Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SteamMachines

store.steampowered.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 291 posts

Re: SteamMachines

#171

Post by vastinfest »

Arjuna wrote: post #60
breckinloggins wrote: post #22

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…

A bit of a crappy pattent. Already been done: http://www.madcatz.com/mlg/ps3_controller.htm

Re: SteamMachines

#172

Post by mheathr »

gabemart wrote: post #147
breckinloggins wrote: post #22

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…

> Buying a good controller for a PC is not hard Is this actually true? I've been looking for a decent PC gamepad for a long time. The default recommendation seems to be the Xbox 360 controller, but with the caveat that the d-pad sucks. I play a lot of games that use the d-pad. What's a good PC gamepad with a good d-pad?

Well, provided that you find the 360 controller's d-pad acceptable, the wired xbox 360 controller works directly, however the wireless 360 controller does not work directly, a different wireless controller that specifies working with the PC has to be purchased and uses a specialized receiver as well. However, once that is accomplished it works well. I do find it obnoxious that it both requires an external USB receiver and the typical wireless 360 controller does not work with the PC. Still, that is the one I use, and it works well.

Re: SteamMachines

#173

Post by smithzvk »

Pxtl wrote: post #67
Recoil42 wrote: post #26

Earlier 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.

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 c…

Interesting point, but I think you don't mean to say vector, but something more like 'velocity', 'momentum', or better yet, joysticks are meant to control a rate of change.

Re: SteamMachines

#174

Post by vecinu »

Pxtl wrote: post #138
vecinu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did nobody else read the Beta Terms of Agreement? 1. Valve Corporation ("Valve", "We", "Us" or "Our") has developed and produced prototypes of entertainment system hardware and software, including a set-top box running custom software and a game controller A game controller...

Yes, but that may be simply a Valve-owned clone of the XBox360 pad that has become standard in PC gaming. Or it may be the exciting modular device they patented: http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/2/2840932/exclusive-valve-ste... Or it may be something to do with Gabe Newell's interest in biometrics.

I simply answered the question, which was 'Is there a new controller going to be included?'.

The possibilities are exciting.

Re: SteamMachines

#175

Post by msie »

I wish they would follow Apple's lead and tightly control the hardware. It would make it easier for devs to test and consumers to make a choice. Apple's wildly successful with their iPhone business model. Please try to avoid the fragmentation issues with Android. Windows already owns the home PC market, why go after it?

Re: SteamMachines

#176

Post by MLR »

Pxtl wrote: post #78
scassidy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There have been games that have released with this allowance. They achieve balance by offering powerful aim-assist to the gamepad players. In any other context that would be the foulest cheating... but in the context of game-design for vastly different interfaces, it's a perfectly reasonable handicap.

You wouldn't be able to (and can't) do this on competitive PC/Steambox games though because you can just fake it on PC, so gamepad players would never be able to compete.

Re: SteamMachines

#177

Post by swalsh »

spyder wrote: post #79
swalsh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've positioned themselves so that none of their IP even matters as far as their core business goes. What does matter is that they own the marketplace for games. Giving the source code away only allows people to improve the platform, which only strengthens their hold on the market place.

Not if somebody modifying it to use with his own marketplace, which is unlikely but possible with the open source software.

I'm not sure if they're open sourcing the actual code for steam... it sounded like just the OS. None the less, code doesn't make market places. It takes effort, good faith, proper marketing etc.

Re: SteamMachines

#179

Post by rthomas6 »

thirdsun wrote: post #169
simias wrote: 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.

I think if you built a mini-ITX gaming rig in a nice case and put Steam OS on it, you will have built a Steam Machine.

Re: SteamMachines

#180

Post by jdjb »

ivarious wrote: post #71
bwilliams wrote: post #9

That 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.

I think one of the point is to make existing PC gamers to buy controller for their Machine and use it, creating a big enough people with controller as a leverage when dealing with publishers and developer to include controller support in their games.

Or more importantly, to make it easier for the console game makers to port to Steam box since the controller will be the primary input device anyway.
Post reply on HN