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Valve is about to win the console generation

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Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#361

Post by wingmanjd »

bloqs wrote: post #191
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #46

Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before. SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers. Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant o…

their biggest fight is this: "what, i cant play COD online? Or Battlefield? or fifa? or Rocket League?... but thats all I play, and it costs more than a ps5? ...whats the point?" These games have gigantic followings that ship hardware year after year. People on hackernews are substantially broader-minded than your average console gamer. On the above basis alone, most of the regular gamers I know will not buy one of t…

For what it's worth, Rocket League plays just fine on Linux if you use Proton, but your point on the others still stands.

I've had to stop playing a few games once I made the switch-over (Destiny, GTA V), but am otherwise very happy with where SteamOS/ Proton is.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#362

Post by hnlmorg »

jojomodding wrote: post #321
hnlmorg wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately buying closed systems hasn’t stopped me from being IT support: - “why can’t I play online with EA Sports?” - “I can’t log into Roblox!” - “why can’t I see my sisters world in Minecraft?” - “I’ve lost my Fortnight skins!” - “why does Roblox keep disconnecting me on my phone [when Roblox servers go down]?” - “Why can’t I play this game [without updating it]?” - “this game update takes too long to download…

The constant in life is that there are some people for whom you do things without expecting financial gain.

Cost want my point. It’s that if you have skills then people will call upon them.

I’m also not making a point about whether that’s a good or a bad thing, before you make that assumption too

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#363

Post by unionpivo »

crote wrote: post #207
wraptile wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not winner games these days. Gaming trends are so fast that indie games like the one where you play a duck with a gun is what's driving the gaming community these days.

Sure, but those AAA games still exist, and people still want to play them. As a gamer, why would you want to spend a few hundred bucks on a gaming box, when it isn't able to play the biggest hits? Who would want to deliberately limit their ecosystem to indie games? There's a nonzero chance that BF6/GTA6/etc becomes a thing that everyone wants to play. If all your friends are raging about how much fun it is and are al…

>As a gamer, why would you want to spend a few hundred bucks on a gaming box, when it isn't able to play the biggest hits? Who would want to deliberately limit their ecosystem to indie games?

???

Look at steam top 100, sure there are 2 or 3 games you wont be able to play on there, but there rest work just fine. And sure there are popular games outside steam, but even if none of them worked (which is not true), for most gamers its a non issue. (And Valve is probably not really concerned about them)

The only games this limits are online competitive (most of the time FPS) games. There are plenty of gamers, myself included, that have 0 interest in such games.

In short even if 0 online FPS games are playable on steam console(which is not true), there are still 10s of millions of gamers, who wouldn't care.

As far as why wouldn't people pick something that can play 100% of games is because they cant. Even the best PC cant play Nintendo games, not all PS games are on PC or xbox, etc. You always have a trade off. And plenty of people still buy PC's,Deck, PS5's and Switch consoles.

My guess id more people won't buy it because, they want better specs, not because a few games wont work on them.

But that still leaves millions, potentially tens of millions of people.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#364

Post by m000 »

mcphage wrote: post #17

Win the console generation in what sense? In outselling the PS5? The Switch 2? I have trouble picturing it being cheaper than either.

It's the PC games library that will be the catalyst for winning.

On a PC, for $15 a month you can get a HumbleBundle subscription and get 5-6 Steam games to keep yours forever (unlike Playstation Plus "free" games). Plus 3-4 free games/month from Epic (an option, since Valve said they won't lock the hardware). Plus 3-4 games from Amazon Prime Gaming if you are a subscriber. Plus a ton of other discount websites.

Compare this to the average cost of a PS5 title and the walled garden of the Playstation Store. Not to mention that your PS5 library probably won't be playable on PS6.

Yes, AAAA games will still be expensive, but for everything else the Steam Machine will give consoles a run for their money. Cost-conscious gamer are very likely to switch.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#365

Post by pbronez »

ethmarks wrote: post #340
walletdrainer wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily, the anticheat will end up much easier to defeat on Linux.

