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Valve is about to win the console generation

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Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#201

Post by blitzar »

bloqs wrote: post #191
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #46

Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before. SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers. Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant o…

their biggest fight is this: "what, i cant play COD online? Or Battlefield? or fifa? or Rocket League?... but thats all I play, and it costs more than a ps5? ...whats the point?" These games have gigantic followings that ship hardware year after year. People on hackernews are substantially broader-minded than your average console gamer. On the above basis alone, most of the regular gamers I know will not buy one of t…

"Will it play GTA6, and play it well, whenever that eventually comes out?"

That is the bar (in my opinion) today, you have to take your box over to rockstar and spec for that or you are just selling outdated hardware.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#202

Post by Ferret7446 »

refulgentis wrote: post #127
Ferret7446 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to break it to you, but CS is not relevant. How much money do you think it makes, compared to recent top sellers or live service/mobile games?

About $1B/year. CS:GO is the highest grossing game on Steam, according to some sources, all agree its top 5. Why is that irrelevant?

Raid shadow legends is also estimated to make around $1B/year, and there are many such mobile games.

Roblox made $3.6B in 2024. Fornite makes $3-5B/year for the past ~decade.

Genshin Impact is estimated to make ~$10B this year.

Not only in revenue, but all of the above have way more cultural impact/awareness too.

The pond is very big, but it's easy to miss that if you're in a bubble in that pond.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#203

Post by eptcyka »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #60
robomc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I mean... can I play Fortnite, BF6 or the upcoming GTA on steamOS?

Probably not. Kernel level anti cheat is the problem. I know BF6 isn't proton safe. Fortnite is the same. GTA VI will probably run single player on proton fine, GTA V does. Multiplayer will probably not. The multiplayer with kernel level anti cheat will keep Sony safe through at least another generation; Microsoft is less safe as they're so vulnerable this generation anyway.

GTA V multiplayer was working fine on Proton not too long ago. Haven't played in years though.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#204

Post by b3lvedere »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #193
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #46

Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before. SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers. Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant o…

Steam needs IP. Something as iconic as Kratos or Mario. That's how you go toe to toe with consoles.

Gordon Freeman and Glados should be able to handle that.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#205

Post by Yokolos »

eptcyka wrote: post #200
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #46

Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before. SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers. Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant o…

Licensing? What do you mean, licensing? Other manufacturers are free to take it. It's all open source.

Yes, you need to license SteamOS to preinstall it on devices you sell: https://store.steampowered.com/steamos/oem

Why would you not need to license it? Steam isn't open source and Steam, the trademark, is owned by Valve. If we were talking about a standard distro like Fedora, no, I guess they wouldn't have to license it, but we aren't.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#206

Post by Yokolos »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #202
refulgentis wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About $1B/year. CS:GO is the highest grossing game on Steam, according to some sources, all agree its top 5. Why is that irrelevant?

Raid shadow legends is also estimated to make around $1B/year, and there are many such mobile games. Roblox made $3.6B in 2024. Fornite makes $3-5B/year for the past ~decade. Genshin Impact is estimated to make ~$10B this year. Not only in revenue, but all of the above have way more cultural impact/awareness too. The pond is very big, but it's easy to miss that if you're in a bubble in that pond.

CS is consistently the top played game on Steam every year. Are you saying Steam isn't relevant? That's quite the claim to be making.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#207

Post by crote »

wraptile wrote: post #141
robomc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I mean... can I play Fortnite, BF6 or the upcoming GTA on steamOS?

These are not winner games these days. Gaming trends are so fast that indie games like the one where you play a duck with a gun is what's driving the gaming community these days.

Sure, but those AAA games still exist, and people still want to play them.

As a gamer, why would you want to spend a few hundred bucks on a gaming box, when it isn't able to play the biggest hits? Who would want to deliberately limit their ecosystem to indie games?

There's a nonzero chance that BF6/GTA6/etc becomes a thing that everyone wants to play. If all your friends are raging about how much fun it is and are all playing together, aren't you going to regret buying a Steam Machine?

Sure, you can still play Super Meat Boy, but that doesn't matter - they regret what they can't do.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#208

Post by unpopularopp »

If they want to capture the console audience its better be priced like one too and not prevent me from playing multiplayer games due to Linux and anti cheat software not playing nice

Anything above $600 is DOA and that's with accepting the fact that the most popular games will be not available on the platform

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#209

Post by crote »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #107
kouteiheika wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hardly understand the headline. Steam machine is just a computer, and since it can be used for other stuff than playing games, then it can't have the cheap pricing of a console. I don't understand this train of thought. It absolutely can have the cheap pricing of a console, as long as Steam is the default store, and the majority of users will use the console as-is and buy games on Steam. Let me give a quick analo…

The main problem I see is that if this is any cheaper than it's hardware, people will buy 100s of them and stack them in server racks for CI runners or whatever. Generating only losses for Valve and making the hardware unavailable to gamers. It needs to either be at market rate or locked down to only be useful for gaming.

I don't think they could possibly make it cheap enough for that - especially once you consider all the money being wasted on RGB/Bluetooth/a GPU you won't use.

Messing around with weird consumer hardware in a datacenter context isn't exactly attractive. If all you need is some x86 cores, an off-the-shelf blade server approach gets you far more compute in the same space with far less hassle. Even if the purchase cost is attractive, TCO won't be.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#210

Post by whazor »

tombert wrote: post #105
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #46

Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before. SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers. Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant o…

My main game console right now is one of those little gaming boxes you can buy on Amazon for about $400, where I have installed NixOS + Jovian to get the "SteamOS" interface. I really like it. It really does feel like a "game console"; usually when I've made my own console using Linux, it always feels kind of janky. For example, RetroPie on the Raspberry Pi is pretty cool, but it doesn't feel like a proper commercial…

I installed NixOS + Jovian on my Steamdeck and it works great as well.
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