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SteamOS

store.steampowered.com

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Re: SteamOS

#521

Post by ytjohn »

chii wrote: post #453
ebertx wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this reminds of the initial launch of Steam back in 2003. At first it seemed like an annoying hoop to jump through. As the years went by and it got more dependable, more games, and more features, it became easier and easier to forget how annoying it was in the beginning. I wonder if the same thing will happen with SteamOS. At best it will initially seem like a novelty, then 10 years from now a huge group of cus…

in fact, microsoft should be scared of this move - because the gaming scene is basically what keeps a whole bunch of machines installed with windows.

For home users, yes. But in the business world, it's the Microsoft Office Suite, especially Outlook + Exchange. Sure, MS Office has been ported to OSX, but it's more expensive to go with Apple Hardware than commodity PC + MS Windows.

If Microsoft flipped their lid and ported Office to run on common Linux distributions (Debian/Fedora), you'd see a lot more corporations switching.

Microsoft does have their Office365.com, which is a web-based version of Office. I haven't tried it myself, but from what I've heard, a lot of its advanced features rely on Silverlight and using browsers other than IE on Linux or Mac OSX puts you in a sort of basic mode. The advanced mode is very comparable to running the desktop version while the basic mode is akin to the Google Docs editor.

Re: SteamOS

#522

Post by ameoba »

RyanZAG wrote: post #83

This is basically a similar approach Android took for phones. It leverages off Linux while replacing user facing pieces to give the user a simplified and consistent environment that they expect. However as with Android, that isn't enough to get it to take off. Android had huge traction problems to start with until they managed to get the big device makers to train users and market the devices. SteamOS is going to hav…

Valve, a AAA developer in their own right, already has plans to release their own hardware & doesn't need to wait for a third party to make hardware for this to succeed. They already have a massive base of customers which have already invested hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, in their Steam libraries so they don't need to build traction. Game consoles, while a significant expense, are not an all or nothing commitment like a cellphone - customers can easily have a Steam box in addition to their PlayStation, Xbox or PC.

It's not really fair to compare this to Android. Android succeeded, not because of Google's user base but because of Google's financial clout. Companies thought that throwing in their lot with Google was a safe bet - there's too much money behind the project for it to fail. People are going to throw in with Valve because it's a smart bet - it's bringing what gamers want to the table.

Re: SteamOS

#523

Post by ja2ke »

evanmoran wrote: post #395

As someone mentioned this is just the first announcement of three: http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/ Announcement 1, SteamOS: is just a fancy way to say you can create custom Steam consoles by just installing some software. Make the box as good or a cheap as you want and everything will just workPretty awesome, but definitely this will be dwarfed by... Announcement 2, people are guessing is a Valve distribute…

Third announcement has got to be a controller of some type. The O + O probably = dual analog sticks and a d pad, or some other dual-thumb input controls. There's no way Valve is going to announce a living room platform and then give away the most visible part (the controller) to Microsoft's wired Xbox 360 controller (currently the standard bearer for PC controllers despite being from a console).

Re: SteamOS

#524

Post by fredsanford »

fredsanford wrote: post #484

I find it ironically funny that, after all of these years of having a near monopoly Microsoft is losing out to the open source it tried so hard to sabotage in the late '90s and early 2000s. Then, while the MS boat is leaking and sailing haphazardly across the computing landscape, along comes Valve to put a stake in the heart of the MS gaming division... Could this truly be the beginning of the end of this giant leech…

I see the drive by spineless downvoters are showing up here too...

Re: SteamOS

#525

Post by zerohm »

Eyes2design wrote: post #14

The end is near! windows should shake in its tiny boots

Yep. Windows 8 isn't very popular amongst gamers. Also, remember Steam in 2003? It wasn't great, but Valve stuck with it and kept making it iterativly better. Also, nowadays most people can get their day to day functionality out of web apps if need be.

Re: SteamOS

#526

Post by Mikeb85 »

mcv wrote: post #481
davidhollander wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your definitions for "traditional Linux userspace software" and "traditional Linux users"? Do you consider Android to be "Linux"?

Android is Linux, but very clearly not "traditional Linux". "Traditional Linux" suggests to me the traditional distributions like Fedora, Ubuntu, SUSE, Debian, etc. It'll be interesting to see how much SteamOS will look like a traditional Linux. Considering the many Linux offerings on Steam, I suspect they'd like to have executable compatibility on that level, which Android probably doesn't have. But will it be as wi…

It'll probably be along the lines of Chrome OS, where you do have access to the full Linux system, you just have to work for it...

Re: SteamOS

#527

Post by Flenser »

sliverstorm wrote: post #244
skriticos2 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the iconography on the main page I'd guess the second announcement will be Steam hardware and the third one will be Half Life 3 (second circle indicates software product again?). Pure speculation on my side here. http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/

We now know that the circle is SteamOS. Then, the second announcement would be "SteamOS in a box", and the iconography of the third announcement is "two SteamOS". This probably has something to do either with playing or sharing with friends, or more details on streaming games from another machine on the network. Come to think of it, Dota2 just mentioned recently an update that either just came out or is coming out in…

> iconography of the third announcement is "two SteamOS".

Two Steam OS added together. I think it means if you get two devices running steam you can combine them to increase the available resources for playing a game. Possibly some kind of build in clustering API that steam games can use.

Re: SteamOS

#528

Post by giovannibajo1 »

Karunamon wrote: post #319
giovannibajo1 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do this already for years with Apple TV and Airplay mirror. The real problem is that of controls, mouse and keyboard don't match well with couch

The difference being that i can see Steam releasing the applications to make this work everywhere, while Apple has traditionally been hostile to this kind of interoperability.

It's true that Apple is hostile (= doesn't release spec, but doesn't actively make the protocol hard to reverse-engineer either, eg: the DRM stuff is limited to DRM content and not part of the protocol proper), but the protocol has been reverse engineered and there are many implementations of AirPlay nowadays.

What is the precedence on which you base your belief that, whatever protocol Valve has come up with to replicate the video stream, it will be open? I'm not that much into gaming, but Steam is a closed-source software that includes mandatory DRM for the games, it doesn't really set a precedent of openness and interoperability.

Re: SteamOS

#529

Post by [deleted] »

Karunamon wrote: post #319
giovannibajo1 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do this already for years with Apple TV and Airplay mirror. The real problem is that of controls, mouse and keyboard don't match well with couch

The difference being that i can see Steam releasing the applications to make this work everywhere, while Apple has traditionally been hostile to this kind of interoperability.

[deleted]

Re: SteamOS

#530

Post by Karunamon »

giovannibajo1 wrote: post #528
Karunamon wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference being that i can see Steam releasing the applications to make this work everywhere, while Apple has traditionally been hostile to this kind of interoperability.

It's true that Apple is hostile (= doesn't release spec, but doesn't actively make the protocol hard to reverse-engineer either, eg: the DRM stuff is limited to DRM content and not part of the protocol proper), but the protocol has been reverse engineered and there are many implementations of AirPlay nowadays. What is the precedence on which you base your belief that, whatever protocol Valve has come up with to repli…

Couple of reasons. First off, Steam is the only DRM I can think of that actually adds value and makes my life easier instead of the reverse.

Second, keep in mind that they've already announced streaming inside the LAN. Having mobile apps would be a natural extension of that. (Note I didn't say that it would be open, I said they will probably release mobile apps).

That streaming is also completely not a threat to their system.

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