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SteamMachines

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161–170 of 291 posts

Re: SteamMachines

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know of R&R and a search comes up empty...anyone have a link?

It's not a technology. It's how that user describes spending their time. Like, "RTCHN - Responding To Comments on HN"

It's also a pun - R&R would normally stand for "rest and recreation."

Re: SteamMachines

#162

As a parent, if these things don't come with time-based parental controls, that would reduce their appeal A LOT. Windows, for all its warts, is great this way. The Windows-based PC in the living room, running Steam, has time-based parental controls configured at the OS level. This works great for everyone involved, reduces effort and contention. Also, kids do really well on fixed timetables. I've opened a discussion…

Seriously? When I was a kind my NES and SNES didn't need built in time controls and I am just fine.

I am a parent (11 year old girl and 7 month old son) and I restrict her (son is a little too young!) time playing games in the same way my parents did by making sure I do my chores and homework first. I don't rely on OS level parental controls and I find it kind of sad people need to. I spend a lot of time playing Animal Crossing with my daughter for example and she knows when she can and can't play it.

I guess I just find it kind of depressing that we have all these kind of digital restrictions in place for kids these days. Part of the reason I am successful in what I do [professionally] is that I didn't have such restrictions as a child and I hope my daughter in the same. At the end of the day playing Mario Kart or Viva Piñata isn't going to ruin her life.

Re: SteamMachines

#163
post #60

I'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…

I believe that you will find this interesting... https://www.google.com/patents/US8241126 Video game controller having user swappable control components Original Assignee: Valve Corporation Abstract: A game controller is provided. One or more main control input interfaces on the game controller consist of generalized sockets. A variety of modular input interfaces can be plugged into these sockets. Hardware specific t…

Other fun Value patents:

Player biofeedback for dynamically controlling a video game state: https://www.google.com/patents/US20110009193 - Responsive play

Dynamically providing guest passes for a video game: https://www.google.com/patents/US20080234043 - Steam Sharing?

Re: SteamMachines

#164
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I responded to the typical Optimus Rift "future of gaming d00d" fanboyism.

I don't think it'll ever become mandatory, but don't you think that VR and deeper immersion is eventually where gaming is going to go? The technology still needs a lot of time to improve, but if the kinks can get worked out and if they're less likely to make people dizzy/nauseated, I imagine VR headsets will dominate the market in the next few decades.

Frankly, no, I don't. The immersion is more than canceled out by the additional hassle, not to mention that many people (including myself) that this sort of 3D either doesn't work for or causes intense motion sickness.

Re: SteamMachines

#165
what MS-Dos was to PCs in the 80's or what Android was to Smartphones more recently is exactly what Steam OS will be to home consoles in the present. I have faith that Valve will dominate the next generation of interactive entertainment, if of course they don't mess anything up.

Re: SteamMachines

#166
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FPS games kind of suck on a controller, due to a lack of precision. At the very least, you can't compete with anyone using a mouse. A trackball, on the other hand...

Is going to exhaust your thumb and cramp the hell out of your hand in record time. And on top of that, occupy some 'third' control scheme somewhere between "kb/m" and "gamepad" that developers would have to explicitly target, at a time when so few of them even put the time into adding proper kb/m support for their console-first-PC-port-maybe-if-its-cheap-to-farm-out titles.

I find trackballs (the Logitech M570 in particular) much more comfortable to use over long periods of time personally. The only criticism I have of their design is that having the trackball on the side entails removing a lot of area where additional mouse buttons could have been placed, and I enjoy having extra buttons there to bind to debugging/build/vcs keys.

Re: SteamMachines

#168
post #127

This cought my eye: > Can I download the OS to try it out? You will be able to download it (including the source code, if you're into that) but not yet. Wondering if that'd include their entire product in source code? probably not, aye?

Almost assuredly not, since their DRM is a big part of their platform. They may include pieces of it, though.

While I agree that they will definitely not be releasing source for Steam, I doubt its for DRM reasons. As far as I can tell steamapi.DLL DRM is pretty thoroughly owned.

Re: SteamMachines

#169
post #2

Sooo, it's what everybody's expected, except we don't know anything more about it. Frustrating. Also, only 300 boxes for beta? That seems a little small. EDIT: actually the latest answer in the FAQ is interesting: "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…

Indeed! Apart from all the hype Valve just seems to be confirming the rumors here. I'm surprised by how little information they actually give away. No screenshots/videos of SteamOS, no specifications of the boxes.

I'd really like to know more. Currently I don't see why this is better than building a mini-ITX gaming rig in a nice case and putting Ubuntu + Steam Big Picture mode on it.

Re: SteamMachines

#170

I'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…

Or you:

Buy Logitech F710 wireless controller.

Plug Logitech controller in.

Notice modern Windows games auto-detect Logitech controller as XBox controller.

Play games.

It's not rocket science. And frankly, most PC gamers are pretty familiar with jumping through far more hoops than that.

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