SteamOS • Hacker News Board

Re: SteamOS

#131

Post by xentronium » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:56 PM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #84

xentronium wrote: post #18

I'm somewhat disappointed. While perfectly logical for Valve, it might end up being not very beneficial for other distributions. In worst case scenario, hardware manufacturers cherry pick specific devices ("steambox") and software ecosystem to support (SteamOS) while totally neglecting all other linux distributions.

Doubt it - most of the benefits - like sane drivers, optimizations and so on will trickle down. And I think steam box will be set of requirements.

I hope you're right and we won't end up with even more incoherent binary blob dumps than we have now.

Re: SteamOS

#132

Post by bsimpson » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:57 PM UTC

makmanalp wrote: post #108

rkalla wrote: post #26

This is effectively the software-only equivalent of a console launch. Is anyone else skeptical that they can motivate publishers to spend time/money porting their games to the Linux platform? Valve certainly has a better chance than most at pulling this off (and likely enough user/market data to make this seem like a valid investment) I am still super skeptical that these publishers are going to spend the time portin…

The interesting thing is that convincing AAA publishers to port merely requires them to think it'd be profitable. 20 years ago, if someone asked to raise a quarter of a billion into a video game, they'd be laughed out of the building. Now it happens often. Over the years, increasingly big-budget games got funded and created. So, all they need to do is to replicate a similar process. First you move all the indie games…

I believe Humble Bundle has a partnership with a consultancy that will take care of porting a game to other platforms to enable their Mac/Linux/Windows value proposition. Valve could probably do something similar (though I imagine it's a lot more work to port a AAA game than an indie platformer).

Re: SteamOS

#133

Post by methodin » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:57 PM UTC

xentronium wrote: post #18

I'm somewhat disappointed. While perfectly logical for Valve, it might end up being not very beneficial for other distributions. In worst case scenario, hardware manufacturers cherry pick specific devices ("steambox") and software ecosystem to support (SteamOS) while totally neglecting all other linux distributions.

Even if that ends up being the case it should open the door for a competitor down the road with data and facts to get backing for their Linux-based system/distribution. This can be a big step in the right direction, regardless of how well this current iteration plays out.

Re: SteamOS

#134

Post by jdc » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

What if SteamOS were released to a group of perspective and current gaming hardware manufacturers à la Android? The DirectX platform may be incumbent on the mid to high-end x86 PCs, but if Valve were to target the Wii/smartphone gaming demographic they'd stand a decent chance at commoditizing consoles.

Re: SteamOS

#135

Post by bigdubs » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

Sukotto wrote: post #28

Since I spend most of my time in front of a computer screen and not a tv, I hope they also roll out some improvements to the steam client as well. Things like the ability to tag my games with multiple categories; To see trailers and descriptions of the games I "bought and forgot"; Pause the game and read the user manual; and the ability to actually PLAY a game right now instead of being forced to wait for hours while…

I'd settle for The old steam was snappy and fast, new steam is a bloated pile of garbage by comparison.

Re: SteamOS

#136

Post by Mikeb85 » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #69

rkalla wrote: post #26

This is effectively the software-only equivalent of a console launch. Is anyone else skeptical that they can motivate publishers to spend time/money porting their games to the Linux platform? Valve certainly has a better chance than most at pulling this off (and likely enough user/market data to make this seem like a valid investment) I am still super skeptical that these publishers are going to spend the time portin…

I suppose they could plug the hole a little including a dalvik vm and get android games running too. In theory they would be able to get a large amount of games working and kill the OUYA. I'm not sure that's in the best interest of the Steam store unless they plan to start selling android games.

I hope not. Dalvik is terrible (a legacy of Android's roots in circa 2004 Java-mobile land), I'd rather see native games, and then maybe that can help Ubuntu Phone and Sailfish OS take off on mobile...

Re: SteamOS

#137

Post by throwaway2048 » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:59 PM UTC

th0br0 wrote: post #109

As someone who's had a lot of fun writing game hacks for ET:QW and QuakeLive back in the days and while I greatly enjoy seeing this move to Linux, I'm quite worried about game hacks on SteamOS. There are so many attack vectors on Linux and, currently, VALVE's Anti Cheat (VAC v3) does not, as far as I know, cover any of those. You can still inject your hack via LD_PRELOAD + detouring dlsym/dlopen. Even were that not p…

exactly the same sort of tricks are possible on windows via debugging hooks and process injection. I don't see how Linux is any more problematic on this front.

Re: SteamOS

#138

Post by aryastark » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 5:59 PM UTC

xentronium wrote: post #18

I'm somewhat disappointed. While perfectly logical for Valve, it might end up being not very beneficial for other distributions. In worst case scenario, hardware manufacturers cherry pick specific devices ("steambox") and software ecosystem to support (SteamOS) while totally neglecting all other linux distributions.

Nothing new. Commercial software has targeted "Red Hat" since the '90s, forcing the entire Linux world to deal with RPMs and whatever nonsense Red Hat was doing at the time.

Re: SteamOS

#139

Post by jdc » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:00 PM UTC

What if SteamOS were released to a group of perspective and current gaming hardware manufacturers à la Android? The DirectX platform may be incumbent on the mid to high-end x86 PCs, but if Valve were to target the Wii/smartphone gaming demographic they'd stand a decent chance at commoditizing consoles.

Re: SteamOS

#140

Post by jdc » Mon, Sep 23, 2013, 6:00 PM UTC

What if SteamOS were released to a group of perspective and current gaming hardware manufacturers à la Android? The DirectX platform may be incumbent on the mid to high-end x86 PCs, but if Valve were to target the Wii/smartphone gaming demographic they'd stand a decent chance at commoditizing consoles.