I am surprised nobody mentioned GPD yet
Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
41–50 of 148 posts
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#42Why not making a phone and enter mobile market?
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#43A lot of consoles are sold at a loss, where costs are made up by people buying games through the console on the makers store, I wonder how valve will go about this because I don't see a lot of people getting this that didn't already have steam on another device.
> A lot of consoles are sold at a loss
I don't believe that's the case anymore. Newer console generations have moved on from exotic ISAs and the like towards using a lot of off-the-shelf parts for smartphones or PCs. The Switch, for instance, has been sold at a profit from day one [1].
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170131084504/https://www.bloom...
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#44They have tried to make a tabletop console thing for l4d where 4 players play l4d as usual and the 5th player would spawn zombies or items on them. I suppose this console is related to that
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#45Just picked up the new macbook air m1 and I am staggered to find that I can play starcraft 2 and bioshock decently on a laptop that draws 30watts and is capacitivily cooled... Really just unbelievable. So if valve could someone get ahold of some cutting edge arm processors in the next few years then this could be very viable(though I doubt they will get it out before the next version of the nintendo switch).
Valve has money, but not Apple or Microsoft money. I doubt they'd be able to source a high-power arm chip + the necessary hard/software features to make something like the rosetta compatibility mode possible.
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#46A lot of consoles are sold at a loss, where costs are made up by people buying games through the console on the makers store, I wonder how valve will go about this because I don't see a lot of people getting this that didn't already have steam on another device.
It also really doesn't seem like they have anyone with the skills in their wheelhouse to do good by this. A big part of differentiating a console from a PC is building an operating system that prioritizes the game process uber alles. It's not just a fancy window manager slapped onto a commodity PC. Even the original Xbox had a lot of custom OS work done to it, stuff that would eventually serve as the test bed for dev…
They are doing a lot of work on Wine as part of Steam Proton (the Wine distribution built into the Linux version of Steam), so I'd imagine they have at least some of this type of developer on staff.
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#47A lot of consoles are sold at a loss, where costs are made up by people buying games through the console on the makers store, I wonder how valve will go about this because I don't see a lot of people getting this that didn't already have steam on another device.
> A lot of consoles are sold at a loss I don't believe that's the case anymore. Newer console generations have moved on from exotic ISAs and the like towards using a lot of off-the-shelf parts for smartphones or PCs. The Switch, for instance, has been sold at a profit from day one [1]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170131084504/https://www.bloom...
The Switch also has very little power compared to gaming consoles. It's the same price as an Xbox One S, but with far less processing power.
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#48I personally really like the idea. I'd love to be able to casually play PC games on the road without having to drag a laptop around. Of course unless it has something particularly appealing, it will have to be priced around the switch/lite level.
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#49What IP does Valve own that could run on a portable device? Do they think people want to play Portal 2 on the go? As if indie developers want to put resources into porting their content on some niche handheld. Valve has really lost the plot.
They don't have any assurance in hardware. Steam, while successful, isn't the only contender on PC gaming. It's not 2007 anymore, there's Epic Games, Origin, and I'm sure a bunch of other platforms all hosting a small set of popular titles.
They're out of touch, which is sort of ironic given the company was founded by ex-Microsoft employees in the 90's. They went from a Game Development Studio into one of many Game distributors. They're better off sticking with that, or at the most, pushing their platform onto the Switch. Get with the times.
Re: Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is very complicated and interconnected market segment. You cant just play games on this device out of the box (some games yes) you need some game devs to adopt it and have releases on this yet another platform. Valve would have to have a dedicated support team and long term strategy for it to become a switch rival. And with Valve track record it will be an abandonware from the get go.
What support is needed outside of controller support and whatever OS it runs (I'm assuming linux)?
They need to secure games on it. Even if this console ends up being PC in small form factor.
I dont have switch but if i were to buy a console it would be switch, not steam console. I can play my games on PC, if i get console I'd rather have games made specifically for that form factor, plus Nintendo has amazing catalogue of exclusives.
If you judge Valves actins in response to Epic agresively taking their already entrenched market - basically nothing. What chance do they have to compete with Nintendo, or mobiles?
I might come across negative, but Valve doesn't make it easier.