I built a steambox a few days ago. Dropped $500 for a pretty performant dedicated gaming box. 8gb ram, 120gb ssd, and a $120 video card.
The Steam big-picture mode is pretty slick, but not all of the games work seamlessly with an xbox controller so I've found that you generally need to keep the mouse and keyboard around.
Instead of keeping it plugged into my TV, I now plugged in an old monitor and the girlfriend has been enjoying the sims 3.
Steam absolutely knows what they're doing and they have a real shot of widespread adoption if they build their own linux based Steam Box. The big issue is going to be game compatibility with whatever hardware / controller configuration they go with.
Essentially, how often will Valve upgrade its Steam Box? Certainly more than every 6-7 years. For those of you thinking right now: "you can ugprade it yourself!", well, yes you could , but that defeats the whole purpose of having one standardized spec for developers to target. Throw in a new graphics card here and there, and you've suddenly splintered your user base into those with PCs, Official Steam Boxes from Valve, and Official Steam Boxes from Valve that have been upgrade by the users. And now, certain games will only work on some combination of those three.
I'm a fan of Valve, their games, and their culture, and want to see this succeed. I'm sure they've put much thought into scenarios like this and trust them to make the right decision.
One problem I see with low cost custom-built gaming boxes is that the Windows licence takes up a massive share of the price. I hope that Valve’s push to Linux will lead developers there as well but I don’t see the big publishers jumping on that in a hurry.
The crazy thing is that hardware compatibility might sort of solve itself. Developers already have to deal with all the different hardware permutations; making sure that a single specific one, with a known software configuration to boot, should be pretty easy.
They'll still have to convince people to develop a Linux version in the first place, though...
The hardware they will launch on is probably going to be more powerful and with support for full HSA (heterogenous computing) and with DDR4 RAM, if they are going to wait until 2014 to launch it (and assuming they are going to use AMD's delayed and probably modified Kaveri APU).
As nice as it is to link to the actual interview, the blog post does so as well, and adds its own content to the mix. I don't see what's pasted or spammy about this.
I'll be interested to see if Valve will release a Linux-only or a Linux/Windows hybrid box. It is possible today to have a system where you keep two VMs suspended - a linux vm and a windows vm and thaw one to run the program you need, with pci pass-through to give it full control of the video card. This is quite feasible if they go with ATI hardware that has open documentation.
Save system state, boot windows vm, launch game (somehow passing the information to the steam instance in the windows vm, but that's the least of your worries), once game finishes, freeze vm, restore system state and show regular steam-on-linux interface.
I've had before the idea of building a system built on a hypervisor that lets you dynamically switch vms, but the high cost of hardware with an iommu and the pretty astronomical cost of this for a hobby project (i.e. my lazyness) have kept me from doing it.
I'm struggling to understand how they're going to pull this off without pissing people off. It was my understanding that console makers typically take losses on sales of their console and make up for it by selling games. That's why we have such a slow release cycle for consoles.
A big gripe people seem to have with consoles is that the hardware limitations due to slow release cycles prevent games from advancing. How is Steam going to continue to put games out quickly?
Are they selling it as a PC that I could also use for word processing or programming? This might help justify a higher cost. But then, I'm not putting it in my living room and it's not really competing with consoles. Perhaps I'm missing something here.
I think the tradition model of long hardware cycles, taking huge losses in an attempt to beat Moore's law, and writing to the "bare metal" to squeeze the most out of outdated tech is merely what consumers and the current console manufacturers are used to, and not necessarily what consumers want or what is the best business strategy.
I hate to put it this way, but I think Apple has already proven that the best strategy for closed hardware platforms is to release incrementally improved hardware on a regular release cycle, and mandate that software be written to APIs and not "the metal" so that it remains forward compatible. In a world where so many people happily replace their 100% working phones with new ones every year or two, I don't really see why most of the current console market would have a problem with purchasing a new Steam Box every few years.
Valve could easily stick $200-400 commodity PC hardware in a box and blow the pants off of the vast majority of the existing console market that is currently enjoying games running on hardware that was state of the art in 2006. Even if the PS4 and Xbox720 (or whatever they plan to call them) come out later with superior hardware, I think most of the meaningful difference can be made up by carefully cooperating with NVidia/AMD to optimize the drivers for the specific models of GPUs used in a limited range of hardware, while aggressively promoting the yearly hardware refreshes.
It's possible that Valve could end up playing the console game by its established rules, but I think they'd be wasting what is probably the best opportunity available to anyone in the industry to become the "Apple of the living room" if they did -- lord knows why Apple itself isn't trying harder on that front.
