which of course is why the really big names, who can compete head to head, have no interest in it.

[Yegolev]

Since I have to buy a new mobo whenever I buy a new CPU, PCs are somewhat less upgradeable now.