Steam console confirmed; everyone else can pack it up and go home

[Pike]

Valve confirms Steam Box - a "very controlled" PC for the living room | News | PC Gamer

Gabe Newell appears to have confirmed rumours that Valve are working on a “Steam Box” – a hardware package designed to bring the PC right to the living room. Talking to Kotaku on the red carpet at the VGAs, Newell said that the response to Big Picture mode was “stronger than expected” and that this, combined with the ongoing push into Linux, gave Valve a lot of flexibility when it came to designing their own living room-friendly hardware.

Thoughts?

[Mirage]

Might be cool. Might be not so cool.

Which OS will it run? Will it be windows, letting it run all current steam games without modifying them at all, or some sort of -nix derivate, requiring most games to be modified at least a tiny bit?

[Balzac]

Isn't this what Big Screen was supposed to be for?

[Mirage]

Depends entirely on what Big Screen is.

[Balzac]

Sorry, I meant Big Picture. The Steam client made for Smart tv's.

[Futan]

Speculation from this article is it's Linux-based. With how MS is admittedly(and obviously) trying to merge Phone and Desktop OS's, and therefore create their own App Store ecosystem, it'd be no surprise if Valve is trying to migrate away from Windows. Since said App Store would be competition w/ Steam(and you possibly would have to use that App Store to even get Steam). But if it is Linux, and companies jump aboard that plan, it would be awesome. buhbyes last reason to use Windows. :x

As a preferably PC gamer, I hope it succeeds. :3

[Sephex]

Color me interested, but waiting for more details (especially price) to pass real judgement.

[Laddy]

This has a lot of potential.

[DMKA]

Could be neat. Could also be pointless like the Ouya.

Hmmm...who knows? If games I like actually got put on steam (Final Fantasy, or Ratchet and Clank, for example) I'd be down with it.

I'm all for giving the consumer more choices, particularly in the video game medium, so more power to Gabe and friends.

[Bolivar]

Personally I think Valve is too big to let any of Microsoft's ambitions phase them. Steam is THE place to buy and play games on PC, there's just too much money and support there to see it get marginalized or undercut in any way.

That said, I don't know if making or sponsoring a console is a good move for Valve. I'm really not feeling Big Picture. When you boot a game from it, it still runs in the same inappropriate resolution for your TV. Even when you try basic things, like going to your Steam profile page, it opens it up in a web browser. The default Steam web browser, mind you, not this "first person" browser they're hyping up. Controller support is limited, and I'm not sure sticking with XInput is a good way to differentiate yourself from Microsoft, especially when you have the same buttons listed on the prompts. You also can't run media content from elsewhere on your computer as you would expect a console or really any PC-TV interface to do.

In short, it's a controller-compatible interface... and strangely, nothing else. I can't imagine why they decided it was ready to drop the beta designation.

[Aulayna]

Could go either way really. Though right now honestly the last thing my living room needs is another console taking up space.

[Slothy]

That said, I don't know if making or sponsoring a console is a good move for Valve. I'm really not feeling Big Picture. When you boot a game from it, it still runs in the same inappropriate resolution for your TV. Even when you try basic things, like going to your Steam profile page, it opens it up in a web browser. The default Steam web browser, mind you, not this "first person" browser they're hyping up. Controller support is limited, and I'm not sure sticking with XInput is a good way to differentiate yourself from Microsoft, especially when you have the same buttons listed on the prompts. You also can't run media content from elsewhere on your computer as you would expect a console or really any PC-TV interface to do.

In short, it's a controller-compatible interface... and strangely, nothing else. I can't imagine why they decided it was ready to drop the beta designation.

I'm not sure why you would judge the ability for a Valve console to succeed based on the level of support a new Steam interface on PC. And if that's not what you're doing, then I'm not sure why you'd bring up support/compatibility with Big Picture mode at all. An actual Valve console would likely be a different beast entirely.

But honestly, I hope they do get into the hardware game and use a Linux based box. Game support is one of the few things holding me back from switching to a Linux distro, and Valve is already making a big push that way. A Linux based console from them would undoubtedly push Linux support a lot farther if it took off, which being Valve, it stands a better chance of taking off than any other new entrant in the console game.

[Pike]

Re: Games on Linux -

Yeah, I used Linux exclusively-- EXCLUSIVELY-- for like six years. Played quite a few games on Linux, too, via Wine, but it was usually a big giant pain on the butt. I finally got tired of trying to wrestle with that and emulation and reluctantly switched to Win7 earlier this year.

Lemme tell you though; the minute more games start working on Linux is the minute I go back to it. Linux has made some huge strides over the last several years; in the six years that I used it I saw desktop Linux go from still being very buggy and console-based to being largely plug-and-play. Stable as all get out, too; never crashes or freezes up on me, unlike dear ol' Win7. I just want to switch back. Come on, Gaben, pull through for me!

[NeoCracker]

The only thing I wonder is there stuff you can get on their console you can't already get from their PC market?

If not, I really don't see the point.

[Shoeberto]

The only thing I wonder is there stuff you can get on their console you can't already get from their PC market?

If not, I really don't see the point.

It's not really a console, it's a plug-and-play living room PC that'll be geared towards running Steam exclusively. So if they go with Linux as their distro, which is likely, it'll be limited to whatever studios port over. But with how much Valve is trying to entice studios to make Linux ports, the game could be getting shaken up a lot in coming years.

Valve is mostly doing this for people who want the Steam experience but don't want to build a PC, but they're always gonna cater to anyone who wants to build their own machine. They want as open of an eco system as possible for gaming to continue innovation - the reason they're a brilliant company is because of how they've pushed for these sorts of things for so long but still have been incredibly successful at monetizing it.