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Anarkavre

Steam Announcements

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Monday was the first announcement of SteamOS. Wednesday is most likely a Steam Box announcement. Friday hopefully will be a Source 2 and game announcement. This has been an exciting week so far. I can't wait for next year.

http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamOS/
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamMachines/
http://store.steampowered.com/livingroom/SteamController/

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What advantages does this have over playing PC games on your TV in the way that you already can?

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Kontra Kommando said:

Steam operating system, as in un-installing windows?

It's meant for PCs permanently plugged into a TV, or so I'm gathering.

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DoomUK said:

What advantages does this have over playing PC games on your TV in the way that you already can?

If they gut Linux down to the bare essentials for their OS, games could potentially perform better than on Windows, which, as a general purpose OS, is heavy. Of course, this assumes Valve is able to pressure hardware vendors to release optimized drivers.

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I think Windows uses X amount of RAM. If only Windows wasn't there you can have more RAM as a gamer. Hence why Steam came up with their own OS. And since its free for manufacturers, HP can come out with a 500 GB 4 RAM 3.2 gHz Steambox for $200.

I've been thinking about buying a 2nd PC just to plug into my TV and play Steam games on.

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geo said:

I think Windows uses X amount of RAM. If only Windows wasn't there you can have more RAM as a gamer. Hence why Steam came up with their own OS.

Valve came up with SteamOS because they want to have 100 % control over their marketplace.

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Huh? I don't think Steam has to give any money to Windows or Mac. They would if Steam Box came with Windows or Mac. There is no Steam Box yet. Yet...

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They came up with it because Microsoft went batshit insane and is going to take down their #1 market with them when they Titanic.

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exp(x) said:

If they gut Linux down to the bare essentials for their OS, games could potentially perform better than on Windows, which, as a general purpose OS, is heavy. Of course, this assumes Valve is able to pressure hardware vendors to release optimized drivers.

Valve even claimed they got better performance in their games on Ubuntu, but that must've been on bleeding edge hardware, because it certainly wasn't the case on my PC. The Windows version of TF2, overall, ran significantly better. None of the other cross platform games I had were demanding enough to notice a difference.

I'm definitely interested in seeing if that's the case with the SteamOS. If Valve can get Linux game performance better than Windows on all systems, I think they're going to get a huge influx of "hardcore" gamers who want to get the most out of their hardware as possible.

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Quasar said:

They came up with it because Microsoft went batshit insane and is going to take down their #1 market with them when they Titanic.


Your average Joe is finally getting sick of Microsoft's bs and is finally catching up with the rest of us. So, Microsoft biting the big one or at the very least losing their death grip on the OS industry is likely to happen in the coming years. I for one am all for it. Hated Microsoft since since they burned people with ME. With a company like Valve creating an OS it lends and lot of name cred to it. If it's good OS it very could be the first nail in Microsoft's coffin.

I don't think this is a sudden move on Valves part. Given the fact that a lot of the Valve higher up's worked for Microsoft before opening or moving to Valve, I bet this has been in the pipeline for awhile. I wouldn't doubt Valve has also has some contracts with publishers and hardware manufacturers lined up for the SteamOS. Like it or not Steam is the king of online distro and in some ways pc gaming. It would be stupid of both parties to ignore a Steam os.

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I'm pretty sure Microsoft won't lose its death grip. Even if people are getting tired with Windows or Windows 8. I know more Mac guys jumping ship to Windows 7 and Windows XP.

Steam is getting more competition for online distribution. That doesn't mean they'll be beat.

Wasn't the guy tasked with making a Steam Box fired along with 25 other employees?

http://www.dailytech.com/Valve+Fires+Roughly+8+Percent+of+Its+Employees/article29899.htm

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Yep that's what 3DO did. Its smarter. What does a software company know about hardware? Well it worked for Microsoft and Nintendo. Not for Hundsonsoft. Its just so much cheaper when they don't have to worry about their hardware being out of date or being seen as #3 in console wars.

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geo said:

Huh? I don't think Steam has to give any money to Windows or Mac.

It's not about money per-se, it's about knowing who owns the system and, thus, who can make changes to how software is being sold and distributed for it in a heartbeat. There have been quotes of Gaben being worried about the marketplace on Win8 for this exact reason. Now, is M$ going to remove all old distribution models for software on Windows just like that? Fuck no, that's something that could never happen in the wild west of an ecosystem that is today's Windows software, at least not without pissing off vast portions of the user base. User base, which also contains Microsoft's huge corporate partners, which they really, really don't want to be jumping ship.

