Valve Working On Its Own Gaming Hardware, the "Steam Box"

[Mega-Japan]

My guess is people who have to money to buy stuff simply because they can. It is a cool little idea, but personally, I will not be wasting my time or money.

My thoughts exactly.
Some people here seem happy and mention how great of an idea this is. But the way I see it is that (and I'm BOTH PC and console gamer) they want console gamers to jump to "PC gaming" (which really wouldn't be PC gaming anymore) and promote PC game development.
But console gamers will still buy their consoles. They want their Zelda, God of War, and the bunch of other games that will never see light outside of consoles.
PC gamers will still stick to their PCs. I can hardly see someone who's all into WoW, Starcraft, Dragon Age, and Skyrim drop the advantages that their keyboard and mouse bring for some console-PC hybrid thing with a fancy controller.

On an unrelated note, I'm looking forward to Wii U.

 

[bogie]

I guess that anyone who has a Steam account will be able to transfer all their games over to the Steam Box.

This will give it a massive head start.

My guess it will also be based on linux as paying for all those licences to microsoft would be stupid in monetary terms.

I'm interested to know what the Nvidia GPU will be?

If they can bring it in for under £400 I think they will be onto a winner.

I'm up for buying one as I have over £300 already spent on Steam.

 

[Iceni]

I guess that anyone who has a Steam account will be able to transfer all their games over to the Steam Box.

Don't count on that. It'll depend on what OS they get to pick from.

Microsoft are not going to be happy about a console that can pull games from pc to console. They spent a lot of money been loss leaders on the Xbox to ensure directx and windows got the majority of games titles. A competitor in the market is going to make M$ try a few tricks to cause problems.

Firstly the Xbox would suffer in unit and games sales. So they would make sure the steam box was not in any way compatible with M$ live, DirectX or had any sort of xbox emulation. This would be direct legal force by M$ to protect itself.

Secondly M$ would protect DirectX from been emulated on steambox. This would mean all current games would need rewriting in part. M$ would probably offer steambox a cut down version of windows under licence, And with heavy restriction. Implying all games must be designed for said machine if it is a console, Or supplied with a relevant OS licensed by M$ if they wish to use DX. Meaning M$ get there cut and can influence the overall cost of the machine and up price it against there own offering.

Either way M$ have the upper hand and more control.

If valve could create a wrapper, API, or a conversion tool to rewrite part of the resourcing in a game then it would be at the discretion of the game developer. Game developers are likely more sway able since this would boost sales. But some games companies would refuse to do it based on deals already in place with M$. So you would not be guaranteed all games.

Lastly steambox would need to make money... so free games and shared titles would be an addition later in the units life to breath life back into the system.

 

[bostonbuddy]

I don't see how it will ever be able to compete with consuls.
Microsoft and Sony lose money on consuls to make it back later.
I doubt valves partners will want to lose money making these.

 

[erocker]

I doubt valves partners will want to lose money making these.

What partners?

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

What partners?

I think he means publishers,and its an interesting slant ,since many a games developer makes for steam (on pc) and xbox etc, some may prefer the inflated console price to steams initially inflated price , ill bet the odd one jumps ship.

and if they used any kind of linux os and not win8 then many a game would require recompileing and optimising ,that dosnt make much sense given the available store full they have in win OS, i may be biased in that thought as i am a lynux phobe, looks harder

imho since the bottom teir entry pc might soon be trinity APu or some such and capable of a decent high quality version of 98%of pc games its not such a tall order ,after all intel and nvidia have to compete with AMD's APu's so for price they will start puttting more performance in their low end sku's which helps it all along

 

[kid41212003]

Gabe will have to convince publishers that their platform is hard to crack.

 

[xenocide]

Gabe will have to convince publishers that their platform is hard to crack.

Because Piracy doesn't exist on Consoles? Sure, it's easier to pirate games on the PC, but that's because they are vastly more capable. Steam does pretty well for itself, and games tend to thrive on Steam where they can offer sales when they want and make up for the lack of price with a huge influx of volume. What's better, selling 1m units at $60 a piece, or selling 2m units at $30 a piece? Well when DLC is the new thing, my gut tells me the latter. I think Steam gives publishers a lot more sales than they would get if Steam were NOT around, and that's something worth keeping in mind.

 

[Easy Rhino]

uh, isn't this just a PC? why reinvent the wheel?

 

[xenocide]

uh, isn't this just a PC? why reinvent the wheel?

Because that kind of thinking gets us nowhere. This is the opportunity for affordable low/mid-range gaming PC's, not that crap you get from CyberPower at $650 a pop with an i7-2600k and a GTS520. The biggest hurdle with PC Gaming is its accessibility. If Valve can standardize "Gaming" PC's, we'd see a huge influx of people and more attention paid to PC Games, imagine the potential if everything wasn't just a Console port or 8-bit indie game.

 

[devguy]

I could see this going down having something like two configs of machines available. Perhaps a 720p gamer (maybe a Trinity A10 chipset), and a 1080p gamer (Ivy Bridge + HD6970/GTX570). You pick which you want based on your tv, and in the back, it'll probably have ports like HDMI, optical out, power, ethernet, USB (wifi antenna?).

