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Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

arstechnica.com

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Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#21

Post by easton »

libertine wrote: post #15
txdv wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slap steam on it and take the Steam cut?

That's the tricky part, if these devices aren't locked to a proprietary OS/marketplace, users can shop around and you're basically helping your competitors while taking all the losses.

If it's running SteamOS (and it will be, even if there's Windows compatibility Valve probably doesn't want to pay for licenses), it might as well be locked to Steam for 90% of people. Epic's launcher doesn't have a Linux version (since they've claimed as have many other developers that the Linux community is 1% of users and 90% of complaints due to distro differences), nor does EA, Ubisoft, etc. They could port it, but by time they had something user friendly and working (which may be difficult since you probably won't get more than Steam Big Picture which doesn't have support for installing non-Steam applications at the moment) Valve would've sold a boatload of these and a bunch of Steam games.

Edit: not to mention anti-cheat, which is a whole other kettle of fish when you have to integrate into a entirely other kernel with different plumbing. Valve's anti-cheat doesn't rely on kernel modules or a ton of client side software at all, so they have a cross-platform advantage there too.

Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#22

Post by ToniCipriani »

Seeing how there is now the Aya Neo and the Onenotebook Onexplayer, this might actually work. Have a handheld with a powerful enough laptop chip and a Thunderbolt, when at home it sits in an eGPU dock and use it like a traditional desktop, and on the go either connect the game controllers or a keyboard to use as a laptop.

Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#24

Post by jsnell »

libertine wrote: post #14
jsnell wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I'd see this working is if it's not for playing games locally at all. Just boot straight into Big Picture, and allow for streaming games either from your local network via Steam Link or from a Steam cloud streaming service that gets announced together with this. I think you could hit a really attractive price point for a a device like that, and it seems like a compelling device for Steam's existing user base.…

I think I agree with you pretty much on everything. >But nobody is making a dedicated portable streaming device as far as I know, and it seems like something that'd fit really well with a streaming service. NVIDIA kind of did it with the NVIDIA Shield some years ago, and I think they're still supporting it.

My recollection is that the original Shield was marketed as much for playing (Android) games locally as for streaming, and had a much more powerful GPU and CPU than contemporary mobile phones did. That's kind of losing the advantage of it being dedicated to streaming, which is that you could really cut down on the BOM.

Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#25

Post by zwirbl »

texaswhizzle wrote: post #18
jsnell wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I'd see this working is if it's not for playing games locally at all. Just boot straight into Big Picture, and allow for streaming games either from your local network via Steam Link or from a Steam cloud streaming service that gets announced together with this. I think you could hit a really attractive price point for a a device like that, and it seems like a compelling device for Steam's existing user base.…

Why not just buy a solid controller for your phone or tablet? How could this hypothetical device possibly be better than an iPhone 12 Pro Max, Note, Galaxy S, etc?

by having access to the steam pc game library, which is huge

Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#26

Post by throwawayp123 »

jsnell wrote: post #6
libertine wrote: post #3

I wonder who will be the target for these devices, because a great part of portable consoles strategy was: to be a gateway for kids to buy into the "big-boy" consoles down the line. Basically win their hearts and trust early, so they can become loyal throughout their life. So these devices had to check some boxes, one of the main factors being the price. These devices had to be cheaper then regular consoles (among ot…

The way I'd see this working is if it's not for playing games locally at all. Just boot straight into Big Picture, and allow for streaming games either from your local network via Steam Link or from a Steam cloud streaming service that gets announced together with this. I think you could hit a really attractive price point for a a device like that, and it seems like a compelling device for Steam's existing user base.…

I could certainly see this being the flagship for the launch of a steam cloud streaming service a la Stadia, Luna, geforce now, etc. That does beg the question of how they would price it. I think they would have to price the hardware very aggressively or sell at a loss -- the cost of entry on these other streaming services is what, $50-60 for a controller? Although if gamers with big steam libraries could bring them with them to a streaming platform rather than re-buying then that would be a major differentiator.

On the local streaming front, I've struggled to do in-home streaming in a comfortable way with anything but a hardwired network between the PCs streaming. Maybe this will be different if they optimize it for wireless streaming, but on laptop wifi -> desktop ethernet I found it to be fairly high latency and lossy.

Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#27

Post by 0-_-0 »

texaswhizzle wrote: post #18
jsnell wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I'd see this working is if it's not for playing games locally at all. Just boot straight into Big Picture, and allow for streaming games either from your local network via Steam Link or from a Steam cloud streaming service that gets announced together with this. I think you could hit a really attractive price point for a a device like that, and it seems like a compelling device for Steam's existing user base.…

Why not just buy a solid controller for your phone or tablet? How could this hypothetical device possibly be better than an iPhone 12 Pro Max, Note, Galaxy S, etc?

Just to add to your comment, you can already turn any phone to a "streaming Switch" for $30, there are dozens of controllers like this:

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08BRX3RT3/

the Steam Link android app lets you stream any of your games to your phone like this already. With a little more setup you can stream Wii games to your phone through Moonlight from CEMU and run them at 1440p60, while the Switch can barely do 720p30.

Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#28

Post by ArkanExplorer »

A portable gaming PC means optimization - in terms of performance and interface - is going to be critically important.

But knowing Valve, they will keep the same old exorbitant 30% commission which makes it uneconomical to actually launch great titles targeted at this device, same as for the Index VR device.

By the way, on Switch the effective commission is 25%, given that customers are rebated 5% of their eshop spend. Nintendo also bothers to apply curation and quality control to their store, which Steam does not.

Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#29

Post by SirLotsaLocks »

easton wrote: post #21
libertine wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the tricky part, if these devices aren't locked to a proprietary OS/marketplace, users can shop around and you're basically helping your competitors while taking all the losses.

If it's running SteamOS (and it will be, even if there's Windows compatibility Valve probably doesn't want to pay for licenses), it might as well be locked to Steam for 90% of people. Epic's launcher doesn't have a Linux version (since they've claimed as have many other developers that the Linux community is 1% of users and 90% of complaints due to distro differences), nor does EA, Ubisoft, etc. They could port it, b…

Yeah this is where valve's investment into Linux would potentially pay off. Any platform they make could run Linux and work really well while basically all of steam's competitors either haven't done anything for Linux or have actively avoided/worked against it.

Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

#30

Post by awakeasleep »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #28

A portable gaming PC means optimization - in terms of performance and interface - is going to be critically important. But knowing Valve, they will keep the same old exorbitant 30% commission which makes it uneconomical to actually launch great titles targeted at this device, same as for the Index VR device. By the way, on Switch the effective commission is 25%, given that customers are rebated 5% of their eshop spen…

Good analysis, but you harm your credibility by saying Nintendo curates eshop titles.

This is only technically true, and no layperson would be able to tell. 99% of the eshop is ports of shovelware android ‘games’ that consist of little more than cover art.

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