Unless something really extreme happens that suddenly pushes normal consumers away from gaming on Windows I can't see SteamOS doing shit. We'll have a bunch of early adopters and Valve-slash-Unix fanboys trying it out and hailing it as the next coming of Christ, and then no one else bothers because either they don't want to buy an other box for their living room or they're too lazy to install a dual boot OS.

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Its weird.... when I thought Valve was announcing a Steam Box I wanted one. Now that I know its only Steam OS eh... I don't care. Windows PC hooked to my TV will do the trick.

So I started looking today on walmart. Intel Dual 3 gHz 4 GB RAM, 1 TB, 1 GB video RAM with Windows 7 (or was it Vista) for $250. $20 extra to make it 8 GB. Its a 3 year old PC model but eh for $250 seems like a good enough Steam box for me.

Even if the PC model is 4 years old, it hits my price point. SteamOS would just save $100 - $150 on a new PC having Windows 8. Even if it saves money by having a free OS on it, I'm not sure the manufacturer would allow it to be 'free' and not just pocket the money as if it had a paid OS.

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geo said:

Its weird.... when I thought Valve was announcing a Steam Box I wanted one. Now that I know its only Steam OS eh... I don't care. Windows PC hooked to my TV will do the trick.

There is two more announces on the way. The second announce is going to be SteamBox, I suppose. And the third one is something strange.

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geo said:

SteamOS would just save $100 - $150 on a new PC having Windows 8. Even if it saves money by having a free OS on it, I'm not sure the manufacturer would allow it to be 'free' and not just pocket the money as if it had a paid OS.

OEM Windows is way cheaper than retail Windows.

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I love Valve games and my wallet is grateful for Steam, but latency issues, bugs and crashes are the norm in anything they make.

As a dumb consumer the one thing I ask my OS is for things to just work, and this is the one area where historically Valve hasn't been able to deliver.

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Jodwin said:

OEM Windows is way cheaper than retail Windows.


Not to mention that a company, for example Dell, gets those OEM copies in such large quantity that it costs them practically nothing anyway. They make up the cost by bloating up the OS with Wild Tangent and Rhapsody installs.

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Clonehunter said:

Will SteamOS run Doom?

Given that it's Linux, it will more than likely run lots of Doom ports.

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I think this is going to be a huge success in developing countries from Eastern Europe such as mine. Many people in my country can't really justify the price for an OS (even if it doesn't seem that high for you) and just pirate the OS.

Valve has done a lot to convert pirates to legitimate buyers by using Steam sales and this is going to be another step forward. You can't force people to buy stuff by using invasive DRM but Valve has found the perfect way.

Also, Nvidia pledges to help the development of the drivers for Linux.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/09/25/nvidia-pledge-to-help-linuxs-open-source-driver-community/?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=emp

This is a very good thing.

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Anyone hear that Valve is supposed to announce something else today and something on Friday?

I still struggle to find a need for Steam OS or a Steam Box that I can't just get myself. I even struggle for a reason to get a PS4 and XB1 when people rave about GTA5 and Last of Us.

As for Windows OEMs being almost free using game demos and music service demos to make up for the money.... PC Gamer had this to say >>

The Cons



Steam Boxes may struggle to compete in price. A PC designed to run SteamOS skips over the Windows fee, but unlike a console, the manufacturer can't rely on game licensing fees to recoup costs—that money goes to Valve. Sony and Microsoft, however, can price their consoles competitively with that revenue in mind, which gives them the advantage. Valve itself could price hardware this way, but that would undercut third-party hardware manufacturers and could turn out to be anti-competitive. Unless, of course, Valve makes the unlikely move to subsidize the cost of these systems.

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Quasar said:

Given that it's Linux, it will more than likely run lots of Doom ports.

Assuming Valve will allow you to install anything they don't pre-approve. ;)

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I think the Steam OS is going to be a risky investment. I'm going to stick with windows, even though its not all that great. I primarily use my PC for browsing the internet, and gaming. I also have it hooked up to a flat-screen TV. Let's see what happens a couple years from now.

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Yep looks like a Steam box was announced for 2014 along with a new controller (controller is in the fine print of legal agreement and not actually announced yet).

300 beta testers will get a steam box beta.

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Oh fuck it I just went down to the store and bought a refurbished $250+ PC and a $37 X-Box controller. That's my new Steam Box 3.4 gHz 8 GB RAM, 1 GB video card all with a copy of Windows 7. I think I'm good. Uninstalling all the crap now to just put Steam on it.

That'll show Steam they needed to make a new OS just for their box to keep Microsoft out.

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Seriously. It just seems to me like a poorly planned move to Alienware, while jiggering their own Linux distro because making Steam/Source compatible across multiple distros was too much work.

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