What is Valve's plan for getting developers to actually develop for Linux? Is the hope that the chance to be compatible with Valve's hardware will encourage enough other developers to get on board?
I doubt its going to be pushing "develop for linux" that will be a problem, most games aren't using many os calls and those are generally easily ported anyway.
The challenge will be getting developers to program for opengl/sdl/openal instead of directx, something they could already do on windows but have chosen to go the directx route. The mobile push has opened a lot of developers up to opengl ES and opengl in general sucks less now so this may not be as difficult a pitch as it would have been 5 years ago.
What would be really cool, is if valve decided to throw their weight behind building a direct 3d state machine for linux, I know there is work underway there but I would imagine valve could seriously speed that up along with being in a position to apply pressure to the video card manufacturers for support in a way that the OSS community simply can't.
I do imagine thats a huge part of it. Combine that with the fact that if you target Valve's hardware, you're also targeting a pretty decent sized cross section of Linux PC's as well, and you've got yourself a recipe for better than what the competition has (from a developers perspective)
Developing for SteamBox is a lot less scary than developing for "Linux".
Linux has even more hardware diversity than Windows, and the added complexity of multiple distributions and competing drivers (e.g. open source vs closed). And fans that will bite your head of if you don't support their favorite choices.
If Valve does it right, the SteamBox will define the baseline for gaming on Linux. Distributions targeted to home users will be sure to include the ABI's used by the SteamBox, and Linux gamers will buy hardware that is "similar, but better" than the SteamBox hardware to maximize the chance their Steam library will work on their PC.
I think the market needs something like this badly. I have a pretty big Steam library and I've always used my primary PC both for work and gaming. There are some upcoming games that won't be available on PC (GTA V) that I want to play but I am also not ready to fragment my gaming library by buying a console now. Hopefully something like this will entice and motivate certain developers to start developing for PC/X86-X64 again.
And now that Valve will release an actual console, Steam will be able to cover a much larger population than any of the consoles. People satisfied with performance on the par with Xbox and PS3 will be perfectly happy with this solution, while people requiring more performance will be free to build a dedicated gaming machine and install Steam on it.
I don't know how no other console manufacturers have thought of this. One of the biggest reasons why I never bought a console (thought I wanted one at times) is because Microsoft and Sony don't allow you to access your game purchases on other platforms. I think we're finally heading toward a future where cross platform game ownership will be a reality.
I think the only interesting thing here is Gabe's definition of "very controlled". If it means fixed hardware is acceptable. If it means walled garden with no root or unsigned code - no thanks.
Based on the full quote (below), it seems that he was referring to Valve's offering only:
"Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment," he said. "If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. [...]"
Reposting a comment, since this threads seems to have picked up over the old one:
---
One reason why consoles from MS and Sony are bad is their obsessive DRM and the notion of turning a general purpose computer into a locked up appliance.
But there is another architectural reason which is generic - consolized games degrade the quality of gaming interfaces by making them overly minimalistic (since consoles don't use keyboards), and even developers who release crossplatform games for PC and consoles often save time by not distinguishing these interfaces, and when you run the game on PC it feels crippled interface wise. So I'd say for gaming in general, consoles are a big disservice.
Consoles drive and constrain game design in several important ways. UI is a big one (how many management sims are playable with a gamepad?), but RAM is probably even more important.
The demand for ever-fancier graphics on aging, static hardware means that every other aspect of a game suffers. Smaller levels, fewer options, simpler AI, etc. This is why the next generation of consoles is going to be such a big deal for anyone who plays major cross-platform games.
For games that require a more complex interface, there's still a thriving PC-only games industry. And now Kickstarter is helping to power it.
This one was obvious at least 1 year ago if not more
Its a literary of little things that kept adding up for valve to make a move in this direction.
The big ones for me have been the fact that valve has been hiring hardware, dsp, fpga, linux developers, kernel hackers, control chain specialists and such forth for the last 2-3 years.
I remember saying a long time back that valve are either going to push onto some android hybrid thing, or that there were making a console.
I think the Linux thing was valve reacting to windows 8 that forced them to show their hand a little.
He seems to be suggesting some kind of open market for these things, that is instead of trying to claim all the profit via using industry standard commodity components and then intentionally breaking compatibility in some key manner, they're going to grow the market by allowing 3rd parties to compete with 'clones' (to use an old Mac phrase) of different shapes and sizes, and presumably make their money on selling the games.
Or to put it another way, it's an Android strategy, not iOS. Could be a very big deal.
