Valve Reveals SteamOS

[Saviordd1]

The only thing I have to ask is... why? The console can't really stand alone, considering its Linux library is bare bones to say the least. So, in order to play any games worth their salt, it will require a running a high end gaming PC somewhere else in the house running Windows or MacOS.

Then, on top of that, you'll have to have another piece of gaming hardware sitting in the living room.

At that point, what's the lure? Why strip your PC Of all the other features that you'd want/need just for this OS? Why not just run Steam on said Living Room rig in Big Picture Mode running Windows?

It seems like reinventing the wheel, and unnecessarily. A great idea hampered by the fact that it's relying on a complicated home-network setup to function with everything on Steam's Library. Either that, or you get stuck with the limited Linux-based stuff.

Shhhh, the Valve fanboys will hear your dissension.

OT: I couldn't care less. I don't game in my living room, I don't have the money to get a new OS, I don't care about big picture and I'm not gonna buy another machine just so I can use my TV (Xbox and PS is a thing for this).

I just don't care.

 

[Covarr]

We?re working with many of the media services you know and love. Soon we will begin bringing them online, allowing you to access your favorite music and video with Steam and SteamOS.

If this means I can have a native Netflix client right in Steam, I'll be super happy. PCs have always gotten the short end of the stick with Netflix in terms of UI, getting only the browser experience and nothing else.

P.S. Thanks

 

[The Great JT]

Lord Gaben has not forsaken us!

Wow, that really sounded dumb on my part. Still, excited to see how SteamOS shapes up.

 

[lacktheknack]

Oh great, yet another Linux variant. Not like we already have an established operating system pretty much all games are being made for...

Valve hates where that OS is going. Making their own is a pretty interesting way of getting around that.

that sounds like a dream come true to me. Price be damned.

I don't have the money to get a new OS, I don't care about big picture and I'm not gonna buy another machine just so I can use my TV

It's free, and OSs can be dual booted.

Just saying.

 

[Moth_Monk]

I'm a bit underwhelmed that this is meant just for streaming from the PC and for music, videos etc...
It sounds kinda like a Xbone without the games.

But I hope this will work out fine, they might just inspire developers to port to their system and then getting rid of Windows would actually be an option.

It streams games as well. And everything else about Steam. Go and read the full release info: http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/

Captcha: Are you ready?

 

[Nocturnus]

Oh great, yet another Linux variant. Not like we already have an established operating system pretty much all games are being made for...

Valve hates where that OS is going. Making their own is a pretty interesting way of getting around that.

that sounds like a dream come true to me. Price be damned.

I don't have the money to get a new OS, I don't care about big picture and I'm not gonna buy another machine just so I can use my TV

It's free, and OSs can be dual booted.

Just saying.

They can hate where it's going all they want to, but the fact of the matter is that most people are still going to run it, and with that, most games are going to be made for it. on top of that, their native Linux Platform is still going to require a machine with a good set of hardware running that "operating system that they don't like" in order to access the grand majority of their library.

 

[Zipa]

If they get a good amount of games running and released natively for it then people will likely ditch windows in a heartbeat. Well played Valve well played.

 

[Deathlyphil]

Could be interesting. A stripped-down OS that will be able to do anything Windows can currently do[1], but intrinsically safer[2], and without the bloat[3].

[1] It's Linux. It will be hacked so that we can install any linux software on it, if it isn't open anyway on release.
[2] MS are getting better at security, but Linux has a lot more security features built in as standard.
[3] Windows cruft, forcing you to reinstall every 6 months or so to ensure proper efficiency.

The only reason I'm still using Windows as my main OS is because I have about 150 games on Steam.

 

[Nuxxy]

I, for one, welcome our new Linux overlords.

As to this being redundant, have people actually stepped back and looked where Microsoft is heading with Windows 8? It's away from the home PC/game PC environment - that's why the XBox is the "One" - you have a tablet for office work, and an XBox One for games and TV. They don't see a future for traditional desktop PCs (their stupidity).

And that's before you even look at the store restrictions they are trying to force with the like of Windows RT.

 

[lacktheknack]

Oh great, yet another Linux variant. Not like we already have an established operating system pretty much all games are being made for...

