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Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC

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

#121

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #68
mobiledev2014 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Consistently positive reviews from users" are not enough. Steam Link became obsolete, and the controller just didn't sell (despite being excellent IMO!) This could see a similar fate, or it could be the breakout hit made possible by their learning from past hardware

Steam controller suffered from doing too much, I think. People want plug-in and go from their couch games, having a fully programmable all-singing all-dance super controller turned out to be more effort than most wanted to deal with.

Steams built in controller customization features are worth it alone - for every controller. No digi pad makes them bad for retro games but I have others for that.

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

#122

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

anthonypasq wrote: post #100
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.

Artifact was just straight up a trash game. I hate this new idea that every failed game is just "bad marketing"

I would argue that games lasting 30-60min was an issue as well (for a 1v1 card game)

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

#123

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #52
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine is probably a niche use case, but I will absolutely jump on one of these simply due to my lack of storage space. I live in a 450 square foot loft. I don’t have space for a tv here, so consoles were out of the question until the Switch came along. There is no room in my life — literally — for a gaming PC, but if they can cram that into another Switch? Sign me up. It’ll be a big draw for university students in dor…

Also, I don't feel people talk about this much but gaming desktops tend to be noisy, ugly, and/or gaudy on top of taking up lots room. I'd love to just get rid of this box but I don't care enough about games to buy a gaming laptop, which just only slightly solves the ugly/gaudy problem for me. I'd love to just stream going forward and never have to put together another PC or buy another expensive video card again and…

https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/

Noise is never an issue when you dont use stock coolers. Undervolting current gen gpus reduces a lot of noise and heat. A ps5 takes up more space than a PC.

No need for 2.5/3.5" drives gives you a lot of room to get rid of ;)

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

#124

Post by croon »

me_me_me wrote: post #82
croon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand getting a Switch for the exclusives, but outside of that I wouldn't get a portable console for access to games I couldn't play otherwise, but access to games outside of the normal environment (my desktop PC). If you look at the metacritic list of best games for Switch: https://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/... Most games are just ported PC games, which would be playable on a Steam p…

Most games are made for consoles first, rarely other way around. Anyhow, you can play on your screen with docked switch. You can play on your couch with steam link, or pc hooked up to tv. I am just not seeing a competitive edge for this device.

> Most games are made for consoles first, rarely other way around.

Except in the actual case I mentioned with the list, where almost all of the cross-platform ones are made for PC first, from Divinity to Hades to Undertale to Inside, Steamworld, Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, Ori, Bastion, Dead Cells, Into the Breach, Fez, etc etc etc.

Seeing how basically all games that aren't first party or specific exclusives are lighter (hardware wise) PC games actually speaks to a huge market for those games on a portable device.

> Anyhow, you can play on your screen with docked switch. You can play on your couch with steam link, or pc hooked up to tv.

Playing on the couch would be competing with Xbox and Playstation, not Switch, which as you said is already a solved problem.

This would be for anywhere you play your Switch undocked, and you don't want a Switch for whatever reason (likely more indies, emulators, "apps").

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

#125

Post by loup-vaillant »

FemmeAndroid wrote: post #53
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-…

To be clear, it's not like there were never steam machines for sale, but manufacturers stopped making them. Here, you can see five for sale in 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160225105722/https://store.ste... I don't know that Valve were ever going to make physical devices themselves (other than the 100 they made for beta testers.) From pretty early on, and definitely by Steam Dev Days 2014, it seemed to me like…

> Halflife Alex

Alyx. Sounds the same, but this spelling has the right gender.

> And even with [Alyx], the player base is so limited due to being a VR exclusive.

I have played it, and am currently replaying it with developer comments on. There's a reason it's a VR exclusive. There is no way this could transfer over a flat screen.

VR interactions are fundamentally different. Motion sickness severely constrain how many players may move about (it gets better with practice, but Alyx is aimed at beginners). The ability to pick up objects and throw them about is crucial to immersion. The kind of weapons that work in VR are different (1 handed mostly). Pacing is different we move slower in VR than we do in a flat screen FPS, often by a factor of 5. This modify level design and how to manage tension. Even combat must be paced slower, especially at the beginning where players have yet to reload their guns seamlessly (requiring gestures is more immersive, but there's a learning curve, and doing it under duress requires serious training).