If this is done properly, it may change a little how the gaming PCs market works. If every "Steam Box" game is 100% compatible with PC's Steam (and so far we have no reason to think otherwise) we will start to see PCs labeled as "Steam Box compliant" and such, to identify machines that are supposedly guaranteed to run smoothly any "Steam Box" game.
Other PCs, with inferior hardware, will maybe lower their price.
I imagine it will be a set of components that valve will sell pre-completed, or the user will be able to create their own.
It could come in minimum, recommended, and max, and the developers would have these basic devices to aim for. The user can upgrade, but it will lead to a small risk on their behalf. If it screws up, they can just put the original components back.
I'm still genuinely surprised Valve hasn't launched a game streaming service. Then suggest developers offer Win, Linux, Mac, AND streaming, so they can stream to every platform (like this Steam Box) they can.
I'm not; if the experience of the last big entrant to try streaming games, OnLive, is any indication, that kind of service is an absolute furnace for cash. The Verge reported that at its height, OnLive was burning through $5 million per month to support a measly 1,600 concurrent users (http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/28/3274739/onlive-report).
It's possible that smarter architecture could bring that figure down; OnLive needed to have a physical machine for every concurrent player (!). And OnLive made plenty of other mistakes that a smart business like Valve might avoid. But even if you did everything right it still sounds like running a streaming games service at a profit with today's tech would be a serious challenge.
I hope he asks OEM's to only use Linux on their boxes, although if only some use it, the others will be pressured to use it too to keep prices competitive.
[+] [-] sudonim|13 years ago|reply
The Steam big-picture mode is pretty slick, but not all of the games work seamlessly with an xbox controller so I've found that you generally need to keep the mouse and keyboard around.
Instead of keeping it plugged into my TV, I now plugged in an old monitor and the girlfriend has been enjoying the sims 3.
Steam absolutely knows what they're doing and they have a real shot of widespread adoption if they build their own linux based Steam Box. The big issue is going to be game compatibility with whatever hardware / controller configuration they go with.
[+] [-] bitsoda|13 years ago|reply
Essentially, how often will Valve upgrade its Steam Box? Certainly more than every 6-7 years. For those of you thinking right now: "you can ugprade it yourself!", well, yes you could , but that defeats the whole purpose of having one standardized spec for developers to target. Throw in a new graphics card here and there, and you've suddenly splintered your user base into those with PCs, Official Steam Boxes from Valve, and Official Steam Boxes from Valve that have been upgrade by the users. And now, certain games will only work on some combination of those three.
I'm a fan of Valve, their games, and their culture, and want to see this succeed. I'm sure they've put much thought into scenarios like this and trust them to make the right decision.
[+] [-] sjmulder|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morsch|13 years ago|reply
They'll still have to convince people to develop a Linux version in the first place, though...
[+] [-] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbierwagen|13 years ago|reply
OP is http://kotaku.com/5966860/gabe-newell-living-room-pcs-will-c...
[+] [-] jrajav|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moistgorilla|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonymous|13 years ago|reply
Save system state, boot windows vm, launch game (somehow passing the information to the steam instance in the windows vm, but that's the least of your worries), once game finishes, freeze vm, restore system state and show regular steam-on-linux interface.
I've had before the idea of building a system built on a hypervisor that lets you dynamically switch vms, but the high cost of hardware with an iommu and the pretty astronomical cost of this for a hobby project (i.e. my lazyness) have kept me from doing it.
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mseidl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Permit|13 years ago|reply
A big gripe people seem to have with consoles is that the hardware limitations due to slow release cycles prevent games from advancing. How is Steam going to continue to put games out quickly?
Are they selling it as a PC that I could also use for word processing or programming? This might help justify a higher cost. But then, I'm not putting it in my living room and it's not really competing with consoles. Perhaps I'm missing something here.
[+] [-] ANTSANTS|13 years ago|reply
I hate to put it this way, but I think Apple has already proven that the best strategy for closed hardware platforms is to release incrementally improved hardware on a regular release cycle, and mandate that software be written to APIs and not "the metal" so that it remains forward compatible. In a world where so many people happily replace their 100% working phones with new ones every year or two, I don't really see why most of the current console market would have a problem with purchasing a new Steam Box every few years.
Valve could easily stick $200-400 commodity PC hardware in a box and blow the pants off of the vast majority of the existing console market that is currently enjoying games running on hardware that was state of the art in 2006. Even if the PS4 and Xbox720 (or whatever they plan to call them) come out later with superior hardware, I think most of the meaningful difference can be made up by carefully cooperating with NVidia/AMD to optimize the drivers for the specific models of GPUs used in a limited range of hardware, while aggressively promoting the yearly hardware refreshes.