Valve hates where that OS is going. Making their own is a pretty interesting way of getting around that.

that sounds like a dream come true to me. Price be damned.

I don't have the money to get a new OS, I don't care about big picture and I'm not gonna buy another machine just so I can use my TV

It's free, and OSs can be dual booted.

Just saying.

They can hate where it's going all they want to, but the fact of the matter is that most people are still going to run it, and with that, most games are going to be made for it. Their native Linux Platform, to a large extent, is still going to require a machine with a good set of hardware running that "operating system that they don't like" in order to access the grand majority of their library.

Hilarious. I challenge you in <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.828906-Valve-Teases-Steam-Box-With-Countdown-Timer?page=3#20191446>the other thread and you don't even grace me with a reply, but bring up the exact same things I tried to answer fifteen minutes later in this thread... and then reply to me in this one to take me to task on a different issue.

Blinded by single-mindedness? Never!

Anyways, no one said that it wasn't going to need good hardware. Also, you're not a soothsayer. SteamOS is much more game-oriented than Windows, and it's fully possible it'll eclipse Windows in use by gamers.

 

[Deathlyphil]

Oh great, yet another Linux variant. Not like we already have an established operating system pretty much all games are being made for...

Valve hates where that OS is going. Making their own is a pretty interesting way of getting around that.

that sounds like a dream come true to me. Price be damned.

I don't have the money to get a new OS, I don't care about big picture and I'm not gonna buy another machine just so I can use my TV

It's free, and OSs can be dual booted.

Just saying.

They can hate where it's going all they want to, but the fact of the matter is that most people are still going to run it, and with that, most games are going to be made for it. on top of that, their native Linux Platform is still going to require a machine with a good set of hardware running that "operating system that they don't like" in order to access the grand majority of their library.

You never know, Valve may have worked out to make a decent Windows VM for SteamOS. The OS may be Linux, but the games would think it was Windows. Similar to how GoG have managed to get all their pre-XP games to run on modern machines.

 

[Vivi22]

I'm a little concerned with the amount of control Valve would be able to exert. I like Steam, but it's near monopolistic position is worrying. Having a Valve OS would be sure to lock everyone into Steam being the only outlet for purchasing/playing games.

I think your concerns are completely unfounded. Firstly, Valve isn't even close to being in a monopolistic position. In fact, so long as other OS's continue to exist (which they will) and the PC platform stays open (which it pretty much will), they'll never be able to abuse their position in the way a company like Microsoft used to try and do because there are always going to be other companies and competitors ready to stick the knife in and give it a good twist should Valve ever betray their customers trust to any large degree.

Second, there's absolutely no reason to believe that releasing on SteamOS would require people to use Steam as their distribution platform. Valve has been extremely vocal about the need to keep the PC platform open, and is one of the biggest criticisms they had of Windows 8. Is it possible that they could make it a closed system with Steam required? Sure. Would it work? Not in a million years. They're not going to get this OS on millions of machines by making it closed off.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

I think this is just to get the "screw Linux, it won't run all my games" elephant out of the room. A lot of the page is dedicated to assuring you everything carries over, like your games and friends and the Workshop and everything.

So it's not like consoles where you grab a new piece of hardware and lose all your own functionality. Here you get all the old functionality from the start - if the streaming turns out fine.
The openness and hardware power potential sound like vague promises tho, they'll need to show some good hardware and launch titles to truly convince everyone, but they've already hinted at "living room machines" and "upcoming AAA titles", so I wouldn't worry about that. For now a few people might already be interested in grabbing a cheap PC to make their own SteamBox since the SteamOS itself will be free.

I'd definitely say getting the elephant out of the room first was the right decision. Any shiny features they could have shown would have been overshadowed by a big dark "b-but Linux" cloud. Lots of people were scared that Linux would mean less functionality.

 

[TomWiley]

There are like hundreds of technical questions here that I feel that people should be asking, but aren't asking.

What about driver support? Is it going to be just as "open" as Ubuntu or this basically just Steam? Can I still download whatever programs I want, customize the experience and do everything else which makes Linux more "open" than Windows? Is streaming really the only viable supplement for Dirext X incompatibility or will there be a vine platform so that any of my existing games would actually work on this thing?