A flat screen port of Half Life: Alyx would not be a good game. Most rooms would feel cramped. Some parts of the game would be cumbersome. Others like the Jeff chapter (Jeff is an unkillable monster with very good hearing) would swing between being overly punishing or way too easy. Many puzzles would have to be cut or replaced by something else. Some weapon features like an aiming laser would not even make sense (unless you remove the aiming dot at the centre of the screen, making aiming way too punishing). An inventory of 2 items (plus ammo) would feel limited for no good reason the player can see (one item per wrist is an obvious good reason in VR).

Some games, like vehicle simulators (car, plane, spaceship…) can indeed have good flat screen and VR version. Standing first person games however cannot. The difference between a keyboard/mouse/gamepad and a pair of knuckles/Vive/touch is too great to compensate for, in either direction.

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

#126

Post by throwkeep »

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…

Or 1% of that cash into improving Steam?

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

#127

Post by 22c »

mobiledev2014 wrote: post #61
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-…

"Consistently positive reviews from users" are not enough. Steam Link became obsolete, and the controller just didn't sell (despite being excellent IMO!) This could see a similar fate, or it could be the breakout hit made possible by their learning from past hardware

> the controller just didn't sell

From my perspective, the controller was never sold. I could not buy it anywhere, I am assuming they were only made in a relatively small batch and sold mostly in mainland US.

I had been looking since it was released for a place to buy it at a reasonable price, but could only find exorbitantly priced resellers that would ship from USA.

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

#128

Post by brundolf »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #68
mobiledev2014 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Consistently positive reviews from users" are not enough. Steam Link became obsolete, and the controller just didn't sell (despite being excellent IMO!) This could see a similar fate, or it could be the breakout hit made possible by their learning from past hardware

Steam controller suffered from doing too much, I think. People want plug-in and go from their couch games, having a fully programmable all-singing all-dance super controller turned out to be more effort than most wanted to deal with.

The main value-prop for the steam controller was its touch pads, which allowed you to play mouse-based games from the couch (in an era when controller support for PC games was spotty). They were a cool idea, and they worked, but what ended up happening is all the games just added support for regular controllers, and that was just a better experience.

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

#129

Post by [deleted] »

22c wrote: post #127
mobiledev2014 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Consistently positive reviews from users" are not enough. Steam Link became obsolete, and the controller just didn't sell (despite being excellent IMO!) This could see a similar fate, or it could be the breakout hit made possible by their learning from past hardware

> the controller just didn't sell From my perspective, the controller was never sold . I could not buy it anywhere, I am assuming they were only made in a relatively small batch and sold mostly in mainland US. I had been looking since it was released for a place to buy it at a reasonable price, but could only find exorbitantly priced resellers that would ship from USA.

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by ihuman »

22c wrote: post #127
mobiledev2014 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Consistently positive reviews from users" are not enough. Steam Link became obsolete, and the controller just didn't sell (despite being excellent IMO!) This could see a similar fate, or it could be the breakout hit made possible by their learning from past hardware

> the controller just didn't sell From my perspective, the controller was never sold . I could not buy it anywhere, I am assuming they were only made in a relatively small batch and sold mostly in mainland US. I had been looking since it was released for a place to buy it at a reasonable price, but could only find exorbitantly priced resellers that would ship from USA.

They sold at least 1.3 million steam controllers [1]. That's relatively small compared to the 3 major console's controllers, but it's still a lot. IIRC the only place Valve officially sold it was on Steam itself. Based on forum posts from the time and Valve's Index shipping FAQ, they could ship it to the USA and Europe. While you can't buy it there anymore, its store page is still up [2]

[1] I can't link it directly, so look for "Steam Controllers are played with a diverse set of games" https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...

[2] https://store.steampowered.com/app/353370/Steam_Controller/

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