I don't know if Valve is capable of getting into hardware at all, but from a market-clout point of view at least, they might also have success in selling a Linux-based Steam console. If anyone can disrupt the Xbox dynasty, it's them. Making the dedicated console interact with the Steam clients on desktop and mobile would be a win.
Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
131–140 of 220 posts
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#132I'm sure one of the reasons for a Linux client (and even a Steam console) is Windows 8 with its App Store. Soon potential customers are going to buy their software through these integrated stores rather than using dedicated clients. And since Microsoft is giving the Desktop a legacy feeling Valve has no choice but expand the reach of Steam. Which is of course good for us customers.
Keep in mind: MS is publishing games on Steam and the other DD services right now.
Unlike OSX, where Valve probably didn't get as much traction with Steam before the mac app store was released, Steam IS the primary gaming service for Windows PCs.
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#133It will be interesting to see what this does to the state of GL support, Wayland, scheduler, etc. Steam telemetry will give Valve a lot of data about how different hardware/software/driver configurations are working but on Linux they'll be able to actually push patches to distros if need be. I would love to see Valve profile Source on Linux and start shaving sources of latency and jitter, it could eventually be bette…
Incase anyone's curious about the stats Valve currently has from the Steam Hardware survey on Windows and Mac OS X here's a link to their pretty cool stats page which looks like its recently had a bit of a facelift:
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#134It will be interesting to see what this does to the state of GL support, Wayland, scheduler, etc. Steam telemetry will give Valve a lot of data about how different hardware/software/driver configurations are working but on Linux they'll be able to actually push patches to distros if need be. I would love to see Valve profile Source on Linux and start shaving sources of latency and jitter, it could eventually be bette…
Hopefully this pushes them to support more variety in the underlying operating system as well. I still can't get Steam to run on my Mac because I made the apparently rare decision to format my machine as case sensitive filesystem.
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it can help OpenGL and other cross-platform frameworks become even stronger. Studios will have more incentive to make games portable from the get-go, instead of relying on Windows/Direct3D. Even mobile, console and OS X users could benefit from that.
>Studios will have more incentive to make games portable from the get-go What incentive? 1.5% of the desktop market? If the ~13% Mac market share isn't enough to get most of them to consider it, why would a group nearly 10 times smaller matter suddenly?
And that ~13% of the market that have a Mac are willing to spend money on apps whereas most of the 1 or 1.5% of the market on Linux have a philosophical objection to proprietary applications and to DRM.
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not? Missing games are the last and only "serious" issue of Linux. Well, maybe apart from Adobes product. But that's quite seriuos: Not being able to play normal and modern games is why I have Windows installed, and it's why i couldn't convince my nonexisting kids to use linux solely. More Games means more user means more games (means better gpu-driver). It's a really old theory, and i think it's one that is soun…
I'd say lack of Microsoft Office is the another big issue. LibreOffice/OpenOffice has come along away but is nowhere near as polished, and never quite displays a document the way it was meant to be. That's what kept me dual booting until I got a Mac.
I don't agree. That whole cities like munich use linux for their offices shows pretty clearly that this is not a real showstopper.
Not saying that Libre Office doesn't sometimes choke on complex documents - but that you are even using proprietary document formats makes the matter complex. It's probably something where one could compromise if you'd want to (or, depending on your job, could). Besides, givenall the online alternatives, their are really quite a lot of ways to not depend on Microsoft Office.
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it can help OpenGL and other cross-platform frameworks become even stronger. Studios will have more incentive to make games portable from the get-go, instead of relying on Windows/Direct3D. Even mobile, console and OS X users could benefit from that.
>Studios will have more incentive to make games portable from the get-go What incentive? 1.5% of the desktop market? If the ~13% Mac market share isn't enough to get most of them to consider it, why would a group nearly 10 times smaller matter suddenly?
Who cares about the desktop market? For games, what matters is the gaming market. Grandma's $100 after rebate machine doesn't count.
Gamers are rather picky about their machine and spend a significant amount of cash. They usually tinker with their machines a lot, to get a couple FPS boost. Give them an OS which will let them tune it and make it run all their games, possibly even faster than the alternatives, and they'll switch.
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#138Like Adobe Flash with Linux, Valve's effort will suffocate on the need to support hundreds different linux distributions and configurations complete with crappy drivers and audio/video subsystems. Three years is my estimate.
It's not like every distribution out there uses a different audio framework, graphics API etc. The fundamental components are all the same. Efforts to standardize a lot of things in the free-Unix/Linux world have come a long way in the last 5-7 years.
Also, realistically, the number of supported distros would likely amount to a small handful. Bigger distributions like SuSE, Fedora and Ubuntu.
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#139Even though Steam invites its own problems (it's ultimately a form of DRM, a closed platform, and a closed-source application), as a FOSS developer I can't help but feel excited about this prospect. I know many, many people in the 15-35 age bracket who are open to and curious about Linux, even tried it, but ultimately didn't stick with it because of the lack of high-end native games and because rebooting or setting up Wine is too much of a hassle. Valve has tremendous power to change this and legitimize Linux as a platform in their eyes.
Plus, there's already a lot of games in the Steam catalogue that have native Linux versions available:
- Dozens of independent titles, e.g. everything that was in those Humble Bundles.
- Everything using the DOSBox emulator to run even on Windows, e.g. id's Commander Keen, some Lucasarts Star Wars games, etc.
- Even a bunch of AAA titles: id Software's games (Doom, Quake) and games that have licensed their engine (e.g. Human Head's Prey), games that were ported by Linux Game Publishing (e.g. Egosoft's X series of spaceflight simulators), several games by Epic (e.g. Unreal Tournament) or using an Epic engine (e.g. Rune and Deus Ex, ported by Loki), Neverwinter Nights, Civilization: Call to Power, ...
Add Valve's own games and possibly some of the other games using their Source engine, and you could easily make 100-150 games available on Linux within a year of launch just from what's already there. But even more exciting is the notion of Steam's availability making more game makers consider adding Linux to their list of supported platforms going forward because the distribution problem is solved for them.
Re: Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
the pandora does not have the polish nor is it too well designed. it is a handheld for a tiny niche of people. (i had an early one, sold it as it just was not what I expected nor good enough to justify the price with all the drawbacks)
I have two, and I fail to see any of your points. Its awesome!
The screen is resistive touchscreen, cannot hold a 135° angle open, the keyboard is weird, the analog sticks too, the buttons are tiny, the pandora is super heavy and bulky.