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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

#281
post #53
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If any game has DRM or anti-cheat technology which BF6 does and even most AAA games, then it cannot play it at all without it. That is going to be a no go for any SteamOS device when an highly anticipated game gets released on day 1.

anti-cheat is one thing, but i'm not aware of any DRM that doesn't work on linux? I know denuvo is one of the most popular ones and it definitely does

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#282
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that works just as readily on consoles as it does PCs, so it doesn’t affect immutable Steam any more or less than any other gaming steam. Sealed protections are still valuable regardless!

It affects console too, but watch game publishers disable linux support, blaming cheaters while producing graphs that don't support their arguments. While console packs and cheats are rampant, and their game servers even being hacked during competition.

If the status quo doesn’t change, then you’ll be right to have claimed here that the status quo you’ve described won’t change. But that would be worse for all of us. Besides, Linux is an excellent platform for modding games in realtime, no matter what their charts show — so certainly the sealed-attestation stuff would deny them a plausible reason to deny Linux. If Microsoft offered sealed Windows for free, they’d deny unsealed Windows as fast as humanly possible, just to stem the tide of software cheating. The next couple years will be very interesting :)

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#283
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HL3 is most likely not a VR game as Valve said they aren't working on a first party VR title (plus data mining seems to confirm). Plus they already have Alyx as the masterpiece, and it was already made with their own VR headset in mind: the Valve Index. Maybe HLX will have some kind of VR interaction possible, as they want to push technology further with each Half life game.

Valve also said something like "ARM gaming won't be a thing for us for a very long time", but seems tides can change :) I wouldn't put too much weight into any publisher/developer saying what they aren't doing, even if they were working on HL3, they'd keep that under very tight wraps.

I mean, there are plenty of info available on the status of HL3 (code named HLX) and all point to it not being a VR title.

Also I don't think ARM is really a thing for them, even now. They want to support running software on the headset, and sure why not enable compatibility layers to play some small games, but the end goal is clearly streaming from a PC. Maybe if some good ARM cpu hit the market they will pivot, but up until recently "ARM gaming" meant mobile phones.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#284

It's even worse for their competitors than this acknowledges. SteamOS on Arm (using FEX) is going to spawn a generation of £100 devices that can play lower end Windows games, stream from PC, and emulate every console from the PS2 back. It's huge.

You don't need Valve for that, Chinese brands like Anbernic, Ayn or Ayaneo are smashing the market right now.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#285

> The big thing I want to see in practice is their implementation of foveated rendering. This beautiful hack abuses the fact that human eyes have the most sharpness and fidelity at the exact centre of your field of vision, whereas your peripheral vision is abysmal at it. This means that on average you only have to render about 10% of the frame at maximum quality for it to feel like it's running at full resolution all…

It is for games running natively

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a misconception. Majority of players are with the big Franchises, and they stay with them. The variety-gamers who are playing multiple different games are a minority, though they are a big crowd, loud and have for obvious reasons more attention, leading to this misconception. For example, Escape from Duckov, which you are speaking about, had at it's peak "just" roughly as many players as Battlefield 6 has on a…

That's a lot of guesswork for such a strong claim as yours. You can actually see gaming distribution on open steamdb[1] stats and every year the amount of games avg player plays grows higher and higher.

A linux native game called Banana got almost a million concurrent player peak (compared to #1 CS2 having only 1.8M). This didn't exist 10 years ago - the gaming landscape is entirely different in 2025.

This call that gamers generally play 1 game only is extremely dated especially when flavor of the month games are extremely in right now. I'm sure Valve with the biggest gaming dataset in the world didn't just dive into this blind.

1 - https://steamdb.info/charts/

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#287

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.

I think most people would take the biggest library of past, current and future games, cheaper games and free online over those. Not to mention valve of all devs has enough legendary IPs. Kratos and many others have been on steam for years.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#288
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo is in its own category in which the other competitor is also Valve. For now Nintendo is winning there.

They have enough first party games which only release on their hardware that people are willing to buy a Switch for nintendo games, and another gaming device for everything else.

Many times what happens is that people buy the Switch for Nintendo games, but since third parties also publish there they just buy games there anyway.

Funnily enough, I own a Switch and a PS5. I mostly buy and play on the Switch while the PS5 main function is getting covered in a thin layer of dust.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a misconception. Majority of players are with the big Franchises, and they stay with them. The variety-gamers who are playing multiple different games are a minority, though they are a big crowd, loud and have for obvious reasons more attention, leading to this misconception. For example, Escape from Duckov, which you are speaking about, had at it's peak "just" roughly as many players as Battlefield 6 has on a…

That's a lot of guesswork for such a strong claim as yours. You can actually see gaming distribution on open steamdb[1] stats and every year the amount of games avg player plays grows higher and higher. A linux native game called Banana got almost a million concurrent player peak (compared to #1 CS2 having only 1.8M). This didn't exist 10 years ago - the gaming landscape is entirely different in 2025. This call that…

The reality of native Linux gaming must be really sad if the top example is in essence "NFT" generator with minimal if no gameplay...

It is essentially a software toy people left running to generate random items some of which ended up being speculated on generating some money for "players".

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D733JFML?th=1 The one I ordered had 32 gigs of memory; this was more than a year ago so I'm sure there are better ones now, but I have to say that I feel like this thing "punches above its weight" in that it does seem to run a lot more stuff than I thought it would at a decent framerate.

These are the Beelink boxes. They got very popular when they released a video of the manufacturing process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohwI3V207Ts

Wow these are so much more well made than I thought.
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