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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

#91

Post by rowanG077 »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #79
schmorptron wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artifact was a good card game only killed by really dumb marketing and monetization decisions. Half-Life Alyx is almost universally hailed as the best VR game and as good if not better than the previous Half-Life games. That being said, you're right about them neglecting a lot of their IP. Specifically a TF3 might be really cool to see, along with more love for Counter-Strike.

Half-Life: Alyx was definitely nowhere near as good as previous Half-Life games. Graphics and VR don’t determine a good game. Half-Life 2 and associated technologies put Valve in the position they are today.

I would say Half-Life: Alyx is better. Immersion is much better, gameplay is better. I don't see any reason to prefer HL2 over Alyx. User scores at least indicate they are very, very close to eachother. On steam Alyx has a higher score (98%) then HL2 (96%).

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

#92

Post by chucky_z »

schmorptron wrote: post #75
bob1029 wrote: post #70

Why did Valve get out of the AAA game development business? It seems like hardware has largely been a mistake for them. Sure, I can have 20 different variants of an x86 computer and various HMD interfaces, but if all the games suck ass what's the point? Valve is still surfing on the inertia of their initial software-based innovations, and is only continuing to cruise along by siphoning off others in their (lightly) c…

Artifact was a good card game only killed by really dumb marketing and monetization decisions. Half-Life Alyx is almost universally hailed as the best VR game and as good if not better than the previous Half-Life games. That being said, you're right about them neglecting a lot of their IP. Specifically a TF3 might be really cool to see, along with more love for Counter-Strike.

The most recent update for Counter-Strike is honestly really great. It's a difficult game to touch as the community is in a pretty good spot meta game wise. I'd love for them to shake things up faster and more frequently, but as a spectator it's a super competitive game and I love watching it.

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

#93

Post by baq »

kogepathic wrote: post #31

Valve's track record with non-VR hardware is, to put it politely, not good. Seven years after launching the Steam machine (2014) initiative, there are no Steam machines available for sale. [1] Both the Steam Controller (2015-2019) and Steam Link (2015-2018) are discontinued and cannot be purchased, despite consistently positive reviews from users. [2] As other commenters have noted there are already numerous "Switch-…

steam controller is amazing if only due to the backside buttons. these are apparently patented by a patent troll.

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

#94

Post by jamesgeck0 »

Ziomislaw wrote: post #7

Making a PC like console might backfire. PC games are full of botters and cheaters (not saying you can't cheat on console, but I see 1-2 cheaters in a year on console compared to 50% of PC games population). It's the main reason I play games on console only.

“50% of the population is cheating in PC multiplayer games” is wild. Can you cite a source for this absurd claim?

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

#95

Post by dbetteridge »

justinclift wrote: post #88
schmorptron wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artifact was a good card game only killed by really dumb marketing and monetization decisions. Half-Life Alyx is almost universally hailed as the best VR game and as good if not better than the previous Half-Life games. That being said, you're right about them neglecting a lot of their IP. Specifically a TF3 might be really cool to see, along with more love for Counter-Strike.

> Half-Life Alyx is almost universally hailed as the best VR game and as good if not better than the previous Half-Life games. Yet weirdly, Valve refuses to sell their Index VR system to people in Australia. As I discovered recently, when looking to get one, here in Australia. :/ There are people selling some international version via Amazon, however apparently if any kind of warranty issue happens then you're screwe…

Probably related to

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/high-court-dismisses-v...

Hardware devices have an even higher cost burden for warranty handling then software products, So given they're not really wanting to do proper warranty on software I don't see hardware being better.

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

#96

Post by imtringued »

croon wrote: post #11
me_me_me wrote: post #8

Earlier 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)?

People buy consoles because they expect a perfect out of the box experience. If you try to play a GPU intensive 3D shooter on the handheld the performance or graphical quality will be terrible. The game must support full screen and the UI shouldn't be too small to become unusable on a small screen.

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

#97

Post by wpdev_63 »

schmorptron wrote: post #45
wpdev_63 wrote: post #37

Just 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.

Not necessarily right now but a few years down the road when it actually releases(though no one knows when they'll actually release knowing valve's track record).

Not sure why people are downvoting me....

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

#98

Post by Sleepytime »

schmorptron wrote: post #75
bob1029 wrote: post #70

Why did Valve get out of the AAA game development business? It seems like hardware has largely been a mistake for them. Sure, I can have 20 different variants of an x86 computer and various HMD interfaces, but if all the games suck ass what's the point? Valve is still surfing on the inertia of their initial software-based innovations, and is only continuing to cruise along by siphoning off others in their (lightly) c…

Artifact was a good card game only killed by really dumb marketing and monetization decisions. Half-Life Alyx is almost universally hailed as the best VR game and as good if not better than the previous Half-Life games. That being said, you're right about them neglecting a lot of their IP. Specifically a TF3 might be really cool to see, along with more love for Counter-Strike.

Alyx is fun to play but the jokes and dialog are really bad. Previous half life games did a lot more with a lot less.

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

#99

Post by egypturnash »

Honestly at this point I kinda feel like Valve is to the Steam store what Google is to search/ads. I do not trust either of them to follow through with any amount of support for any project they announce outside of the massive money spigot that is their core business.

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

#100

Post by anthonypasq »

schmorptron wrote: post #75
bob1029 wrote: post #70

Why did Valve get out of the AAA game development business? It seems like hardware has largely been a mistake for them. Sure, I can have 20 different variants of an x86 computer and various HMD interfaces, but if all the games suck ass what's the point? Valve is still surfing on the inertia of their initial software-based innovations, and is only continuing to cruise along by siphoning off others in their (lightly) c…

Artifact was a good card game only killed by really dumb marketing and monetization decisions. Half-Life Alyx is almost universally hailed as the best VR game and as good if not better than the previous Half-Life games. That being said, you're right about them neglecting a lot of their IP. Specifically a TF3 might be really cool to see, along with more love for Counter-Strike.

Artifact was just straight up a trash game.

I hate this new idea that every failed game is just "bad marketing"

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