It's possible that 'adding Linux support' would take the form of just making the anticheat optional. Maybe playing with the anticheat enabled makes you immune to being reported for cheating (because they can verify down to the kernel level that you aren't), but you can still play without it (but without the immunity from being reported). Obviously they wouldn't do this in today's market because there's no incentive t…

Optional anti-cheat could be really interesting. Make it a matchmaking option; let the players decide who they want to play with. This effectively makes "PC without Anti-cheat" a new platform in cross-platform match making.

I can imagine a whole scene popping up where everyone cheats to the max, creating whole new game modes.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#366

Post by wmeredith »

AlexandrB wrote: post #352
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #46

Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before. SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers. Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant o…

This is only possible due to how the console space has changed over the last 10 years. The killer app for console over PC used to be simplicity - you pop in the disc/cartridge and you just go. This is rarely true anymore. Even Switch 2 games often require waiting to download a bunch of stuff before you can play. Meanwhile the PC experience has generally gotten simpler and most games "just work", in part thanks to Ste…

Thank you for calling this out. As a long time console gamer, I hadn't noticed this creeping bloat until I started playing games with my young children. My son begged for a new Madden game after playing it at his friend's house.

When we got the game, it probably took us an hour of fucking around with downloads and accounts. Off the top of my head, I had to set up a parents EA account and kids account, set permissions, had to make my 7 year old an email address, had to set up two factor authentication, accept crazy terms of use, verify emails, etc.) And then once we got all that done we're dodging ads for in game points, coins, cards, card packs, cosmetics, pre-order bonuses, etc. to get to the actual game. It's so SO bad and just not fun.

It completely killed his enthusiasm for the game. My son wandered off multiple times during this process. When I joked with my wife that we could have built a PC in the time it took us to do this bullshit it was an exaggeration, but only a little.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#368

Post by aaomidi »

LexiMax wrote: post #112
aaomidi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market pressure can change game studios behavior.

Battlefield 6 might never run on the average Linux desktop, but I could see a future where it would run on Steam hardware in an end-to-end Secure Boot environment. Gamers don't like playing with cheaters.

We’re going to have to figure out a better way of dealing with cheaters.

You could be playing against an AI model specifically trained on that game. No anti cheat is going to detect that.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#369

Post by thoughtpalette »

silisili wrote: post #163

Not a chance. As much as I respect all the work Valve has done for gaming...this doesn't understand the market. PC gamers will play on their PC. Couch gamers will have a PS5 or an XBox. So who is this for, couch gamers that don't have one of those? Or PC players tired of playing on a monitor? Don't get me wrong, it's cool, and I'm definitely the target market but feel like that's pretty tiny. Most couch gamers want t…

Just to add I'm also in this boat. We have a ASUS ROG NUC in our living room and it's a pain logging into Windows (cant find an actual tutorial to skip that works) .

It's been a great entry way into gaming for my wife (lot's of cozy games) and I also play a few games from my steam backlog (Halo, Hades 2, etc). I don't feel like we're in the minority for what a couch system is used for but maybe.

The largest hurdle for steam in the living room so far has been controller support or lack of couch co-op games.

Re: Valve is about to win the console generation

#370

Post by brookst »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #46

Valve certainly won't win it, but they're bringing the heat where it wasn't before. SteamOS is the important part here - if it is proven to be a good console experience (which the deck has basically proven already) then licensing of the OS to other manufacturers will put a lot of pressure on integrated h/w s/w manufacturers. Unlike the handheld format, the tvbox console is fairly easy to manufacture and is tolerant o…

100% agree with everything you said, and also Valve is a huge value prop in the cross-platform Steam store. I already prefer Steam because I have both Windows and Mac machines and generally travel with a MacBook.

Microsoft has limited Xbox to Windows buy-once, Sony has… nothing. Valve is building an ecosystem that goes from handheld deck to Windows/Mac/Linux to console to VR.

It’s been a slow burn but that is a very nice strategy.

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