It's possible that Valve could end up playing the console game by its established rules, but I think they'd be wasting what is probably the best opportunity available to anyone in the industry to become the "Apple of the living room" if they did -- lord knows why Apple itself isn't trying harder on that front.
[+] [-] gradys|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbell|13 years ago|reply
The challenge will be getting developers to program for opengl/sdl/openal instead of directx, something they could already do on windows but have chosen to go the directx route. The mobile push has opened a lot of developers up to opengl ES and opengl in general sucks less now so this may not be as difficult a pitch as it would have been 5 years ago.
What would be really cool, is if valve decided to throw their weight behind building a direct 3d state machine for linux, I know there is work underway there but I would imagine valve could seriously speed that up along with being in a position to apply pressure to the video card manufacturers for support in a way that the OSS community simply can't.
[+] [-] alexanderh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abrahamsen|13 years ago|reply
Linux has even more hardware diversity than Windows, and the added complexity of multiple distributions and competing drivers (e.g. open source vs closed). And fans that will bite your head of if you don't support their favorite choices.
If Valve does it right, the SteamBox will define the baseline for gaming on Linux. Distributions targeted to home users will be sure to include the ABI's used by the SteamBox, and Linux gamers will buy hardware that is "similar, but better" than the SteamBox hardware to maximize the chance their Steam library will work on their PC.
[+] [-] shmerl|13 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893902
[+] [-] VexXtreme|13 years ago|reply
And now that Valve will release an actual console, Steam will be able to cover a much larger population than any of the consoles. People satisfied with performance on the par with Xbox and PS3 will be perfectly happy with this solution, while people requiring more performance will be free to build a dedicated gaming machine and install Steam on it.
I don't know how no other console manufacturers have thought of this. One of the biggest reasons why I never bought a console (thought I wanted one at times) is because Microsoft and Sony don't allow you to access your game purchases on other platforms. I think we're finally heading toward a future where cross platform game ownership will be a reality.
[+] [-] venomsnake|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jugglinmike|13 years ago|reply
"Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment," he said. "If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. [...]"
[+] [-] shmerl|13 years ago|reply
---
One reason why consoles from MS and Sony are bad is their obsessive DRM and the notion of turning a general purpose computer into a locked up appliance.
But there is another architectural reason which is generic - consolized games degrade the quality of gaming interfaces by making them overly minimalistic (since consoles don't use keyboards), and even developers who release crossplatform games for PC and consoles often save time by not distinguishing these interfaces, and when you run the game on PC it feels crippled interface wise. So I'd say for gaming in general, consoles are a big disservice.
We'll have to see how this will develop.
[+] [-] TillE|13 years ago|reply
The demand for ever-fancier graphics on aging, static hardware means that every other aspect of a game suffers. Smaller levels, fewer options, simpler AI, etc. This is why the next generation of consoles is going to be such a big deal for anyone who plays major cross-platform games.
For games that require a more complex interface, there's still a thriving PC-only games industry. And now Kickstarter is helping to power it.
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bowyakka|13 years ago|reply
Its a literary of little things that kept adding up for valve to make a move in this direction.
The big ones for me have been the fact that valve has been hiring hardware, dsp, fpga, linux developers, kernel hackers, control chain specialists and such forth for the last 2-3 years.
I remember saying a long time back that valve are either going to push onto some android hybrid thing, or that there were making a console.
I think the Linux thing was valve reacting to windows 8 that forced them to show their hand a little.
[+] [-] sjwright|13 years ago|reply
The word you're looking for is litany (an understandable literary mistake)
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|13 years ago|reply
Or to put it another way, it's an Android strategy, not iOS. Could be a very big deal.
[+] [-] gordaco|13 years ago|reply
Other PCs, with inferior hardware, will maybe lower their price.
[+] [-] JackpotDen|13 years ago|reply
It could come in minimum, recommended, and max, and the developers would have these basic devices to aim for. The user can upgrade, but it will lead to a small risk on their behalf. If it screws up, they can just put the original components back.
[+] [-] jeffool|13 years ago|reply
"Steam Cloud Stream?"
[+] [-] smacktoward|13 years ago|reply
It's possible that smarter architecture could bring that figure down; OnLive needed to have a physical machine for every concurrent player (!). And OnLive made plenty of other mistakes that a smart business like Valve might avoid. But even if you did everything right it still sounds like running a streaming games service at a profit with today's tech would be a serious challenge.
[+] [-] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sergiotapia|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malloreon|13 years ago|reply