Why on earth have they not called the hardware "Steam Engine" instead of these strange other names?
Maybe they are saving that for their Unity3D competitor :)
SteamMachines
61–70 of 291 posts
Re: SteamMachines
#62So, according to the last answer, the 3rd announcement will probably be about a gamepad or an input device of sorts. That's a bummer. I know it was very unlikely, but HL3 announcement would have made me so happy. I'm still hopeful though, since it's been confirmed that Source 2 is in the works. Valve usually shows off their new engine with a new HL game.
Re: SteamMachines
#63They want SteamOS to restructure the console market like Android did with the mobile market. They give PC makers a great new customizable way to enter the livingroom-computer market. With their gaming shop built in. This is great for gamers. In a few years any SteamMachine for 300$ will easily outperform PS4/XBone. And have way way more games. And all AAA games (all PC releases).
The hardware manufacturers will love having a chance to compete with consoles in the living room. It opens up an entirely new revenue stream for them. They'll be marketing this new hardware, and helping to push it into homes. For example, DELL running a marketing campaign, 'Faster than a Playstation 4, more games than an Xbox One, and half the price. Check out the new 2016 Dell Steam Machines.'
Re: SteamMachines
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
>FPS games and Dota are both genres that do far better with a mouse. Toupée fallacy. I'd argue that games built for a gamepad -- Halo and Gears of War come to mind -- feel much better on a gamepad than they do on a keyboard and mouse.
I've never been able to play halo on a console, it feels far too inaccurate to me, now that I'm used to playing with a mouse.
And I've never been able to play Super Mario Bros. with a keyboard. It goes both ways.
Re: SteamMachines
#65I want to praise the name choice. "Machine" is very catchy.
SteamEngine would've been rather cool too... unless there is something already called the Steam Engine... or if it didn't confuse the connotation too much with other software types of "engines"
Re: SteamMachines
#66Why on earth have they not called the hardware "Steam Engine" instead of these strange other names?
Strange names are much easier to search for.
Re: SteamMachines
#67> Am I going to be using a mouse and a keyboard in the living-room? > If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though - we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input. This excites me. Valve's bread-and-butter, as a gamedev company and not a game reseller, uses a pointing device. FPS games and Dota are both genres that do far better with a mouse. Obviously, supporting gam…
>FPS games and Dota are both genres that do far better with a mouse. Toupée fallacy. I'd argue that games built for a gamepad -- Halo and Gears of War come to mind -- feel much better on a gamepad than they do on a keyboard and mouse.
Games designed for the gamepad do work nicely on a gamepad, but they achieve this by slowing down the FPS gameplay so thoroughly that they functionally exist within their own genre, as well as providing substantial auto-aim. The PC-style of FPS gaming, which is substantially faster-paced than the console-style, is dependent on having a pointing-device for aiming.
Experiments in allowing gamepad and mouse players to compete directly have proven absurd to balance, since you either give the joystick players aim-bots or let them be crippled. Joysticks are meant to provide you with good control over a vector - you can comfortably select and gradually alter the velocity of something with a joystick.
Pointing devices are meant to control a position, not a vector. "facing", from a user perspective, is best expressed as a position. The player is thinking "I want to face this way" not "I want to turn this fast".
The main reason Halo and GoW feel bad on mouse+keyboard is that they feel glacially, frustratingly slow on a system where the conventions tend to be far faster-paced (because the interface allows for it) and because the games used heavy auto-aim to compensate for the difficulty in making precise movements on a gamepad.
Which is fine, I'm no snob. But at this point you've created a substantially different game with a substantially different experience.
edit: to take it further, notice the huge difference in the DOTA and RTS genres between PCs and consoles - places where auto-aim won't really fix the game. The interface has to be so fundamentally altered that they're a whole new genre.
Re: SteamMachines
#68I'm excited about where Valve is going with this, of course, but to be honest I'm concerned about controllers the most. Buying a good controller for a PC is not hard, but it's not simple either. Picture yourself as a "living room console guy" getting into PC gaming. You'd like to use a controller for a certain game. Consider: - You can use your XBox360, PS3 controller, or WiiMote, but that's not obvious. You'll need…
That might have been true in the past (I remember having some trouble with a SideWinder controller on a dedicated control port in the 90's) but these days the 360 wired USB controllers are as plug'n'play as it gets (on windows at least). It Just Works. PS3 controllers are a pity though, you need those shady ad-ridden closed source third party drivers.
Actually you do need to install drivers for this to work:
http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/xbox-360-controlle...
Re: SteamMachines
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
>FPS games and Dota are both genres that do far better with a mouse. Toupée fallacy. I'd argue that games built for a gamepad -- Halo and Gears of War come to mind -- feel much better on a gamepad than they do on a keyboard and mouse.
I've never been able to play halo on a console, it feels far too inaccurate to me, now that I'm used to playing with a mouse.
Are people using a mouse and keyboard going to play against people using a controller? The results will be hilarious (in that anyone using a controller wont stand a chance). Everyone will be forced to use a mouse.
Re: SteamMachines
#70That doesn't seem like a large enough beta and it really only targets PC gamers. I would think that they would want to be trying to capture console gamer share rather than existing PC gamers.
Seem to me the opposite, they are targeting existing steam users, evident by the streaming option and portable library.