As for the OS, that's more difficult. It could go down three ways:
1) Full blown Windows OS with a Steam interface. Sucks because consumers would be paying the full Windows tax, without being officially allowed to (or want to) use the OS.
2) A cut-down Microsoft approved Windows OS with minimal licensing fees. But why would Microsoft go through the effort of providing such an OS to a company looking to compete against its Xbox?
3) A custom SteamOS (Unix/Linux based?) that only allows for playing games they label in the "SteamPlay" category (mostly Indie games + Source games). That'd upset a lot of gamers hoping for playing Windows exclusive games. And I doubt Microsoft would take kindly to a company directly using something like WINE on a commercial product.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Because that kind of thinking gets us nowhere. This is the opportunity for affordable low/mid-range gaming PC's, not that crap you get from CyberPower at $650 a pop with an i7-2600k and a GTS520. The biggest hurdle with PC Gaming is its accessibility. If Valve can standardize "Gaming" PC's, we'd see a huge influx of people and more attention paid to PC Games, imagine the potential if everything wasn't just a Console port or 8-bit indie game.

why would anyone pay a premium for a pre-made box for games their own PC can already play? you really think they can put together an entire system for the same price as a xbox720 and have it perform just as well? not a chance in hell.

 

[Abe504]

why would anyone pay a premium for a pre-made box for games their own PC can already play? you really think they can put together an entire system for the same price as a xbox720 and have it perform just as well? not a chance in hell.

You'd be suprised. I have tons of people i know who would love to get into pc gaming but don't want the daunting task of building a pc. Even when i offer to build it for them, they think about managing it for long term which turns them off. Most console people just want to download/ put in the disc and it works. Thats the market they are targeting with the steambox. For them they get the cake and icing, cheaper games plus the piece of mind that it has decent hardware they don't have to care about since it will just run.

 

[devguy]

Pic?

 

[xenocide]

why would anyone pay a premium for a pre-made box for games their own PC can already play? you really think they can put together an entire system for the same price as a xbox720 and have it perform just as well? not a chance in hell.

Companies like Cyberpower and iBuyPower exist for a reason. You're assuming this is targeting the enthusiast market, which it's not. This is to get new people into PC Gaming that are sitting there with $4-500 and asking themselves whether they want a Wii U with one of the 8 games it launches with, or a "Steambox" that can do 10x as much, play old PC games they have kicking around, and comes with some extra games.

EDIT: Related

 

[Lionheart]

Companies like Cyberpower and iBuyPower exist for a reason. You're assuming this is targeting the enthusiast market, which it's not. This is to get new people into PC Gaming that are sitting there with $4-500 and asking themselves whether they want a Wii U with one of the 8 games it launches with, or a "Steambox" that can do 10x as much, play old PC games they have kicking around, and comes with some extra games.

EDIT: Related

http://v.cdn.cad-comic.com/comics/cad-20120305-20729.png

Hahahahaha omg that was fucking funny shit @_@

 

[WhiteLotus]

The Steam Box is coming true. It is called "Project Piston" and is being made/designed by Xi3

 

[Easy Rhino]

did you see the price though? $999 or $499 for the lower powered linux version. might as well just build a pc...

 

[cadaveca]

The Steam Box is coming true. It is called "Project Piston" and is being made/designed by Xi3

Nope. Nothing that says "I'm Valve's official hardware".


Just a design that fits the bill for the required needs. Did you read the link?

ASRock HTOC VisionX PCs fit the bill already, and were used in Valve's launch advertising for "Big Picture".

Doesn't make ASRock official hardware either. Anyone can mass-produce a rig to Valve's spec's, and get Valve's certification for Big Picture. That's the whole point.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Nope. Nothing that says "I'm Valve's official hardware".

nifty design though.

 

[WhiteLotus]

Nope. Nothing that says "I'm Valve's official hardware".


Just a design that fits the bill for the required needs. Did you read the link?

ASRock HTOC VisionX PCs fit the bill already, and were used in Valve's launch advertising for "Big Picture".

Doesn't make ASRock official hardware either. Anyone can mass-produce a rig to Valve's spec's, and get Valve's certification for Big Picture. That's the whole point.

Balls.

 

[cadaveca]

nifty design though.

For sure. Except there are ZERO details about the hardware itself.

Balls.

I just don't think people should confine themselves to adopting a specific level of performance for Big Picture. If games stopped releasing TODAY, it would be very easy to design a system that could play ANY Big Picture-supporting title, at basically any given FPS.

I'd really like to see "STEAMBOX: LEVEL ONE", "STEAMBOX: LEVEL TWO", etc, each of which is certified to provide say, so many FPS..."LEVEL ONE" @ 60FPS, 720p, maybe "LEVEL TWO" is 1376x768, 120 Hz, or whatever.

Not one released box at this point offers that. I refuse to accept any device for the Big Picture platform without it meeting something similar to what I just described.


anyway, the company listed in that news article can't even keep their site up right now, so I am loath to believe they can release anything worthwhile. They simply aren't big enough.

 

[a_ump]

Resurrection!!!!

Okay so apparently they're taking pre-orders for the Steam Box. but they're selling it for $1,000!!! IS FREAKING RIDICULOUS. I was excited for it but once i saw that...i mean how do they expect to sell their product at a higher price than a mid-high end gaming rig that can plug into a TV?

 

[erocker]

It's new tech, it's not cheap. If it takes off, it'll get cheaper.

 

[a_ump]

But so are the current mainstream gpu's/cpu's and as i said, looking at the size of the box, i can't imagine it having anything too extreme hardware wise as it'd overheat. Granted i did think of them pricing it that high just for pre-orders and then dropping it, but they need to realize their first consumers will be current steam users. I'd love to have it just for visits to family and vaca's instead of a tower or even a laptop, but after current users, it'll be competing with Xbox+PS4+WiiU's consumer base. Unless its about 199 i don't see it gaining momentum.