Gabe has given me some neat photoshopart and a few optimistic tagline, but he hasn't given me any real reason why Steam OS would actually solve the problems of existing Linux distros- the kind of problems Linux as a platform has to overcome to even be an option.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

I'm a little concerned with the amount of control Valve would be able to exert. I like Steam, but it's near monopolistic position is worrying. Having a Valve OS would be sure to lock everyone into Steam being the only outlet for purchasing/playing games.

Also, who wants to bet HL3 is going to be a SteamOS exclusive?
This would explain the crazy development time.

We don't know anything yet about Valve tying things to Steam and considering they're putting emphasis on SteamOS being free, open, collaborative etc., I kinda doubt they will lock it down as much as they've feared from Microsoft. Having such an open console capable of competing with the very much locked-down PS4 and XBone could turn into a feature of its own that they shouldn't be interested in losing.

 

[Juan Regular]

If anything, I hope people will be running SteamOS and play any natively supported games on it just to piss off Microsoft. This seems like the first step on the long road to end our dependency on Windows. Plus, if enough people start gaming on a Linux distro, wine could improve much quicker than it has so far. If I could get rid of Windows without also getting rid of 90% of my games, I'd do it in an instant and I'm guessing most PC gamers would as well and that seems to be Valve's end goal with this.

 

[TomWiley]

I'm a little concerned with the amount of control Valve would be able to exert. I like Steam, but it's near monopolistic position is worrying. Having a Valve OS would be sure to lock everyone into Steam being the only outlet for purchasing/playing games.

Also, who wants to bet HL3 is going to be a SteamOS exclusive?
This would explain the crazy development time.

We don't know anything yet about Valve tying things to Steam and considering they're putting emphasis on SteamOS being free, open, collaborative etc., I kinda doubt they will lock it down as much as they've feared from Microsoft. Having such an open console capable of competing with the very much locked-down PS4 and XBone could turn into a feature of its own that they shouldn't be interested in losing.

They haven't given us any reason to believe that talk is anymore than buzzwords.

Valve likes to talk open but their entire business plan is about locking down and sucking revenue out of a closed, tightly controlled platform.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

WTF is a 'living room machine'? The info from Valve is so completely vague it tells you pretty much nothing. It seems like all this really does is stream your PC to the living room TV and they have just re-branded the idea of a 'Steam Box' to call it an OS.

 

[Nocturnus]

Oh great, yet another Linux variant. Not like we already have an established operating system pretty much all games are being made for...

Valve hates where that OS is going. Making their own is a pretty interesting way of getting around that.

that sounds like a dream come true to me. Price be damned.

I don't have the money to get a new OS, I don't care about big picture and I'm not gonna buy another machine just so I can use my TV

It's free, and OSs can be dual booted.

Just saying.

They can hate where it's going all they want to, but the fact of the matter is that most people are still going to run it, and with that, most games are going to be made for it. Their native Linux Platform, to a large extent, is still going to require a machine with a good set of hardware running that "operating system that they don't like" in order to access the grand majority of their library.

Hilarious. I challenge you in <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.828906-Valve-Teases-Steam-Box-With-Countdown-Timer?page=3#20191446>the other thread and you don't even grace me with a reply, but bring up the exact same things I tried to answer fifteen minutes later in this thread... and then reply to me in this one to take me to task on a different issue.

Blinded by single-mindedness? Never!

Anyways, no one said that it wasn't going to need good hardware. Also, you're not a soothsayer. SteamOS is much more game-oriented than Windows, and it's fully possible it'll eclipse Windows in use by gamers.

I never checked on that other thread. Sorry

And, maybe. We'll have to see. Valve is saying that they have some publishers on board, so if they can actually make it a next-gen compatible OS with a comparable console, and it has all those games ready to go? You never know.

I don't see it eclipsing the current Console market, though. The "All Digital" route was tried by XBoxOne, and we saw how well that went with console gamers. PC Gamers wanting a living room alternative? Maybe. But it HAS to have the library to back it up, and that will require a lot of time. It won't be until that time is over until they can completely cut ties from Microsoft or Apple and call it their own deal.